Lahur Talabani, the ousted co-chair of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), has signaled that he will not fight back, saying the succession for the leadership of Iraqi Kurdistan’s second largest party is not “worth shedding blood” over. He was addressing an event held yesterday in the PUK’s administrative capital, Sulaimaniyah, attended by families of Peshmerga fighters slain in war.
Talabani, was effectively stripped of power in favor of his cousin Bafel Talabani over the past few weeks, his allies in charge of the intelligence and counterterrorism units were removed from their posts, his media outlets shuttered and companies seized. The moves have been described as a bloodless coup and were said to have been supported by the PUK’s chief rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the dominant power in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.
