KRG speaker: Independent Kurdish state complex issue
Kurdish parliament Speaker Yusuf Mohammed Sadiq discusses with Al-Monitor the current issues of Iraqi Kurdistan.
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraqi Kurdistan — When Yusuf Mohammed Sadiq took up the position of speaker of the Kurdish parliament at the age of 36, the political circles in Iraq, and in particular the Kurdish ones, were shocked, as having a young man in this senior position was an unexpected development.
However, almost 1½ years after his accession to office, he remains unable to reach the parliament building in Erbil province after he was intercepted on Oct. 12, 2015, by a military group affiliated with President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Massoud Barzani.
Sadiq is affiliated with the Movement for Change, headed by Nawshirwan Mustafa, who founded the movement with a group of his comrades and a number of independents after he resigned from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by former President of Iraq Jalal Talabani, almost a decade ago. Thus, this bloc became one of the three main parties in the KRG as well as the federal parliament.
The text of an interview with Sadiq follows:
