ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraq's Second Deputy Parliament Speaker Shakhawan Abdullah on Thursday accused the head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front of inciting “strife and instability” in Kirkuk following reports of an Iraqi flag set on fire in a Kurdish neighborhood believed to be provoked by the leader.

“For some time, the leader of the Turkmen Front has been systematically attempting to incite strife and instability in the city of Kirkuk. These actions are incompatible with the position of a party leader,” Abdullah said in a statement, arguing that the role of the official should be to protect “brotherhood among the components, especially in a city like Kirkuk, which is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-sectarian city.”

The statement comes following reports that Mohammed Samaan, leader of the Turkmen Front, placed his picture in the Kurdish neighborhood of Shorja, although not a candidate himself, during the Iraqi parliamentary election’s campaign, leading alleged Kurdish youth to set the poster on fire.

Samaan later allegedly placed his name on Iraqi flags and hung them across the Kurdish neighborhood, causing widespread controversy and backlash after the remains of the burnt flag were published by the Turkmen Front and its supporters.

In a Wednesday statement, the Turkmen Front condemned “in the strongest terms” the burning of the flag as an extension of a “series of systemic attacks,” including the burning of the party’s posters. It blamed the security concerns on the province’s Kurdish Governor Rebwar Taha, from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). 

“The Iraqi Turkmen Front affirms that the attack on the Iraqi flag is an attack on the prestige and symbolism of the state, and on the will of all the people,” the statement added, calling on security institutions to take “decisive and immediate” steps to address the matter.

Abdullah accused Samaan of sending “a group of young people” to place the Iraqi flags with his name “to provoke Kirkuk’s youth.”

“It is suspected that they themselves burned the flag to create discord and clash with the components,” the official noted, asserting that with the “open-mindedness” of Kirkuk’s components, “we will bury that dream of the Turkmen Front leader.”

He further asked the Turkmen Front leader “not to cover up their failure and decline in votes in the last election by sowing discord and division among the components … and to set limits to their encroachments.”

The PUK scored first place in Kirkuk in Iraq’s parliamentary elections that took place on November 11, with more than 178,000 votes, while the Iraqi Turkmen Front came third place with only around 66,000 votes.

Multi-ethnic and disputed Kirkuk has long been marred by ethnic conflicts that intensified following a military takeover by the Iraqi forces that brought the province under Baghdad’s control in 2017, leading to rising targeted attacks on the Kurdish component.

The elections likewise were marred by a series of attacks on Kurdish voters carrying the flag of Kurdistan, offenses strongly criticized by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Region’s leading Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).