PHOTO: Hurriyet Daily News. Binali Yıldırım handed over the post to MHP deputy Celal Adan in a ceremony held on Feb. 19.
In Turkey, Binali Yildirim resigned from his post on February 18, 2019 to run for Istanbul mayor in the upcoming March 31 municipal elections. Yildirim handed over his office to interim Parliament Speaker Celal Adan of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and a new parliamentary speaker will be elected on February 24.
PHOTO: Kuwait News Agency
Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Mohammad Al-Halbousi met with visiting Kuwaiti Minister of Commerce and Industry Khalid Al-Roundhan on February 21 to discuss elevating the level of commercial ties between Iraq and Kuwait. The parliament speaker assured his guest that Iraqi legislators are keen on tackling all obstacles that may hamper development of commercial cooperation between Kuwait and Iraq. Kuwaiti Minister Al-Roundhan called for the lifting the level of commercial cooperation, expressing his opinion that the hurdles facing such an approach were trivial and could be handled.
PHOTO: Bulgarian Parliament.
On February 20, 2019, Bulgarian National Assembly President Tsveta Karayancheva met with Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia Talet Xhaferi. The North Macedonian Speaker visited Bulgaria for the occasion of the vote in the National Assembly on the bill for ratification of the Protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty of Accession of the Republic of Macedonia.
Bulgarian National Assembly Speaker Tsveta Karayancheva said that Bulgaria will continue its consistent support for Northern Macedonia’s efforts for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, and congratulated her counterpart on the successful completion of the ratification of the Prespa Treaty and on the adoption of the protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty for the accession of Northern Macedonia to NATO.
PHOTO: Reuters. Members of Kurdistan Regional Parliament attend a session in Erbil, Iraq. February 18, 2019.
Iraqi Kurdish lawmakers on February 18 elected an interim speaker of Kurdish regional parliament, although the Kurd’s second largest party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), boycotted the vote. Vala Fareed, nominated by the region’s dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was confirmed as interim speaker by 68 votes and became the first female speaker in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. The KDP acknowledged that once a binding political agreement is brokered between the two major parties, then the speakership would revert to PUK and a new vote would be held.
The 111-seat parliament legislates the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and its functioning is important to regional stability after several years of political upheaval culminated in an independence referendum in September 2017. The Kurdistan region as destabilized by the referendum, which damaged relations with the federal capital Baghdad and weakened Kurdistan Regional Government’s budget share. Relations have since improved, despite continued disagreements over oil exports.
PHOTO: APP. National Assembly of Pakistan.
The National Assembly of Pakistan adopted four motions on February 21 authorizing the speaker to constitute parliamentary committees on finance, national security, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and a special committee on Kashmir. Speaker Asad Qaiser has been empowered to finalize and approve the new committees in consultation with the Senate chairman and parliamentary leaders. Once established, the 21-member CPEC committee will oversee all related projects and ensure their timely completion.
PHOTO: TASR. Protest gathering in Bratislava on February 21.
One year after the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, thousands of Slovaks took to the streets on February 21 in commemoration. Organizers estimated that about 30,000 people participated in the event, and hundreds of other towns in and outside of Slovakia joined in.
The protesters repeated the demands they have been voicing throughout 2018, calling for an independent investigation of the murders and refused political interference with the investigation. They also called for a trustworthy government and a prime minister who does not need the approvals of his party leader.
Investigative journalist Ján Kuciak worked as a reporter for the news website Akutality.sk and focused mainly on investigating tax fraud of several businessmen with connections to top-level Slovak politicians. He and his fiancée were found shot dead on February 21, 2018 in their home. At the time of his murder, Kuciak was working on a report about Slovak connections with the Italian organized crime syndicate Ndrangheta, and had previously reported on organized tax fraud involving businesspeople close to the ruling Smer-SD party. The murder trigged the biggest protest since the 1989 Velvet Revolution on March 9, 2018 where more than 60,000 people took to the streets and resulted in the resignation of Robert Fico as Prime Minister on March 14, 2018.
BY MSEAP Cyber Secretariat (mseap@assembly.go.kr)
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