Shafaq News- Erbil

The Kurdistan Region's Peshmerga Ministry would be able to manage its forces independently after a financial support agreement with the US Department of Defense expires in September, Peshmerga Affairs Minister Shoresh Ismail said Tuesday.

Speaking at a press conference following the launch of the first joint Peshmerga training course, Ismail said the unification process had moved forward after clearing obstacles that had previously delayed it, with all Peshmerga forces now set to come under the direct supervision and administration of the ministry. Housing, training, and logistical and administrative affairs will be managed under a single unified system, “as part of an effort to implement directives from Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani to merge forces that had remained outside the ministry's structure.”

There are no indications so far of an extension or a new agreement being negotiated with the US Department of State, according to Ismail. Despite this, “the continued support from coalition forces would be an added benefit, but its absence would not affect the ministry's ability to meet its forces' needs.”

No timeline was given for when the unification process is expected to be completed.

A separate process already underway, according to a Peshmerga Ministry official who spoke to Shafaq News on Monday, involves a Global Coalition-supervised reorganization of Peshmerga forces that began with a training course titled "Decision-Making Process." He described the course as the practical starting point for merging and restructuring forces previously known as the 70th and 80th units, later renamed Region One and Region Two, with the stated goal of fully integrating them under the direct authority of the Peshmerga Ministry.

The Peshmerga are the armed forces of the Kurdistan Region, operating under the authority of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) separately from Iraq's federal military.

Under Iraq's Constitution, the Kurdistan Region has the authority to rule its own regional guard and security forces. However, the Peshmerga have long remained organizationally divided between brigades under the Ministry of Peshmerga and others aligned with the Kurdistan Region's two main political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Efforts to reform the force accelerated after the emergence of ISIS in 2014. The reform program consists of 35 measures approved by the Kurdistan Parliament in 2018. It is being implemented through joint teams that include the Ministry of Peshmerga and advisers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany to transform the Peshmerga into a unified professional force operating under an institutional command structure rather than party affiliation.