(U) KURDISTAN REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS TO UNITE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIRKUK 000004

SIPDIS

BAGHDAD FOR POL, POLMIL, NCT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/9/2016
TAGS: PGOV KDEM IZ KDP
SUBJECT: (U) KURDISTAN REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS TO UNITE

CLASSIFIED BY: Richard K. Bell, Regional Coordinator, Exec,
Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b)


1. (U) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY: The Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) announced
January 7 that they had reached agreement on uniting the two
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) administrations in Erbil and
Sulaymaniyah. The announcement was made by KRG President and
KDP leader Masoud Barzani along with PUK politburo member Kosrat
Rasoul Ali. The allocation of leadership posts is reported
below. END INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY.

(SBU) KURDS (FINALLY) ANNOUNCE UNIFIED REGIONAL GOVERNMENT
-------------- --------------

2. (SBU) Following a meeting between KDP and PUK politburo
delegations, hosted by President Barzani at his headquarters in
Salahaddin, Erbil province, Barzani appeared on Kurdish TV
January 7 with the PUK head of delegation, Kosrat Rasoul Ali.
They announced that:

-- The two parties had agreed to merge their separate KRG
administrations (in Erbil: KDP-dominated; in Sulaymaniyah:
PUK-dominated). The long-awaited agreement will be presented to
the Kurdistan National Assembly (KNA) for approval after the Eid
al-Adha holiday (January 10-13).

-- Erbil will be the capital. (The KNA is already based there.)

-- Implementation is to commence by early February: after the
KNA approves the agreement, the Prime Minister will need a
couple of weeks to form his Cabinet and submit it to the KNA for
approval.

-- The KRG expects the status of Kirkuk to be resolved before
the next KNA election. (In other words, the KRG expects Kirkuk
to be part of the Kurdistan Region by then. According to the
new Iraqi Constitution, the status of Kirkuk and other disputed
territories is to be settled before the end of 2007. The KNA
was elected in January 2005 for a four-year term.)

(U) WHO GETS WHAT
--------------

3. (SBU) According to Kurdish media reports and Kurdish
contacts, the senior posts in the new, unified KRG will be
divided as follows:

-- Masoud Barzani (KDP) - President (no change)

-- Kosrat Rasoul Ali (PUK) - Vice President (new position)

-- Nechirvan Barzani (KDP) - Prime Minister (Nechirvan, Masoud's
nephew, is the KRG-Erbil Prime Minister. He will serve two
years, i.e. through 2007. PUK had been insisting on a one-year
rotation)

-- Omar Fattah (PUK) - Deputy Prime Minister (new position; he
is the KRG-Sulaymaniyah Prime Minister)

-- Adnan Mufti(PUK) - Speaker, Kurdistan National Assembly (no
change)

-- Dr. Kamal Kirkukli (KDP) - Deputy Speaker, KNA (no change)

-- The PUK will hold the ministries of Development and Planning,
Education, Endowment and Religious Affairs, Health, Human
Rights, Interior, Justice, Reconstruction, Social Affairs,
Communications, and Water Resources.

-- The KDP will hold the ministries of Agriculture and
Irrigation, Culture, Electricity, Finance, Higher Education,
Martyrs, Municipalities, Natural Resources, Peshmerga Affairs,
Region (Regional Affairs, explained to us as dealing with issues
of disputed territory),and Sport and Youth.

-- Smaller parties/ethnic or religious groups will get the
following ministries: Environment (Kurdistan Islamic Group),
Industry (Turcomans),Tourism (Chaldo-Assyrians),and
Transportation (Communist Party). (NOTE: The last portfolio is
according to a source close to the KDP; press reports had it
going to the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU),which seemed
surprising, given that the KIU chose to run separately from the
KDP/PUK-led Kurdistan Alliance list in the December national
elections. END NOTE.)

-- The KDP and PUK reaffirmed their support for PUK leader Jalal
Talabani to remain President of Iraq.

-- We have heard unsubstantiated speculation that the PUK might
also get a sweetener such as the post of Iraqi Foreign Minister
for Barham Saleh, the current Iraqi Minister of Planning (vice
Hoshyar Zebari of KDP).

(U) LONG-AWAITED YET SURPRISING
--------------

4. (SBU) PRT Deputy Team Leader met on January 8 with Kirkuk
Provincial Council Chairman Rizgar Ali Hamajan (PUK) and
Governor Abdulrahman Mustafa (nominally independent Kurd). Both
seemed genuinely pleased by the announcement, but neither had
any substantive comments. The parties had professed to be very
close to agreement for so long that this breakthrough appears to
have caught even some insiders by surprise. A KRG-Erbil
minister who is generally very open with Western diplomats made
no mention of it during a conversation January 7. Just a few
weeks ago, a senior PUK official had flatly told us that talk of
unification was "just public relations."

(U) COMMENT
--------------

5. (C) This agreement will no doubt strengthen the Kurds' hand
in the negotiations over formation of the new Iraqi government,
and it responds to popular demand. The PUK backed down from
some of its demands, including one-year rotation of the Prime
Ministership and ensuring that no one party got both the Prime
Minister and Finance Minister. A lot of mutual distrust still
needs to be overcome if the two main parties are to succeed in
merging their interior ministries and their peshmerga (military)
forces.
BELL