Kurdish Assembly To Meet For The First Time Four Months After Elections.
Erbil, 31 May (AKI) - The Kurdish parliament is due to meet on Saturday for
the first since the 30 January elections, after the two main Kurdish parties
appear to have resolved their differences. The first meeting of the parliament
involves three sessions; in the first the Kurdish deputies will elect the
president of the parliament, Adnan al-Mufti, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK), his deputy, from the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the
parliamentary secretary, who will probably be a member of the smaller Kurdish
Islamic Union, which gained nine seats.
In the second session the deputies will elect the regional prime minister,
Nechirvan Barzani, the number two of the KDP. The third session will be
dedicated to the controversial law on the presidency of Iraqi Kurdistan
determining the powers of the president, which must be voted by the parliament.
Deep divergences between the two main groupings, Massoud Barzani's KDP and Jalal
Talabani's PUK, have until now prevented the assembly elected in January from
beginning its work, creating growing frustration among Iraqi Kurds.
The secretary of the political office of the KDP, Fadil Mirani, said "it is a
pity that we Kurds are playing an active role in the Iraqi parliament and in the
formation of the new government in Baghdad, but that four months after the
elections we have not been able to have a meeting of our own parliament".
Mirani believes this delay is due to the "different political views and
interests of each party" but said these had now been overcome.
