ERBIL — The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its affiliated forces on Saturday prevented a group of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) members from entering Sinjar.
The group had previously announced their return to the disputed Kurdish Yezidi town where they are planning to run the election campaign before the October 10 polls for the Iraqi Parliament.
“We were prevented from entering the Sharafaddin region at the intersection of Gohbal by the PKK,” Ashti Kochar, head of the local representation office of the KDP told BasNews.
He revealed that the Iraqi prime minister’s office has been notified about the issue, and that the KDP delegation is now awaiting Baghdad’s instruction.
“Our candidates have the right to run their election campaign from inside Sinjar. However, since we do not seek any violence and provocations, we are now waiting outside Sinjar,” Kochar added.
Since October 2017, when the Iraqi Army and the Iran-backed Shia militias of Hashd al-Shaabi overran the Peshmerga positions in Kirkuk, Sinjar, and other disputed territories, the KDP suspended its political presence in these regions.
However, as part of the election rallies, the largest Kurdish political party is returning to the disputed territories. It has already opened campaign offices in Kirkuk where two candidates of the KDP are running for the Iraqi Parliament.
Sinjar, however, remains one difficult issue due to the presence of the PKK and its affiliated armed groups who reject other Kurdish political rivals despite the 2020 agreement between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Federal Government of Iraq which was made to remove the illegal armed groups and normalize the administrative and security situation in Sinjar.