Al-Abadi urges ‘joint administration’ of Kirkuk under Baghdad

Iranians arrive at Haj Omran border between Iran and Kurdistan, Iraq, on Tuesday. (Reuters)

BAGHDAD/IRBIL: Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi on Tuesday called for a “joint administration” of Kirkuk and other areas claimed by both his government and the autonomous Kurdish region, provided that Baghdad has ultimate authority in such an arrangement.
Al-Abadi’s proposal, made at a news conference in Baghdad according to state TV, aims mainly at settling the dispute over the multi-ethnic, oil-rich region of Kirkuk.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters took control of Kirkuk in 2014, when Iraqi forces collapsed in the face of Daesh advance across northern Iraq.
Meanwhile, an ex-minister in Iraq’s first post-invasion government will be the sole candidate for the presidency of the country’s autonomous Kurdish region in a November election, an official said on Tuesday.
Mohammed Tofiq Rahim, a staunch opponent of current Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani who has repeatedly said he will not stand again for the post, was the only person to put forward his candidacy, the autonomous region’s electoral chief said.
“By the deadline for candidates on Tuesday, we had received all the documents necessary for Mohammed Tofiq Rahim to be a candidate for the presidency of Kurdistan. He is the only person to have declared himself a candidate,” electoral commission head Yari Hadji Omar told AFP by telephone from the regional capital Irbil.
The Kurdish region, which last week voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence in a referendum rejected both by Baghdad and by Iraq’s neighbors Turkey and Iran, will hold presidential and legislative elections on Nov. 1.
The electoral commission has approved 21 lists of candidates for the legislative vote.
Rahim, 64, a former member of the Kurdish peshmerga security forces, is a member of Goran, a party strongly opposed to Barzani.
The most recent presidential vote in the autonomous Kurdish region was in 2009.
Originally, a presidential term of office was four years, but in 2013 Parliament extended it by two years.
A general election was held in September 2013, but Kurdish parliamentary activity has been frozen since November 2015, enabling Barzani to remain in power.
Rahim has opposed Barzani’s mandate being extended.
“The commission must now examine the documents and accept his candidacy,” Hadji Omar said of Rahim.
In September 2003, Rahim became industry minister in the first Iraqi Cabinet that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
The Sept. 25 referendum on Kurdish independence, a Barzani initiative, returned a resounding 92.73 percent “yes” result.
But it also provoked a resounding “no” from Baghdad, Tehran and Ankara and sent regional tensions soaring.
Barzani’s successor will have a heavy and urgent workload in the wake of the referendum result.
On Monday, Iraq and Iran — previously sworn enemies that fought a devastating eight-year war in the 1980s — staged joint military maneuvers just across the border from Iraqi Kurdistan in Iran.
Iraq, Iran and Turkey all have sizeable Kurdish minorities and have taken measures to isolate Iraqi Kurdistan, including suspending international flights to and from its two main airports.
Iran has also slapped an indefinite ban on the transport of oil and energy products to and from Iraq’s Kurdish region.
Officially comprising Irbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniya provinces, Iraqi Kurdistan also claims other territory including oil-rich Kirkuk province — a dispute that is a major source of contention with Baghdad.