58 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 2017) THE LOSS OF DISPUTED TERRITORIES: WHAT IS NEXT FOR THE KURDISTAN REGION? By Hawre Hasan Hama and Dastan Jasim* The October 2017 clashes between Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the disputed territories of the Kurdistan Region led to the loss of territories previously controlled by the Kurdish Peshmerga, including the city of Kirkuk and Sinjar. This article will discuss the various factions of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) as well as the internal dispute between the PUK and KDP. It will also identify possible scenarios for each disputed area. Last, the wider conflict between the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan Region will be addressed. The intertwining of these various political, diplomatic, and military conflicts has brought severe impediments to the Kurdistan Region after the Kurdish independence referendum process. The article concludes that a federal solution with a strong judicial arrangement is the optimal scenario. INTRODUCTION At midnight on Sunday, October 16, 2017, Iraqi forces--including the U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service and the Iranian-backed, mainly Shi’i, Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi)--launched an attack on the Peshmerga-controlled territories south and west of Kirkuk in the Kurdistan Region. The following day, on Monday afternoon, Iraqi forces entered the city of Kirkuk, and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered Iraqi forces to remove the Kurdish flag in the disputed areas and leave only the Iraqi flag. 1 As a result, the Kurds lost their “Jerusalem” and future capital of their own state, Kirkuk. As of the writing of this article, the Kurdish forces have lost almost all of the disputed areas, 2 and no Kurdish party has taken responsibility for these losses. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) accused the main branch of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of leaving the city without fighting. According to Hemin Hawrami, senior assistant to Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, the Peshmerga left the two positions in Kirkuk due to "internal issues" among officials of the PUK (the dominant party in Kirkuk, which has its own security forces and Peshmerga). He also claimed that “ambiguous dealings” resulted in the withdrawal. 3 Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani also issued a statement on October 17, 2017, stating that members from a certain political party had unilaterally paved the way for the attack on Kirkuk, which resulted in the withdrawal of the Peshmerga forces there. 4 The largest PUK faction, however, has attributed this to the results of September 25, 2017, independence referendum in the disputed territories, claiming that the KDP and its leader, Masoud Barzani, were largely responsible for this setback. This article will discuss these developments in detail and offer scenarios for PUK intra-conflicts, PUK-KDP relations, and KRG relations with Baghdad in light of these events. PUK INTERNAL CONFLICTS The PUK was founded by Jalal Talabani in 1975, after the Iraqi Kurds’ defeat during the 1974- 1975 revolution. 5 From its foundation to the present day, there have always been fragments and splits within the PUK; the party’s base is comprised of socialist, leftist, and nationalist groups. The word “Union” remains an unachieved goal of the PUK. The most recent division of the PUK occurred in