The Status of the Kurdish Forces After the US Withdrawal

According to KurdPress, Al Jazeera Network, in a report examining the status of the Peshmerga forces after the end of the international coalition mission in Iraq, considered the announcement of the unity of the Kurdish forces as an important step towards creating a single military force, but emphasized that the continuation of the separate political and geographical structures of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union could still be a serious obstacle to the full integration of the Peshmerga.According to Al Jazeera, the withdrawal of American forces and other members of the international coalition from Iraq comes at a time when the Kurdistan Region has relied on US and coalition military support to combat ISIS and ensure its security over the past years. The end of the Operation Resolute Support mission on September 30 has now brought the Kurdish forces into a new phase in which they must assume more of their own security responsibilities without the direct presence of foreign forces.

Al Jazeera referred to the September 21 ceremony in Erbil and wrote that the Kurdistan Regional Government announced the merger of forces affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union into a single military structure on the eve of the coalition's withdrawal.At the ceremony, Nechirvan Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Region, stressed that Kurdistan needs “one force, one ministry and one command” and that the Peshmerga must become a national force free from interference and party differences.

However, the Al Jazeera report emphasizes that the declaration of unity is not the end of the process. Zaidoun al-Kinani, a political analyst and director of the Arab Perspectives Institute in Doha, said that reducing the role of the party structures of the Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union in the Peshmerga forces could help stabilize Iraq and Erbil’s legal position vis-à-vis Baghdad, but the main test is how long this unity will last despite the continuation of two geographically different commands.Retired Lieutenant General Jabbar Yawar, a former secretary general of the Peshmerga Ministry, also told Al Jazeera that political differences between the two parties, including over regional governance and relations with Baghdad, could spill over into military institutions if the military forces remain under the influence of the parties.

Elsewhere in the report, the Peshmerga Ministry stressed the readiness of its forces for the period after the coalition's withdrawal. Othman Mohammed, a spokesman for the ministry, said the Peshmerga had always been on full alert and had resisted ISIS in 2014 despite limited resources. He also stressed the coordination between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi federal government's security forces, saying that this cooperation had become even more important after the coalition mission ended.