Bafel Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), described the latest rift with rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) as “the single largest political crisis in the history of the Kurdistan region” and declared he recognises no parliament in Erbil.
After a contested parliament session was held last week, Mr Talabani announced his party was withdrawing from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), deepening a political crisis and raising fears of a return to parallel administrations in the region. The move came after the Kurdistan parliament convened for the first time in nearly two years and elected a Speaker despite a boycott by the PUK and allied parties. They had pushed the KDP to postpone until an agreement can be reached on the appointment of top cabinet positions, but the vote proceeded with 52 of the 100 politicians present, meeting the 51-member quorum requirement.
“The complete disrespect of the parliamentary process, the disregard for people's opinions to make parliament into the trading of cattle with threats and with money is completely unforgivable,” Mr Talabani said. “And if this is allowed to stand, it will become the new norm.
“There is no parliament. I recognise no parliament. This decision will be reversed.” He added that the PUK “will never take part in anything that comes from this process”.
Speaking at the Slemani Strategic Forum in Sulaymaniyah on Thursday, in an interview for On the Record with Hadley Gamble, Mr Talabani also turned Washington's call for Kurdish unity back on his rivals in the KDP. “All we need from the [US President Donald] Trump administration is an understanding of what's happened here,” he said. “And if you won't help us resolve it, please stand by. We're big enough and ugly enough to resolve it ourselves.”
His remarks came a day after Tom Barrack, the US special envoy to Iraq, told the Chatham House Iraq Initiative in London that Kurdish leaders needed to settle their differences. “Get over it,” Mr Barrack said. “This is an Iraqi decision, it's not an American decision”. He added that “there is no way we can intervene”.
Mr Talabani said he “couldn't agree with Mr Barrack more”, before aiming the message squarely at the Kurdish leadership in Erbil. “The KRG absolutely and categorically needs to sort itself out,” he said. “And anything we can do to assist in this process, we are more than willing to do.”
Fifty-two legislators attended and elected Vala Fareed of the KDP as speaker. The PUK's 23 deputies and New Generation's 15 boycotted the session, along with several smaller blocs. Mr Talabani warned his party would appoint parallel officials in response to any unilateral moves. On Monday, KDP leader Masoud Barzani urged the PUK to return to the negotiating table.
Mr Talabani rejected the idea that the dispute is a family feud between the Talabanis and the Barzanis. “I think there is a long-standing disagreement between two political powers of the region, and sadly that's come down into the population,” he said. What happened in parliament, he added, “was the straw that finally broke the camel's back”.
Noting that the session fell just before Guy Fawkes Night, he quipped that the KDP had done what Fawkes once attempted. “So I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgotten,” he said, before adding, “flippancy aside”, that the forum had opened with a minute's silence for those who died liberating the country. “The KDP took a wrecking ball to their memories that day.”
Mr Talabani ruled out violence. “Oh, no. Absolutely not. That will compound the issue further,” he said. “Political disagreements should not be resolved with violence.” But he stopped short of conceding ground. Talk of two separate governments was “jumping the gun”, he said. “I try to make it very clear to the KDP that every escalation will be met with an appropriate and well-planned escalation,” he warned. “To me, that means the door is open for us to stop escalating and start dialoguing. But be certain the escalation ladder is here.”
Mr Talabani praised Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al Zaidi as “honest, straightforward” and said Baghdad had tried to play a constructive role, only to be rebuffed by what he repeatedly called “the minority in the KDP”.
He also pressed for the right to buy air defences after Sunday’s drone attack on the Khor Mor gasfield.
He singled out Chamchamal, the district home to Khor Mor. “Chamchamal is our Texas. All the gas of Kurdistan comes from Chamchamal. All the electricity of Kurdistan comes from Chamchamal,” he said. “Every two weeks, tankers take water to Chamchamal. Our Texas doesn't have water.”
The KDP's view that “a weak Baghdad means a strong Kurdistan” was decades out of date, he argued. “Now, the more we unite with Baghdad, the stronger we all are.”
While pledging not to escalate politically, he said the PUK would “no longer wait” financially and outlined plans to take private, profit-making electricity schemes in areas under its influence and run them on a non-profit basis, followed by gas and petrol.
The latest attack on Khor Mor halted production and cut about 2.8 gigawatts of generating capacity. Mr Al Zaidi has ordered a joint investigation.
Mr Talabani said it was “too soon for me to point a finger in anyone's direction”. After “extremely deep and stern conversations with the Iranians”, he said, “they have guaranteed me that it was not by their bidding or their doing.” He noted that armed factions that usually claim such attacks had “very, very uniquely” denied this one. “The timing of the attack, the methodology of the attack, needs to be investigated very, very, very seriously. We must watch out for false flags.”
He said he had confidence in the Iraqi government to carry out that investigation but appealed for defensive systems. “We do not need offensive capabilities,” he said. “Please, if you cannot provide us with these defensive capabilities, at least allow us to purchase our own.” Under a one-Iraq policy, he acknowledged, that requires Baghdad's approval and he urged Erbil to be more proactive in securing it. “If you can't fix this negotiation, let us do it. We'll fix it in a matter of hours.”
With US President Donald Trump saying there might not be a need for new Iran strikes if diplomacy prevails, Mr Talabani argued that “the financial cost has outweighed now the military victory” and that pressure and dialogue would achieve more than renewed fighting.
“I think the Iranians are often misunderstood in the West,” he said. “They are a pragmatic, ancient and proud people.” He described his recent trip to Tehran as “a very good trip” and said he hoped the PUK had “played a very small role in furthering dialogue between the United States of America and the Iranian government”.
Pushed about a perception in Washington that he is in Tehran's pocket, he replied: “I think that is an old perception and it doesn't exist.” His best friends, he said, were “Americans, Brits and Iranians. And if I can do it, surely the mighty United States can do it.”
He urged Washington to try “small steps towards the resolution of the crisis in Gaza”, arguing that sanctions, cold war and hot war had all been tried. Doing so, he said, would let “people that deserve to live in dignity” do so “and you remove the excuse for all the other actions that we don't like”.
Iran is changing, he said, describing a Tehran restaurant where dance music began playing, and men and women mixed freely. “I had to pinch myself. I thought I was in London.”
On Iran and Israel, he offered what he called a solution “as far from diplomacy as possible”. He said: “Let them hate each other, forbid them from fighting each other. Just stop them striking at each other, and the majority of the problems in this region go away.”
He was scathing about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I think it's difficult to achieve anything with Mr Netanyahu in power. I think Mr Netanyahu is a broken man who's suffering from things that happened in his family and with his brother,” he said, suggesting the best thing he could do “for Israel and for his own well-being” was to leave politics. “If what happened to his brother happened to mine, I think maybe I would be more like Mr Netanyahu.”
Mr Netanyahu's brother Yoni was killed in an Israeli army raid in Uganda in 1976.
Pressed on his message to Washington, Mr Talabani ended the session with a direct appeal.
“My dear friends in Washington, DC and the rest of the world, you know exactly what's happening here. It is the opposite of every democratic principle that you believe in, you have fought for, and you have died for on this Iraqi soil,” he said. “Don't ever allow what happened in parliament to become the new normal, because that will set us back decades and that will set us back on a road that eventually will lead to an uprising or to violence.”
“No longer must we say this will do,” he said. “It will not do.”
