Kirkuk Council to convene soon, form a local government: Deputy Parliament Speaker

Shafaq News/ The deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Shakhwan Abdullah, on Wednesday, predicted that the Kirkuk Governorate Council will hold a session soon to elect a new governor and form a local government.

"We are very close to holding a council meeting and electing a legitimate governor who represents all the components of the governorate, along with a council chairman," Abdullah said in a statement to reporters in Kirkuk.

He added that "the other positions will be decided and distributed within a period of a maximum of two to three months."

Abdullah pointed out that Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani "spared no effort to bring together the views of the political parties in Kirkuk after the local elections held in the province."

Recently, Mohammed Kamal, a leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Kirkuk, revealed recommendations sent by Prime Minister al-Sudani that the Kirkuk Council hold a meeting after the Eid al-Adha holiday.

On June 9, the Kurdistan Patriotic Union (PUK) bloc in the Kirkuk Council announced its approval of rotating the governor's post for two years, indicating that it is waiting for the Prime Minister's meeting to discuss the matter.

For more than five months, the winning blocs in the Kirkuk Council elections have failed to agree on a joint proposal to form the local government, with each insisting on taking the governor's post and discussing rotating the post between the Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen blocs.

Dozens of senior administrative positions are expected to be redistributed among the components of Kirkuk, most of which are now being run by proxy, including the head of the council and his deputy, the governor and his deputies and assistants, the mayor of four districts and the directors of 16 sub-districts, as well as a number of directors general.