Progress underway as the KRG has launched a series of meetings with political parties in the Kurdistan Region to strengthen unity ahead of political negotiations with Baghdad. Kurdish parties have been engaged in intensive talks after Baghdad rejected the vote and Iraqi forces pushed the Peshmerga back to 2003 borders. In the wake the losses, Gorran has called for the establishment of an interim government tasked with talking to Baghdad and preparing for elections. Gorran and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) met in Sulaimani for the first time yesterday since the independence referendum.
Meanwhile, the number of attacks in Iraq has fallen to its lowest since the Islamic State (ISIS) declared a “caliphate” in 2014. “Non-state armed group attacks and resulting fatalities represented the lowest monthly totals since the formation of ISIS and the declaration of the caliphate in June 2014, highlighting the extent of the decrease in operational activity by the group in Iraq.” The 126 attacks in October represented almost half the peak recorded in January 2017, while the 102 fatalities represented an 80.0 percent decrease from November 2016
Lastly, former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic has been jailed for life for genocide and other atrocities in the 1990s Bosnian war. Known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, Mladic led forces during the massacre of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) in Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo. The UN tribunal in The Hague convicted him on 10 of the 11 charges.
