This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIRKUK 000004 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BAGHDAD FOR POL, POLMIL, NCT 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  1/9/2016 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM IZ KDP
SUBJECT: (U) KURDISTAN REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS TO UNITE 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Richard K. Bell, Regional Coordinator, Exec, 
Department of State. 
REASON: 1.4 (b) 
 
¶1.  (U) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY:  The Kurdistan Democratic 
Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) announced 
January 7 that they had reached agreement on uniting the two 
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) administrations in Erbil and 
Sulaymaniyah.  The announcement was made by KRG President and 
KDP leader Masoud Barzani along with PUK politburo member Kosrat 
Rasoul Ali.  The allocation of leadership posts is reported 
below.  END INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY. 
 
(SBU) KURDS (FINALLY) ANNOUNCE UNIFIED REGIONAL GOVERNMENT 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
¶2.  (SBU) Following a meeting between KDP and PUK politburo 
delegations, hosted by President Barzani at his headquarters in 
Salahaddin, Erbil province, Barzani appeared on Kurdish TV 
January 7 with the PUK head of delegation, Kosrat Rasoul Ali. 
They announced that: 
 
-- The two parties had agreed to merge their separate KRG 
administrations (in Erbil: KDP-dominated; in Sulaymaniyah: 
PUK-dominated).  The long-awaited agreement will be presented to 
the Kurdistan National Assembly (KNA) for approval after the Eid 
al-Adha holiday (January 10-13). 
 
-- Erbil will be the capital.  (The KNA is already based there.) 
 
-- Implementation is to commence by early February:  after the 
KNA approves the agreement, the Prime Minister will need a 
couple of weeks to form his Cabinet and submit it to the KNA for 
approval. 
 
-- The KRG expects the status of Kirkuk to be resolved before 
the next KNA election.  (In other words, the KRG expects Kirkuk 
to be part of the Kurdistan Region by then.  According to the 
new Iraqi Constitution, the status of Kirkuk and other disputed 
territories is to be settled before the end of 2007.  The KNA 
was elected in January 2005 for a four-year term.) 
 
(U) WHO GETS WHAT 
----------------- 
¶3.  (SBU) According to Kurdish media reports and Kurdish 
contacts, the senior posts in the new, unified KRG will be 
divided as follows: 
 
-- Masoud Barzani (KDP) - President (no change) 
 
-- Kosrat Rasoul Ali (PUK) - Vice President (new position) 
 
-- Nechirvan Barzani (KDP) - Prime Minister (Nechirvan, Masoud's 
nephew, is the KRG-Erbil Prime Minister.  He will serve two 
years, i.e. through 2007.  PUK had been insisting on a one-year 
rotation) 
 
-- Omar Fattah (PUK) - Deputy Prime Minister (new position; he 
is the KRG-Sulaymaniyah Prime Minister) 
 
-- Adnan Mufti(PUK) - Speaker, Kurdistan National Assembly (no 
change) 
 
-- Dr. Kamal Kirkukli (KDP) - Deputy Speaker, KNA (no change) 
 
-- The PUK will hold the ministries of Development and Planning, 
Education, Endowment and Religious Affairs, Health, Human 
Rights, Interior, Justice, Reconstruction, Social Affairs, 
Communications, and Water Resources. 
 
-- The KDP will hold the ministries of Agriculture and 
Irrigation, Culture, Electricity, Finance, Higher Education, 
Martyrs, Municipalities, Natural Resources, Peshmerga Affairs, 
Region (Regional Affairs, explained to us as dealing with issues 
of disputed territory), and Sport and Youth. 
 
-- Smaller parties/ethnic or religious groups will get the 
following ministries: Environment (Kurdistan Islamic Group), 
Industry (Turcomans), Tourism (Chaldo-Assyrians), and 
Transportation (Communist Party).  (NOTE:  The last portfolio is 
according to a source close to the KDP; press reports had it 
going to the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), which seemed 
surprising, given that the KIU chose to run separately from the 
KDP/PUK-led Kurdistan Alliance list in the December national 
elections.  END NOTE.) 
 
-- The KDP and PUK reaffirmed their support for PUK leader Jalal 
Talabani to remain President of Iraq. 
 
-- We have heard unsubstantiated speculation that the PUK might 
also get a sweetener such as the post of Iraqi Foreign Minister 
for Barham Saleh, the current Iraqi Minister of Planning (vice 
Hoshyar Zebari of KDP). 
 
(U) LONG-AWAITED YET SURPRISING 
------------------------------- 
¶4.  (SBU) PRT Deputy Team Leader met on January 8 with Kirkuk 
Provincial Council Chairman Rizgar Ali Hamajan (PUK) and 
Governor Abdulrahman Mustafa (nominally independent Kurd).  Both 
seemed genuinely pleased by the announcement, but neither had 
any substantive comments.  The parties had professed to be very 
close to agreement for so long that this breakthrough appears to 
have caught even some insiders by surprise.  A KRG-Erbil 
minister who is generally very open with Western diplomats made 
no mention of it during a conversation January 7.  Just a few 
weeks ago, a senior PUK official had flatly told us that talk of 
unification was "just public relations." 
 
(U) COMMENT 
----------- 
¶5.  (C) This agreement will no doubt strengthen the Kurds' hand 
in the negotiations over formation of the new Iraqi government, 
and it responds to popular demand.  The PUK backed down from 
some of its demands, including one-year rotation of the Prime 
Ministership and ensuring that no one party got both the Prime 
Minister and Finance Minister.  A lot of mutual distrust still 
needs to be overcome if the two main parties are to succeed in 
merging their interior ministries and their peshmerga (military) 
forces. 
BELL