Following a meeting with local officials from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), al-Tai told a press conference that a center designed to enhance cooperation between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Security Forces will not be based in the city itself.
Head of the PUK’s local party organization Muhammad Othman said that the two sides discussed ways to strengthen relations between the different ethnic components of the city, according to media outlets affiliated with the PUK.
Regarding the return of the Peshmerga to the disputed areas, al-Tai said that doing so would be “normal because Peshmerga is a part of the Iraqi military, security, and national system.”
Earlier this summer, the federal defense ministry and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Ministry for Peshmerga Affairs announced that it would open four centers to coordinate their operations against Islamic State (ISIS) militants in the disputed areas.
Because of the disputed areas’ contested status, ISIS is able to use them to launch attacks on civilian and military targets.
The KRG and the Peshmerga had previously controlled much of the disputed areas, including Kirkuk, but was pushed out by the Iraqi Security Forces following the 2017 independence referendum.
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