Iraqi parliament seeks Kurd-Arab reconciliation in Nineveh

The governor of Nineveh province Athiel al-Nujaifi announced Thursday about the formation of a parliamentary committee that includes members of the Iraqi parliament from Nineveh province, to follow up and bring together the Hadbaa list which is led by Nujaifi and “Nineveh” Kurdish list which boycotted the local government since 2009.

Athiel Al-Nujaifi told AKnews that the committee was formed after the meeting that was held between MPs from the Kurdistan Blocs Coalition (KBC) and MPs from Nineveh province to discuss the relations between Nineveh and Hadbaa to improve the economic, political and security situation of the province.

The dispute between the two lists goes back to the elections of provincial councils done on January 2009 where Nineveh province witnessed tensed political situation after the acquisition of the Hadbaa list for the senior management positions in local government after winning 19 seats in the provincial council out of 37, while Nineveh Kurdish list got only 12 seats, prompting the latter to boycott the local government followed by 16 administrative unit.

The two sides held since that time several meetings in Erbil, Baghdad and Istanbul, Turkey, under the auspices of the United Nations but they didn’t resolve the outstanding problems.

In another context, the governor of Nineveh province described the demands of the Christians to estbalish their own region in the Nineveh Plain as “dangerous”, pointing out that “it hurts the Christians before the others, and they should not be isolated from the rest of Iraqi society.”

[Source : theiraqidinar.com]