'You don’t solve issues by running away,' says Iraq's KRG PM
Masrour Barzani, in an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, discusses the dispute with the rival PUK party; relations with the US and Iraq; China; and the KRG’s ambitious economic reform and climate policies.
SALAHUDDIN — Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG), says that political and economic disputes should be resolved within the KRG Council of Ministers, not by Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) ministers boycotting the government.
“I hope they will eventually come back to the government,” said Barzani, who is a deputy president of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with Al-Monitor at his office in Salahuddin.
“They [the PUK ministers] have sworn an oath before the parliament, before the people of Kurdistan,” he said. “You don’t solve issues by running away, by not shouldering responsibility.”
The KDP and the PUK, as well as the Gorran (Change) Party, form a coalition government in the Kurdistan Region. The KDP holds 45 seats in the Kurdistan Regional parliament; the PUK holds 21, and Gorran 12 in the 111 seat chamber.
