KRG announces the start of the second phase of the IDP "voluntary" return

Shafaq News / The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) declared the beginning of the voluntary return of displaced people.

The Kurdish Minister of Interior, Rebar Ahmed, announced in a press conference "the second phase of the voluntary return of the internally displaced persons (IDP)," noting that "the first phase included the voluntary return of 444 families to their areas of origin."

"All parties must intensify efforts to restore stability to this region, which falls within Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution."

Article 140 is a provision that sets out a three-stage process for resolving the status of the disputed territories. The first stage is normalization, the second is census, and the third is the referendum. The deadline for implementing Article 140 has passed but has not yet been implemented due to political disagreements and security concerns.

Ahmed confirmed that the "KRG has spared no effort to restore stability to these areas," stating that the Kurdistan's doors will remain open to everyone who has been subjected to "injustice" and emphasizing the continuance of the voluntary return process in the Nineveh Plains and Sinjar district.

He also called on the federal government "to implement the Sinjar Agreement to provide the return of the Yazidis, as there are more than 300,000 displaced Yazidis in the Kurdistan Region pending the implementation of this agreement."

According to an April 2023 report from the Joint Crisis Coordination Centre-JCC of the KRG, about one million displaced persons and refugees live in Iraqi Kurdistan, including 664,224 IDPs and 246,810 Syrian, 7,860 Turkish, 8,241 Iranian, and 615 Palestinian refugees.