Bafel Talabani (PUK) — interview ruling out a return to the PUK–KDP civil war (Al Jazeera, via Rudaw), 22 October 2018

"Over my dead body. And over the dead body of many, many Kurds.

This is just not something that will happen. […] We are still paying the price of that internal conflict.

Kurds will not, should not, and absolutely must not be allowed to kill Kurds. We need to be able to resolve our issues politically.

I think this is the absolute doomsday scenario that every Kurd with a single brain cell would do everything in their power to make [sure] this never, never happens […].

[…] We used to have a strategic alliance with the KDP and the strategic alliance was that the KDP would have - or one of the parties - would have the regional president and in return, the other party would have the president in Baghdad. […] So what we wanted to do was make some kind of an arrangement where Dr Barham [Salih], the PUK candidate, was the candidate of the Kurds as a whole. […] both parties ended up going to Baghdad with two different candidates. This saddened me a great deal because I would have preferred the Kurds to have made their own decisions before going to Baghdad.

The PUK has had problems internally. Imam Jalal [Talabani] became sick and then, sadly, passed away. […] But now a more unified and cohesive PUK is able now to make the appropriate agreements and alliances with all the political parties that it needs to do.

Some of the people I most respect politically and as people are members of the KDP, people like Nechirvan Barzani, obviously Kak Masoud [Barzani] himself, Kak Masrour [Barzani]."