After Mosul, Iraq’s Kurds Face Internal Crisis
The last time the speaker of the Kurdistan regional parliament in northern Iraq tried to go to work, more than a year ago, armed troops blocked the highway. The legislature of the self-ruled Kurdish region hasn’t gathered since then. The mandate of Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani, already extended by lawmakers for two years, expired in […]Yaroslav Trofimov writes for The Wall Street Journal:
The last time the speaker of the Kurdistan regional parliament in northern Iraq tried to go to work, more than a year ago, armed troops blocked the highway.
The legislature of the self-ruled Kurdish region hasn’t gathered since then. The mandate of Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani, already extended by lawmakers for two years, expired in August 2015. As Kurdish troops fight against Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in nearby Mosul, Kurdistan is operating without key ministers, such as finance and defense.
“We don’t have a legal president, we don’t have an active parliament, and we don’t have a functioning government,” said the parliament’s speaker, Yousif Sadiq. “If this political crisis continues, the entire system will just collapse. There is a lot of anger in the Kurdistan region, and it is quiet so far because people are being responsible and are waiting. But after ISIS is gone, they won’t be waiting anymore.”
