A senior official at the Ministry of Peshmerga
in Iraq’s Kurdistan region has called the demand of Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki to place the Peshmerga forces under the
jurisdiction of the federal government an “illusion.” He vowed to make
an official response in the next week to the accusations by Maliki.

Meanwhile, a Kurdish lawmaker accused the prime minister of obstructing the ongoing negotiations between Baghdad and Erbil.
In an interview with Al Sumaria TV on Monday evening [Nov. 5], Maliki
declared his willingness to release funding for the Peshmerga forces if
they place themselves under the jurisdiction of the federal authorities,
since the constitution prohibits the financing of the Peshmerga, which
fall under the jurisdiction of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
He accused the KRG of “violating the constitution by controlling the
weapons left behind by the former Iraqi army, including tanks, artillery
and rocket launchers, while the other federal [entities] are getting
armed with light weapons.”
He revealed that he has “evidence supported by figures and copies [of
transactions] belonging to the persons who [sign] contracts and buy
weapons in the region.”
Maliki described the objections to the formation of the Tigris
Operations Command as “unconstitutional, because the federal army has
the right to have a presence in Basra or Zakho, and no one has the right
to prevent it constitutionally. There are implicit intentions and a
lack of desire for the federal authority to have control or a presence.”
He said that the army “is more [entitled] than the Turkish troops to have a presence [in Iraq’s Kurdish region].”
He wondered about “the reasons behind the silence over the continued
presence of Turkish troops in the al-Amadiyah and Bamarni bases since
1995 until today, while these bases are equipped with tanks, armored
vehicles and aircraft, and convoys enter and exit them amid complete
silence.”
He warned the Peshmerga against “committing a mistake by attacking the Iraqi army.”
Spokesman for the Ministry of Peshmerga Lt. Gen. Jabbar Yawar told Al-Hayat that the ministry “will hold a press conference next week to provide clarifications on Maliki’s recent statements.”
Deputy Minister of Peshmerga Anwar Haji Osman told Nawkho news agency,
which is affiliated with the KRG Ministry of Interior, that “demanding
placing the Peshmerga under the control of the Iraqi army is an illusion
and pure fantasy.”
The Iraqi government has refused to include the Peshmerga budget in the
2013 federal budget considering that it is not part of the Iraqi
defense system. This happened despite the negotiations conducted by two
Kurdish delegations — one partisan and the other governmental — with the
Maliki government last month.
Chuan Mohammad Taha, a member of the Security and Defense Committee in
the Iraqi parliament representing the Kurdistan Alliance, told Al-Hayat
that “the negotiation phase requires wisdom and avoiding escalation.
Unfortunately, Maliki’s remarks are seen as escalatory with the aim of
obstructing the negotiations.”
He added: “As for the deployment of the Iraqi army, it is normal
provided that the army’s loyalty is to the nation, not a person or
particular faction. We have remarks on the mentality of managing the
defense system in light of the loss of balance within the army and
involving it in the political conflicts.”
With regard to the Turkish military presence in the region, Taha said
that “this presence is inherited according to an agreement between
Ankara and the former regime, but what surprises us is why they are
raising the issue now and did not discuss it with the Turkish officials
during their visits to Baghdad.”
He noted that the Peshmerga forces “possess old weapons, and the Iraqi
government is evading the responsibility of arming these forces, which
have the right [to armament] according to a constitutional article. We
seek to include the Peshmerga in the defense system in terms of
armament, rehabilitation and management, but have it under the command
of the General Commander of Armed Forces and the Kurdistan region’s
presidency.”
Nawshirwan Mustafa, leader of the Kurdish opposition Movement for
Change, said that the objective of his visit to the province of Kirkuk
yesterday [Nov. 6] was to support the decisions of the local government.
He called for distancing the military from political disputes.
Mustafa said in a press conference that his movement supports the
province of Kirkuk, its management and components through their
representatives in the Iraqi parliament and the Iraqi Kurdistan
parliament.
Kirkuk Governor Necmettin Omar Karim reiterated his opposition to the
“formation of the Tigris Operations Command” in Kirkuk as a result of
Maliki’s accusation to him that he breached the constitution.
The local administration announced its refusal to cooperate with the
Tigris Operations Command following the prime minister’s decision to
assign to it the security files in the provinces of Kirkuk, Diyala and
Salahuddin. Also, the Ministry of Peshmerga threatened to confront it if
it enters the Kurdistan region.
Kirkuk is witnessing political and ethnic differences as a result of
the Kurds’ demand for the implemention of Article 140 of the
constitution, which calls for the provision of financial compensation to
the Arabs who were recruited in the 1980s, returning the expelled Kurds
after providing them with financial compensation and holding a
referendum on appending Kirkuk to the Kurdistan region in the future.