US has urged political parties to postpone Kurdistan elections: PUK official

The Kurdistan Regional Government, the Kurdistan Parliament, and the Electoral Commission will decide on a final election date soon.

ERBIL (Kurdistan Region) – The United States has urged political parties in the Kurdistan Region to postpone the upcoming parliamentary elections in September, an official from one of the leading parties revealed on Sunday.

Azad Tawfiq, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) media office, revealed in an interview with Kurdistan 24 that the US had asked political parties in Kurdistan to postpone the upcoming elections.

Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State (IS), recently visited the Kurdistan Region and “urged us not to hold elections on Sep. 30,” Tawfiq said.

According to the PUK official, McGurk met with Kurdish delegations to express Washington’s support for a democratic election and a peaceful transfer of power and said it was the first time the US has asked a political entity to postpone elections “to decrease the current political tensions” in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.

It is now in the hands of the Kurdistan Region’s political parties to sit down and discuss whether to postpone the elections or hold them on the scheduled date, Tawfiq added.  

Marwan Galali, head of the Islamic Group of Kurdistan (IGK) in the Kurdistan Parliament, meanwhile, confirmed that McGurk discussed the postponement of parliamentary elections with political parties, claiming the situation in the Region is currently not appropriate to hold the ballots.

McGurk also informed the parties that it is not good for Kurdistan to hold the elections while the Iraqi elections have not yet been finalized, Galali told Sulaimani-based Xendan news outlet.

The IGK official said his party does not support postponing the elections and prefer to hold parliamentary and provincial polls on the same date.

According to information received by Kurdistan 24, in the next 10 days, the Kurdistan Regional Government, the Kurdistan Parliament, and the Region’s Independent High Electoral and Referendum Commission (IHERC) will decide on a final election date.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany