SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Sinjar’s self-administration council on Saturday warned of the risk of sending forces to the district by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), saying it will use its rights to defend the town.
In a statement, the council said it had received information that the KDP was planning to send forces to Sinjar.
“The KDP’s [intention] to bring forces to Sinjar in the last week of election campaign is to create chaos,” it said.
“It is clear that the KDP candidate will not win in the election, and they have issues within the party. Therefore, they want to hide their defeat by creating wars and tensions,” it added.
The Sinjar’s self-administration warned that it would start a “big resistance” if a KDP’s armed force entered the district.
“If an attack was launched against our people, we will use the right of protection and we will not accept the invasion of Sinjar,” it continued.
It also called on the federal government to carry out its duty against the “KDP’s attempts”, saying it should not allow Sinjar and its people to be “oppressed”.
Sinjar, overran by Islamic State (ISIS) militants in 2014, is now under the control of the Iraqi security forces, according to authorities in Baghdad.
Iraqi military officials in the past months have said that there were no other armed groups in Sinjar except for the federal forces.
In October 2020, the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) reached an agreement to normalize the governance and security situation in Sinjar.
Under the deal, all armed groups should leave Sinjar and allow the Iraqi security forces to take control of the district.
However, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials says the deal have not been implemented.
KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said the armed groups which were supposed to leave the district under the agreement were still present there.
“As long as I know, the Sinjar agreement hasn’t been implemented … The parties supposed to leave those areas are still present there,” Barzani said in a press conference on February 10.
“The normalization of the situation to allow the return of the displaced people living in camps has not been implemented as well,” Barzani added.
“We are seriously waiting for the agreement to be implemented as it is, but unfortunately it has not yet, even though we lost a lot of time.”
