Kirkuk transfers qaimaqam post from Turkmen to Kurdish component
Shafaq News- Kirkuk
Avesta Mohammed was sworn in Monday before the competent court as qaimaqam (district administrator) of Kirkuk, completing a transfer of the post from the Turkmen to the Kurdish component —the first such shift in years— under a political agreement that extends well beyond the province's borders.
Kirkuk is a disputed, oil-rich province claimed by both the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where control of senior administrative posts has long functioned as a proxy for broader political power.
Read more: Kirkuk installs its first Turkmen Governor in two decades, but not everyone accepts it
The appointment was one of several administrative changes formalized during a recent provincial council session that simultaneously rotated the governorship among Kirkuk's three main communities —Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmens. Both moves trace to a multifaceted deal brokered in Baghdad in which the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) agreed to cede the Kirkuk governorship to Turkmen and Sunni Arab factions in exchange for legislative support for its candidate, Nizar Amedi, in the Iraqi presidential election.
On April 17, the council elected Mohammed Samaan as governor under a rotating arrangement agreed at the al-Rasheed Hotel —a session boycotted by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Monday's oath formalized the second element of that agreement.
The previous qaimaqam, Kamel al-Salihi, a KDP member, had held the post since before the October 2017 events in which the KDP withdrew from Kirkuk following a military operation that reasserted federal and Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) control over the province.
Read more: Discover Iraq: Kirkuk, a city of oil, culture, and conflict
