NAJAF: The governor of Iraq’s Najaf province resigned on Friday, a day after another governor also quit following demonstrations against living conditions and corruption.
Louai Al-Yasseri resigned from his leadership in Najaf, in central Iraq, a day after the governor of Nasiriyah province in the south quit following the violent suppression of protesters.
Their departures underline the challenges facing war-scarred Iraq and how little has changed despite protests that swept Baghdad and the South two years ago.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to express their anger at corruption, unemployment and crumbling public services, and hundreds lost their lives in protest-related violence.
Yasseri announced at a press conference that he was leaving his post in the holy Shiite city, according to the official Iraqi News Agency.
His resignation follows harsh criticism from prominent Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, who emerged as kingmaker following legislative elections in October.
Sadr paid a public visit to the municipality in Najaf on Wednesday after “reports of corruption and shortcomings in this institution,” according to the news agency.
“We will work on dismissing the governor of Najaf and replacing him legally,” he said.
On Friday evening, Sadr welcomed the governor’s resignation as a “step in the right direction.”
In the past weeks, sporadic demonstrations have broken out across Najaf and the neighboring province of Diwaniya, as well as in Nasiriyah.
Protesters have decried living conditions and called for job opportunities for young graduates.
Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi held a security meeting Wednesday to discuss the protests, where he repeated the need to avoid “the use of force or shoot.”
The following day, the governor of Nasiriyah, Ahmed Ghani Khafaji, announced his resignation after protests in which three people were shot and wounded, according to a medical source.
The 2019 demonstrations petered out after bloody crackdowns and the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. More than 600 people were killed and tens of thousands injured throughout the protests.
Kadhemi moved the elections forward to October as a concession to the demonstrators.
But anger gave way to disillusion and the ballot saw record-low turnout.
The movement of Sadr — who once led a militia against American and Iraqi government forces — won 73 out of the assembly’s total 329 seats, the election commission said.
Governor of Iraq’s Najaf resigns after protests
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Governor of Iraq’s Najaf resigns after protests
- Louai Al-Yasseri resigned from his leadership in Najaf a day after the governor of Nasiriyah province quit
- Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to express their anger at corruption
Syria Kurds chief says ‘all efforts’ being made to salvage deal with Damascus
- Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal
- The two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism
DAMASCUS: Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said Thursday that “all efforts” were being made to prevent the collapse of talks on an agreement with Damascus to integrate his forces into the central government.
The remarks came days after Aleppo saw deadly clashes between the two sides before their respective leaders ordered a ceasefire.
In March, Abdi signed a deal with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to merge the Kurds’ semi-autonomous administration into the government by year’s end, but differences have held up its implementation.
Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal, adding in a statement that the two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism, and pledging further meetings with Damascus.
Downplaying the year-end deadline, he said the deal “did not specify a time limit for its ending or for the return to military solutions.”
He added that “all efforts are being made to prevent the collapse of this process” and that he considered failure unlikely.
Abdi also repeated the SDF’s demand for decentralization, which has been rejected by Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashar Assad last year.
Turkiye, an important ally of Syria’s new leaders, sees the presence of Kurdish forces on its border as a security threat.
In Damascus this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed the importance of the Kurds’ integration, having warned the week before that patience with the SDF “is running out.”
The SDF control large swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a US-led international coalition, were integral to the territorial defeat of the Daesh group in Syria in 2019.
Syria last month joined the anti-IS coalition and has announced operations against the jihadist group in recent days.
