Yazidi alliance rejects move to relocate Sinjar officials’ offices
Shafaq News- Baghdad
The Yazidi Cause Alliance on Thursday rejected plans to relocate the offices of the acting mayor of Sinjar and the director of Al-Shamal subdistrict to Sinjar district in Nineveh province, warning that the move could deepen the area’s administrative crisis.
In a statement, Murad Ismail, head of the alliance, said the decisions “must not be made partially or without consulting Yazidi representatives,” adding that any administrative settlement “should be reached through political understandings in which Yazidi representatives are a main party.”
Relocating the acting mayor and subdistrict director to Sinjar after an absence of 11 years, without a political agreement or a final settlement on appointing permanent officials, would “exacerbate the crisis,” Ismail noted. He suggested postponing the move for another six months to allow time to reach a “fair and sustainable solution.”
According to Ismail, Yazidi demands focus on appointing “two independent Yazidi figures accepted by residents through political consensus, not imposition.” The discussions aimed at reaching an administrative settlement had been ongoing for months and were “close” to producing an initial agreement, he added.
The dispute comes amid continuing disagreements over the administration of Sinjar, a district in northwestern Iraq disputed between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government since the ISIS attack of August 2014, which displaced large numbers of residents and devastated infrastructure.
Although Iraqi forces retook Sinjar in 2015, the district’s administrative situation has remained unresolved. Tensions increased after Baghdad and Erbil signed the Sinjar Agreement in October 2020, which has not been fully implemented.
In July 2024, the Nineveh Provincial Council announced administrative changes affecting several positions, including those in Sinjar, but implementation stalled because of political disputes. Subsequent judicial and administrative decisions have yet to produce a final resolution.
