PM Barzani, Dep. Talabani to invite Gorran’s suspended ministers into KRG

SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and his deputy, Qubad Talabani, are to visit Gorran (Change) Movement in the near future to discuss the return of Gorran’s suspended ministers, a Gorran official said. 

The move is  part of the efforts by the Kurdistan Regional Government to put the Kurdish house in order before the beginning of Erbil and Baghdad talks. 

The announcement comes after a high-level meeting between Gorran and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the second such meeting since the Kurdish independence referendum held in September. 

Aso Mahmud, a Gorran official, told reporters in Sulaimani that the two discussed several issues, including the events that followed the military incursion by Iraqi forces into Kurdish-held territories since October 16.

He said Gorran stuck to their demand that calls for the KRG be dissolved, and instead form an interim government to be tasked with the talks with Baghdad. He added that they presented this demand to the KDP delegation. 

The KDP is to respond to this suggestion, he said.

Both the KDP, and its strategic ally the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), two of the ruling parties, had rejected the call for an interim government. Mahmud said this is because these two parties believe forming an interim government will take a "long time."

PM Barzani, from the KDP, said on Monday that the current government is already interim, a reference to the fact that the Kurdish parliament has expanded the term of the KRG for eight months since late October until the next elections are held.

Mahmud, from Gorran, said that the current situation in Kurdistan, in light of the territorial losses to the Iraqi forces and the ongoing financial crisis, requires the unity of the Kurdish house.

He said their call is not to send everyone from the government home, but that the talks between Erbil and Baghdad need some new faces and content. 

He said if the KRG prepares well for the talks, it could turn this challenge into an opportunity. 

Asked about the return of Gorran ministers, suspended by the KDP-led government, the Gorran official said that a KRG delegation headed by PM Barzani and his deputy Talabani, from the PUK, will visit Gorran in the near future in this regard. He also said that the Kurdish parliament, whose speaker is from Gorran who has not headed any parliament session since October 2015 because of KDP and Gorran disagreements, should be normalized in a way that ensures the legislature will carry out its normal duties.

PM Barzani has said earlier this month that it is time for Gorran’s ministers to return to the KRG cabinet, but Gorran’s spokesperson Shorish Haji declined his call saying the KRG should resign. 

Barzani’s KDP suspended the Gorran ministers, including those from the key ministries of Finances and Peshmerga, in 2015 when relations between the two parties hit their lowest point over unresolved disagreements, particularly the term of then President Masoud Barzani. 

Earlier in the day, a KDP spokesperson said the meeting between the two parties was to normalize the relations between the two sides as part of a wider process that seeks unity among the parties of the Kurdistan Region. 

The KDP delegation, headed by Rozh Shaweys, also met with some PUK senior officials. The KDP said the meeting was a normal matter in the context of friendly relations between the two sides. 

KDP and Gorran last met in Sulaimani after the funeral of PUK leader Jalal Talabani where they had “frank discussions” in what was hoped to be the first step towards mending relations between the two parties.