Ali Askari has said in a statement to his party that he was nominating himself and called on the party to throw its support behind him.

“I who have signed below nominate myself for the post of Kirkuk governor, hoping that you will support me,” the statement read.

The secretary of Ali Askar, Shalaw Hussein Abdulrahman, told NRT that he was the only official PUK candidate for the position and that no one else had officially nominated themselves for the position yet.

The PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) have been unable to resolve their differences over the issue of Kirkuk. It is a major sticking point between the two parties in government formation negotiations.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Latif Sheikh Omer, stated disputes between the party and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the delay in the formation of the new Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) are due to a disagreement between the two sides over the fate of Kirkuk.

The spokesman told Kurdpress in an interview that meetings between the two parties led into passing an 18-article deal but the two sides failed to finalize it as they were at odds over some articles, particularly the Kurdish-majority province of Kirkuk which is currently under the control of the central government in Baghdad.

He stated that the PUK wanted to bring an end to the unnatural situation in Kirkuk and appoint a member of the party as it won the majority of the votes in the province but the KDP refused to accept it and the PUK, therefore, decided not to participate in the recent parliament meeting which elected a KDP member as parliament speaker.

Sheikh Omer went on to add that the KDP follows a different policy to normalize situation in Kirkuk and has therefore demanded the PUK to wait for Baghdad to decide the situation but the PUK has made a different decision and wants a Kurdish governor to be elected for the province after agreements with all ethnic and religious sides in Kirkuk, including Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs and then the political, security and economic situation in Kirkuk would improve.

The spokesman further denied the KDP wants one of its members to be appointed as the governor of the province but the rift over the situation is that the KDP wants the provincial council of Kirkuk to hold a meeting, make new measures about the situation in the province and the election of a governor be postponed to another time, adding that the KDP has vowed to cooperate with the PUK in electing a new governor for Kirkuk but there is no guarantee that the party would not change mind in the future.

When Iraqi forces and the Hashd al-Shaabi retook the city from Kurdish forces in mid-October 2017, the previous governor fled to the Kurdistan Region. Rakan al-Jabouri was appointed as acting governor by Baghdad.

Reporter’s code: 50101