Following this visit there was another more clandestine delegation, this time led by none other than the infamous Qasim Soleimani, a senior military commander who is known as one of Iran's most secretive, most influential envoys. The visit wasn't announced in local media and Soleimani's delegation quietly met with the Kurdish President, the Prime Minister and a delegation from the PUK party.
“The main reason for the visits was to discuss the presidency,” confirms Mohammed Tawfiq Rahim, the coordinator of diplomatic relations for the Change movement. “During the meetings with the Iranian and Turkish delegations, we discussed this particular issue.”
It would appear that Turkey wants the issue resolved in the interests of the KDP while Iran wants a solution that doesn't harm or degrade the PUK's interests.
“The Iranian and Turkish delegations have taken two directions,” Abu Bakr al-Karawani, a local political analyst, told NIQASH. “The first direction sees them interfering in the internal affairs of the region to protect their own interests and the second direction has them pushing their favourite political parties in the region.”
These neighbours have always played a significant role in Iraqi Kurdistan, al-Karawani concludes, and they continue to do so today.
In turn, the US also wanted to have a say on the matter. On August 6, a delegation that included US Special Envoy, Brett McGurk, the US Ambassador to Iraq, Stuart Jones, and the new US Consul General in Erbil, Matthias Mettmann. This delegation met the same officials that the Iranian and Turkish delegations had met earlier.
Sources inside the meetings told NIQASH that all of the delegations had said they did not want to interfere in Iraqi Kurdistan's affairs and especially not on this topic. All of the delegations stressed that Kurdish political parties should debate the issue and come to a decision and that all of the countries concerned would respect their decision.
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