Court postpones Kirkuk Council Head’s hearing for second time over raising Kurdistan flag

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A Court in Baghdad on Monday decided to postpone the hearing of Rebwar Talabani, the head of Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC), related to raising the Kurdistan flag over government institutions in Kirkuk.

The hearing of the verdict against Talabani has been postponed to Aug. 2, 2017, the second delay in July, Kurdistan 24 correspondent in Baghdad Awat Khairullah stated on Monday.

In late March 2017, after a majority of votes, the KPC decided to raise the Kurdistan flag alongside the Iraqi one on all public institutions.

Following the vote, local Turkmen officials filed a lawsuit against Talabani to challenge the decision of hoisting the flag in Kirkuk, labeling it “an unconstitutional move.”

Kirkuk is one of the disputed territories between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq.

The flag of Kurdistan should be next to the Iraqi one until the future of the province is officially determined, Talabani said before.

With a Kurdish majority population, oil-rich Kirkuk is a diverse province consisting of Turkmen, Arabs, and Christians.

According to article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution adopted in 2005, the future of Kirkuk was supposed to be decided in three stages, beginning with normalization and then counting on a local referendum.

Based on the Constitution, the stages should have been carried out by the end of 2007.

However, 10 years later, the article remains unimplemented due to political issues between Erbil and Baghdad.

After the fall of Mosul in June 2014, the Iraqi army collapsed and failed to protect other provinces in the country, including Kirkuk.

Since then, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces have been in charge of the security and protection of Kirkuk from the Islamic State (IS).

Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim, along with Talabani and most of the members of the KPC, decided to join the Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum scheduled for Sep. 25, 2017.

“Peshmerga made many sacrifices and protected Kirkuk and all the ethnic and religious groups inside from IS attacks with blood,” Karim previously stated.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany