The Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) has met with Turkish officials for the third time this year, marking the second such meeting since June. The party’s leader, Salahhaddin Bahhadin, held discussions with Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister in Ankara.
The KIU is the largest Islamic party in Kurdistan, rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood tradition. It currently holds seven seats in the Kurdistan Parliament and four in the Iraqi Parliament.
Despite its relatively modest representation, the KIU’s seven seats in the Kurdistan Parliament carry strategic weight, as no single party has secured a majority. This positions the KIU as a potential kingmaker or a divisive force in shaping the dynamics between the KDP and PUK within the Kurdistan Region's parliament.
The Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) has met with Turkish officials for the third time this year, marking the second such meeting since June. The party’s leader, Salahhaddin Bahhadin, held discussions with Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister in Ankara.
The KIU is the largest Islamic party in Kurdistan, rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood tradition. It currently holds seven seats in the Kurdistan Parliament and four in the Iraqi Parliament.
Despite its relatively modest representation, the KIU’s seven seats in the Kurdistan Parliament carry strategic weight, as no single party has secured a majority. This positions the KIU as a potential kingmaker or a divisive force in shaping the dynamics between the KDP and PUK within the Kurdistan Region's parliament.
The S&P 500 fell 1.3% to 4,204.36, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.7% to 32,943.33. The Dow posted a fifth straight weekly loss — its longest losing streak since 2019. The Nasdaq Composite tumbled 2.2% to 12,843.81. Though all three indexes opened in the green, stocks took a turn after a new report showed U.S. consumer sentiment deteriorated more than expected in early March as consumers' inflation expectations soared to the highest since 1981. The Security Service of Ukraine said in a tweet that it was able to effectively target Russian convoys near Kyiv because of messages sent to an official Telegram bot account called "STOP Russian War." Given the pro-privacy stance of the platform, it’s taken as a given that it’ll be used for a number of reasons, not all of them good. And Telegram has been attached to a fair few scandals related to terrorism, sexual exploitation and crime. Back in 2015, Vox described Telegram as “ISIS’ app of choice,” saying that the platform’s real use is the ability to use channels to distribute material to large groups at once. Telegram has acted to remove public channels affiliated with terrorism, but Pavel Durov reiterated that he had no business snooping on private conversations. WhatsApp, a rival messaging platform, introduced some measures to counter disinformation when Covid-19 was first sweeping the world. A Russian Telegram channel with over 700,000 followers is spreading disinformation about Russia's invasion of Ukraine under the guise of providing "objective information" and fact-checking fake news. Its influence extends beyond the platform, with major Russian publications, government officials, and journalists citing the page's posts.
from ms
