Peshmerga Integration in the Shadow of the US Withdrawal; Real Reform or Political Action?

According to KurdPress, the Kurdistan Watch Institute, in an analysis of the official announcement of the unification of the Peshmerga forces in the Kurdistan Region, has raised the question of whether this development means the end of the military duality between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan or simply a change in the name and organization of the forces of the two parties.

Shorush Ismail, Minister of Peshmerga Affairs in the Kurdistan Regional Government and a member of the Patriotic Union, has announced that the Peshmerga forces affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union have now officially been unified.However, Kurdistan Watch believes that this integration is largely nominal in practice, and the basic structure of the two parties’ forces has been preserved.

According to this analysis, the timing of this announcement with the process of US troop withdrawal from Iraq and the expiration of the memorandum of understanding between the US and the Kurdistan Region for the reform and integration of the Peshmerga forces is also significant. Over the past years, Washington has been one of the most important supporters of the creation of a single, professional structure under the command of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs in the Kurdistan Region.

According to the new structure, the forces of the Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union will continue to operate in their areas of influence, but are now organized into “Regional Command 1” and “Regional Command 2.”Regional Command 1, which is effectively the military structure of the KDP, will be under the command of Nejat Ali, the former commander of the KDP’s 80th Force. Its operational area will include Erbil, Dohuk and parts of Nineveh, and its brigades will be organized with odd numbers, including 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11.

Regional Command 2 will be under the command of Omar Saleh, the former commander of the Patriotic Union’s 70th Force. This command will cover areas under the influence of the Patriotic Union, including parts of Erbil, Kirkuk and Diyala, as well as all of Sulaymaniyah and Halabja. Its brigades will also have even numbers, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10.

Thus, the most significant change is in the field of personnel salaries and payments, rather than in the geography of deployment or chain of command of the forces.According to the new announcement, all Peshmerga forces must be placed under the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs’ pay system, a key US demand for reforming the Peshmerga forces.

However, Kurdistan Watch also has doubts about the practical implementation of this section. It is not yet clear whether the pay system has truly become a single system or whether the Democratic Party and Patriotic Union forces continue to receive salaries in two separate channels and are only administratively registered under the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs.

Therefore, what has now happened can be considered more of an “administrative and naming consolidation” than a full integration of the military forces.The existence of two regional commands, the continuation of forces operating in the areas of traditional influence of the two parties, and the retention of commanders affiliated with previous structures indicate that the historical duality of the Peshmerga forces has not yet been completely eliminated.

In fact, the main question now is not whether the Peshmerga forces have been officially declared unified; but whether this integration has also been implemented at the level of command, budget, pay, weapons, training, and chain of command. Until these elements are placed in a single structure, the official declaration of unification cannot be considered to mean the end of the parallel military structures of the Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union.