Ever since the Kurds of northern Iraq received semiautonomous status in 1991 (after the first Gulf War), two political parties have competed for control of the Kurdish regional government—the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party (known as the PUK). From 1994 to '96, the parties waged a bloody civil war that claimed more than a thousand lives and essentially divided the Kurdish territory into two separate fiefdoms. The civil war ended in 1998 with a U.S.-mediated cease-fire called the Washington Agreement.

The two parties joined forces in 2005 to form the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan, winning 25.6 percent of the vote in the 2005 elections for the Iraqi National Assembly and securing the post of president for Kurdish politician Jalal Talabani. The subsequent 2006 alliance by the two parties to jointly govern Iraqi Kurdistan has been tenuous at best, with both parties maintaining their own militias and separate finance ministries.

With increasingly aggressive rhetoric, each party has tried to position itself as the champion of the Kirkuk issue as a way to gain more support among the Kurdish population. A recent report by the International Crisis Group declared, "Neither party can afford to take the lead in sounding moderate on Kirkuk, as the other would promptly exploit such 'weakness' for rhetorical and political (especially recruitment) gain. … So when [KDP leader Masoud] Barzani calls Kirkuk 'the heart of Kurdistan,' [PUK leader Jalal] Talabani immediately has to say Kirkuk is 'the Jerusalem of Kurdistan.' It's like a bidding war."