Shafaq News- Al-Sulaymaniyah

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) denied on Tuesday that Kurdish parties are obstructing any prime minister nominee agreed upon by Iraq’s Shiite Coordination Framework, parliament’s largest bloc.

In a press conference, Ali Hussein, a senior KDP official in Al-Sulaymaniyah and Halabja, said delays in naming a premier are unrelated to the presidency, which he described as a Kurdish constitutional entitlement rather than a partisan position.

He acknowledged that US opposition to former premier Nouri Al-Maliki would have “a clear impact” given the international dimension of the issue but stressed that the KDP will respect the Framework’s decision and cooperate in passing its nominee.

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Hussein said progress in forming Iraq’s federal government would help unlock efforts to form the Kurdistan Regional Government, stalled since the October 2024 Regional elections. The KDP won 39 of 100 seats, while the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan secured 23, but lawmakers failed to elect a speaker or advance cabinet formation after convening briefly in December.

In Iraq’s 2025 parliamentary elections, the KDP won 26 seats nationwide compared with 15 for the PUK. Under Iraq’s post-2003 power-sharing system, the presidency is traditionally held by a Kurdish figure, often from the PUK, while the KDP holds the Kurdistan Region presidency.

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