KDP lawmakers accuse an "armed faction" of fueling ethnic discord in Nineveh

Shafaq News/ A group of Kurdish lawmakers on Thursday accused an "armed faction" it did not name of forcing the replacement of Kurdish local officials in Nineveh's ethnically diverse district of "Talkeef", calling on the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, to fend off such violations that leave "a crack in the social fabric" of the country.

In a joint press conference with a slew of her colleagues in the KDP bloc at the parliament's headquarters, lawmaker Kavin Sheikh Saeed said, "in an unprecedented incident, some people, driven by cheap tools from an armed faction, committed a blatant violation of the sanctity of government institutions and broke the state's prestige by besieging the headquarters of the Talkeef district in Nineveh to force in the replacement of certain directors in the directorates of education, electricity, and municipality because they are from the Kurdish component, a social partner in the governorate for decades."

"Those officers are residents of the district. They also graduated from the University of Mosul," she said, "in addition to their alma mater, they have accumulated years of experience without showing any sign of corruption or discrimination. They did nothing but belong to the Kurdish component."

Sheik Said states, "a certain group of people reportedly received money to organize demonstrations that demand replacing experienced personnel from their positions."

"This is an unfamiliar phenomenon in a district known for the peaceful coexistence of people from different components on its soil," she added.

The KDP lawmakers urged the parliament presidium and the federal government to take "immediate action to stop this perilous escalation and prevent those behind it from tampering with the state's prestige and jeopardizing the social fabric in the district."