Kirkuk Provincial Council session declared unlawful by Turkmen leader

Shafaq News/ On Sunday, Hassan Turan, the President of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), labeled the recent session for electing the Kirkuk governor and Provincial Council chairman as "unlawful."

The session, which took place in Baghdad on Saturday evening, saw the election of Mohammed Ibrahim Al-Hafiz as Chairman and Ribwar Taha as Governor.

In a press conference, Turan asserted that the session was in clear violation of the law.

He noted that the session was conducted without the knowledge or invitation of the council's acting President, Rakan Saeed Al-Jabouri, thus breaching Article 7 of the Provincial Councils Law No. 21 of 2008.

Turan stated, "We consider the session's outcomes illegal and will appeal to the judiciary to annul them."

Rakan Saeed Al-Jabouri, head of the Arab Coalition bloc in the Kirkuk Provincial Council, also criticized the session, claiming that both the Arab and Turkmen components were excluded from local government formation.

He asserted, "The election process took place outside the Governorate, without a formal request from the acting president, on a holiday, and was in violation of Article 13 and the minutes of the first session, which required it to remain open."

Al-Jabouri, who is also the acting President of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, condemned the exclusion of Turkmen and claimed that six Arab representatives had declared they would not participate in the election session, describing the situation as a betrayal.

The session's legality was further questioned due to the absence of the Kurdistan Democratic Party bloc and Turkmen members, as well as three members of the Arab bloc.

The process of selecting Kirkuk's governor had been stalled for eight months, with the local council's first session on July 11 remaining unresolved, leading to intervention by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani.