IRBIL, Iraq: Kurdish lawmakers have ended their boycott of the national parliament in an apparent concession to Baghdad after a prolonged military and political standoff following the controversial Kurdish independence vote in September.
Members of parliament from the Kurdish party that spearheaded the referendum campaign returned to Baghdad on Thursday.
They had boycotted the parliament since it voted to declare the Kurdish independence referendum unconstitutional.
The end of the boycott comes on the heels of a decision from the Kurdish regional government this week to accept an earlier federal court ruling that Iraq must remain unified.
Iraqi forces led by Baghdad and the Kurdish peshmerga fighters have engaged in a military standoff since Baghdad retook the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and several other disputed territories from peshmerga’s control last month.
Iraqi Kurds end parliament boycott in concession to Baghdad
Iraqi Kurds end parliament boycott in concession to Baghdad
Israel agrees to ‘limited reopening’ of Rafah crossing: PM’s office
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza.
Reopening Rafah forms part of a Gaza truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed after Israeli forces took control of it during the war.
The Israeli military also said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, a non-commissioned officer in the police’s elite Yassam unit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the reopening would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.
It said Israel’s military was “currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return” Gvili’s body.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” it said.
