{"id":15708,"date":"2018-09-20T05:22:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T05:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15708"},"modified":"2018-09-20T05:22:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T05:22:48","slug":"kurdish-party-nominates-iraqi-veteran-barham-salih-for-next-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15708","title":{"rendered":"Kurdish party nominates Iraqi veteran Barham Salih for next president"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBAGHDAD: Veteran Kurdish leader Barham Salih has been nominated to be the president of Iraq.<\/p>\n

\nIraq\u2019s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the ruling Kurdish parties, selected Salih to take over from Fuad Masum, Kurdish leaders told Arab News on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\nThe nomination and election of the president is the second step in the process of forming a government.<\/p>\n

\nThe elected president will then assign the candidate of the largest bloc to the post of prime minister, to form a government.<\/p>\n

\nThe rival Shiite-led blocs on Tuesday agreed to nominate Adel Abdul Mahdi, the former vice president, for the post of prime minister.<\/p>\n

\nAn initial deal was made by the two heads of the factions to dedicate the parliament session on Sept. 25 to elect the president and assign the nominated prime minister to form a government, negotiators told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nSalih, who was born in Sulaymaniyah in 1960, is a graduate of American universities and holds a PhD in statistics and data. He headed the Kurdistan Regional Government in 2001, and was one of the deputies of the federal government in 2006. He occupied many ministerial posts in Baghdad and Erbil in the last 15 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBarham is the sole nominee for the post of president,\u201d Sa\u2019adi Berah, the\u00a0 PUK spokesman said on Wednesday. \u201cPUK leaders have voted today on this decision after he (Barham) accepted all the conditions of the PUK.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe relationship between Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region dominated by the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (DPK), the second ruling Kurdish party, has faltered since September last year when the Kurdistan regional government held an independence referendum.<\/p>\n

\nBaghdad responded by launching a military campaign to push Kurdish forces out of disputed areas they had taken control of in the preceding years. This included the city of Kirkuk – one of Iraq\u2019s main oil producing regions.<\/p>\n

\nSalih, a secular politician, is a moderate and acceptable figure to all political parties and can play an active role in dismantling both the crisis between the Kurdish region and Baghdad, and disputes between the Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish political parties inside the Iraqi capital, Shiite negotiators said.<\/p>\n

\nThe backing of the Shiite and Sunni parliamentary blocs in Baghdad for Salih\u2019s nomination is crucial to him winning the post as the president needs two thirds of the votes of the 329 members of parliament to be approved.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cInitially we are happy to back Barham for the post as he is calm, pragmatic and has no problems with Arabs,\u201d a key Shiite negotiator told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are waiting for them (PUK and DPK) to conclude their decision and officially present his name for us, then we can discuss the other details.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe US envoy to Iraq and Syria, Brett McGurk, played a key role in restoring Salih to the PUK, which he had split\u00a0 from in 2017 to form his own coalition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nMcGurk met with Hero Khan, secretary-general of the PUK and wife of the late Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, several times last week at her residence in Sulaymaniyah.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nKhan and her two sons have dominated the leadership council of the PUK since 2013 after Talabani fell ill. McGurk\u2019s efforts were rewarded on Wednesday as Salih won 26 votes of the 40-member PUK leadership council, sources told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nThe post of Iraq\u2019s president falls to the Kurds as part of a power-sharing agreement adopted by Iraqi political forces after 2003.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nSalih’s candidacy must first be approved by the DPK.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe have no objection to Barham’s nomination for this post. The DPK does not look for this position,\u201d Reibein Salam, a DPK leader told reporters.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBut we have made many concessions in favor of the Kurdish interest and we have to get something in return.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe want the position of governor of Kirkuk in return. It is not reasonable that PUK gets both posts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BAGHDAD: Veteran Kurdish leader Barham Salih has been nominated to be the president of Iraq. Iraq\u2019s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the ruling Kurdish parties, selected Salih to take over from Fuad Masum, Kurdish leaders told Arab News on Wednesday. The nomination and election of the president is the second step in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}