The speaker of Iraq’s central government met with Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani in Irbil on Sunday.
Iraq’s Kurdish region voted for independence in a symbolic but controversial referendum two weeks ago. Baghdad responded by banning international flights out of the region and threatening to suspend Kurdish representatives from the national parliament.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi demanded the Kurdish self-government annul the results.
Turkey and Iran also threatened punitive measures against the Kurdish region, fearing Kurds in their own countries would renew their campaigns for self-rule.
In the meeting, Iraq’s Parliament Speaker Salim Jabouri and Barzani stressed the need to avoid tensions between the two sides, according to a Rudaw report quoting a statement from the Kurdistan presidency.
The passing of Iraq’s Kurdish former President Jalal Talabani, seen as a unifying figure in post-invasion Iraq, failed to reconcile the two sides. Al-Abadi skipped the funeral Thursday, held in the Kurdish city of Suleimaniyah. Talabani’s casket was draped in a Kurdish flag.
Jabouri and Barzani also reaffirmed the need to calm the political situation, taking the “principle of dialogue with an open agenda,” the statement read, adding that all sides have to take part in talks to seek a resolution for the problems between Irbil and Baghdad.
The Rudaw report quoted Hemin Hawrami, a senior assistant to President Barzani, as saying that Irbil informed Jabouri that the Kurdish government is ready for dialogue with Baghdad “without preconditions from any side in a defined time frame.”
A statement from the office of the Iraqi speaker said that his visit was to help rebuild the strained relations between Irbil and Baghdad that have reached a “dangerous” level to the point that regional countries have begun to interfere, something he said “threatens the security and stability of Iraq as a state.”
The speaker emphasized his position that the unity of Iraq should be preserved and his discussions with Barzani focused on how to find a way to “get over what happened, especially in the disputed areas.”