Customs checkpoints between Kirkuk and the Kurdistan Region were removed on Saturday. February 16, according to NRT.

Talking with reporters on the sideline of Munich security conference on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif called for boosting ties with Kurdistan Region and stressed that the rights of Kurds in noryhern Syria have to be preserved.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leadership council decided in a meeting on Saturday, February 16, to dismiss former governor of Kirkuk Najmadin Karim from the party’s political bureau.

A delegation from Halabja, Iraqi Kurdistan  left for Kermanshah, a Kurdish province in western Iran, to impove ties.

Without an official agreement on Kirkuk, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) will not strike a deal on paper with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), PUK officials said Saturday. The comments came as the Change Movement (Gorran) and the KDP reached an agreement.

<p style="text-align: left;">The Kurdistan Regional Government&rsquo;s (KRG) Ministry of Natural Resources issued a directive to stop oil exports to Iran on Thursday, February 14, according to a customs official.</p>

The Change Movement (Gorran) has asked the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) for 12 percent of positions in the new Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), according to Gorran negotiating delegation member Aras Wali.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) met in Sulaimani on Friday, February 15, and appear close to sealing an agreement that would pave the way to forming a new government.

Dozens of Turkish police blocked a march by pro-Kurdish opposition lawmakers in Istanbul on Monday that was organised in solidarity with a hunger striking MP who was released from prison last month.

A group of Kurdish translators in Halabja, Kurdistan Region, are doing their utmost to add Kurdish language’s Sorani dialect to Google Translate. 

The new Kurdistan Region parliamnt speaker will be a member Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) as agreed between the party an the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), but the PUK  has been split in two directions with some officials saying the best solution is to resort to a secret ballot.

No Peshmerga units have been moved to Tuz Khurmatu district, The Secretary General of the Ministry of Peshmerga the Lieutenant General Jabbar Yawar said Monday, February 1.

An Iraqi parliament deputy stated on Monday that there are secret efforts by Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan Region, to return the Kurdish forces of Peshmerga to Kirkuk in northern Iraq.

Peshmerga forces will return to five front lines after an agreement was reached between Erbil, Baghdad, and Coalition officials, a Kurdish commander said on Monday, February 11.

“The story of the fall in Kurdish carpets is a sad one but nothing new,” said Lolan Sipan, the director of the Textile Museum in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. The decline in textile production is uniquely tied to Kurdish history and conflict. It also highlights the irony that while the Iraqi Kurds have greater sovereignty now than ever before in modern history, they are also simultaneously experiencing cultural decline. Today, only a few weavers remain and there is a risk that their knowledge will not be passed on to the next generation.