KDP and PUK clash over cabinet talks: "We've closed 80 percent of the gap, but no real breakthrough"
Talks on forming a new government in the Kurdistan Region have drawn conflicting accounts from the two main parties: the KDP says the gap between them has narrowed sharply, while the PUK says it will come to the table holding 39 seats.
RastinewsAri Hersin, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) branch in Sulaymaniyah, and Abbas Fettah, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Leadership Council, gave competing assessments of negotiations to form a new government in the Kurdistan Region.
Speaking on a television program, the two politicians offered starkly different pictures of how talks between the KDP and PUK are progressing and how cabinet seats should be divided.
KDP: gap narrows from 100 kilometers to 5
Hersin said the two sides had made significant progress in their talks.
Working from a framework of 100 issues to be resolved, Hersin said progress had been made on 80 of them. "If the distance between us used to be 100 kilometers, it has now come down to five," he said.
Hersin said the KDP's position in the talks was based on the PUK's current 23 seats. He added that the PUK should not be judged by seat count alone, pointing to the party's security forces, its Peshmerga presence and its political history.
PUK: we'll sit down with 39 seats
Fettah, the PUK Leadership Council member, disputed Hersin's account.
Questioning the claim that the gap had shrunk from 100 kilometers to five so quickly, Fettah said no formal meeting on the distribution of posts had taken place since the earlier round of talks.
"I'm not saying we're far apart," Fettah said, "but I don't think any concrete step toward rapprochement has actually been taken."
Fettah said the PUK would come to the negotiating table with 39 seats, a position he said was grounded in the party's strategic agreement with the New Generation Movement. He said the goal was to build a government model based on joint action and to end the two-administration structure split between Erbil and Sulaymaniyah.
Dispute over Shaswar Abdulwahid
The program also touched on the release of New Generation Movement leader Shaswar Abdulwahid.
Hersin, the KDP official, said Abdulwahid's release was the result of a political deal with the PUK.
Fettah rejected that claim, saying the PUK has no prison or special police force of its own. He said Abdulwahid had been held under a court order and was released legally after completing his sentence.
Calls for a government without delay
Despite their differing accounts of the talks, both politicians agreed the formation of a new government should not be delayed further.
Economic crisis, sluggish markets and unpaid or delayed civil servant salaries in the Kurdistan Region have heightened expectations that the political sides will reach a settlement and seat a new government soon.