The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the junior partner in the government of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, announced on Nov. 5 that it was leaving the cabinet, six weeks after U.S.-led coalition forces withdrew from Iraq. In a televised address, PUK leader Bafel Talabani said “This government has failed” and declared that his party would not recognize the regional parliament “or anything that emerges from this.” He then threatened to set up rival institutions in the PUK’s stronghold of Sulaymaniyah. “If they appoint a Region president, we will appoint a Region president,” Talabani said, adding, “Whatever they do there, we will do here.”
The Kurdistan Region is a semi-autonomous region in Iraq’s northeast. Iraq’s 2005 constitution recognizes it as a federal region with its own parliament, government and armed forces, known as the Peshmerga. Two parties have dominated its politics for decades. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), founded in 1946 by Mustafa Barzani and now led by his son Masoud Barzani, runs Erbil and Duhok and holds the region’s top posts.
Masoud’s nephew Nechirvan Barzani is region president, and Masoud’s son Masrour Barzani is prime minister. The PUK, which Jalal Talabani founded in 1975 after breaking with the KDP, controls Sulaymaniyah and is now led by his son Bafel. In the October 2024 election, the KDP won the most seats, 39 of 100, while the PUK won 23.
The walkout followed a parliament session that the KDP convened in Erbil on Nov. 4, the first in nearly two years. Exactly 52 of 100 lawmakers attended, exceeding the required quorum of 51, and elected Vala Fareed, head of the KDP bloc, as speaker. The PUK announced a boycott, joined by the 15 members of the opposition New Generation movement and several smaller groups. Three lawmakers elected on the PUK list in Erbil attended anyway, and two of them say they have left the party. Before the vote, the PUK called the session illegal and “an attempt to impose the will of a single party.”
More than two years after the election, the parties still have not formed a new cabinet, so Masrour Barzani’s government remains in office. The central dispute is over the Interior Ministry, which controls governors, mayors and police chiefs and is held by Barzani ally Rebar Ahmed. The PUK wants that ministry and half of the next cabinet, and the KDP has refused. The rivalry also reaches Baghdad, where the KDP has not recognized Nizar Amedi, the PUK figure elected Iraq’s president in April. Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court has scheduled a Dec. 14 hearing on a case asking it to declare the regional government a caretaker administration.
The KDP defended the session. Masoud Barzani said the reopening was not aimed at any party and urged the boycotting blocs to return. Fareed said her election “serves all segments of Kurdistan and is not against any side.” A senior regional official told The National, an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, that the PUK has no mandate to push Sulaymaniyah toward separation. Talabani blamed the KDP for the breakdown, saying he had traveled to Erbil more than 15 times for talks. He told the KDP, “You are forcing us to have our own administration.”
Two administrations would bring back a division the region has lived through before. The KDP-PUK rivalry escalated into civil war in 1994, and the parties ran separate governments from Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. In 1998, Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani announced a reconciliation timetable at the State Department alongside Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who called it a “new and hopeful chapter.” The two administrations formally merged in 2006.
The split also hands Tehran an opening. The PUK has historically been closer to Iran than the KDP, and in 2017 it was widely believed to have struck a deal with Tehran and Baghdad when Iraqi federal forces retook Kirkuk from the Kurds, according to Jerusalem Post analysis. Since late February, Iran and allied Iraqi militias have launched about 1,000 drone and missile attacks on the region, killing 32 people and wounding nearly 150, according to Nechirvan Barzani. On Aug. 17, the regional government said Iranian drones targeted Masrour Barzani’s office in Erbil. U.S. envoy Tom Barrack called the attack “unacceptable and a direct threat” to regional stability. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called it a “false flag.”
Washington has so far kept its distance from the dispute. A State Department spokesperson told Kurdish broadcaster Rudaw that the United States “supports a strong and resilient Iraqi Kurdistan Region” and encouraged “all parties to work swiftly and constructively” to strengthen the region’s institutions, without naming either side. Victoria Taylor, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq, said the breakdown is partly the result of “a less engaged US government.” She said it weakens a Kurdish bloc that has argued for U.S. interests in Baghdad. On the day of the walkout, Barrack was in Baghdad meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi about economic ties.
The PUK has not said how a rival administration would function. The region still has no constitution of its own. Article 119 of Iraq’s federal constitution provides a referendum process for forming federal regions, but whether a governorate can use it to leave the existing Kurdistan Region is disputed. Analyst Ramzy Mardini argues that Article 117, which recognizes the Kurdistan Region, may not allow a province inside it to leave on its own.
Several PUK officials in the cabinet said on Facebook that they would follow the party’s decision, and the party has held the deputy premiership, under Qubad Talabani, along with several ministries since 2019. Mahmood Khoshnaw, a senior PUK official, told Al Jazeera, “If a prime minister is appointed in Erbil, we will take the same step in Sulaimaniyah.” The parliament has not yet elected a president for the new term, and no new cabinet has been formed.
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