SULAIMANIYA, Iraq-Iraqi Kurds began voting in a parliamentary election in their semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq on Sunday, following repeated delays. The vote is to elect 100 lawmakers who will then pick a parliament speaker, a president and a prime minister for Iraqi Kurdistan, which gained self-rule in 1991. The parliamentary elections, originally supposed to be held in 2022, have been repeatedly delayed due to disagreements between the two dominant parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Pa

A surprise ruling by Iraq's high court cast doubt on the legal foundations of the independent oil policy of Iraq's Kurdish-run region and threatened to drive a political wedge between the two governments, officials warned Wednesday.... The ruling “ will further exacerbate the disputes between the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government on the issues of oil and gas, ” he said.... The court ruled that Hoshyar Zebari was not eligible to run amid corruption allegations....

Polls closed at 6PM and official results were expected 24 hours later. Huri Mohammed, a 66-year-old housewife, said she voted for the KDP which dominates the regional capital Arbil, as it “ serves the people ”.... Tensions with BaghdadPolitical analyst Shivan Fazil, a PhD student at the US-based Boston University, noted that there was “ a growing fatigue with the region’s two ruling parties ”.... Fazil, who focuses on Iraq, said people’s living conditions “ have deteriorated over the last deca

Not just for Turkiye, which has waged a decades-long war against the group, but for the region at large, ” said Hamish Kinnear, senior analyst at Verisk Maplecroft.... Syrian Democratic Forces( SDF) commander Mazloum Abdi said he welcomed the historic call by Ocalan for the PKK to drop its decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state, which he said would have positive consequences in the region.... Abdi said Syrian Kurdish authorities would be organising their own local dialogue on th

The head of Iraq's forensics administration said Sunday, June 9, 2019, that his office will begin DNA testing to identify the remains of 141 bodies found in mass graves, believed to contain the Yazidi victims of the Islamic State group's campaign of massacres five years ago.... No state has offered to host international trials.” Yazidi survivor Nadia Murad( L) takes part in an interview with international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney at United Nations headquarters in New York, U.S., March 9