In a scene surprising to many, a smiling Nouri al-Maliki disembarked from an Iraqi airliner July 18 in the city of Sulaimaniyah and was received by senior officials from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two major parties in Iraqi Kurdistan. Maliki said his visit was merely a normal meeting with PUK and Gorran (Movement of Change) leaders in the wake of the two parties' having formed an alliance earlier this year. Many also noted, however, that the trip was taking place amid unconfirmed reports of his hopes of taking back the premiership from Haider al-Abadi, a fellow Islamic Dawa member and that party's leader. General elections are due to be held in 2018.

Once thought as poised to become Iraq's new strongman of sorts, Maliki had to vacate the office of prime minister in 2014, with many blaming him for the dramatic territorial sweep of the Islamic State (IS) through Iraq. Defying expectations that his reluctant relinquishing of the premiership would spell his end, Maliki has been working relentlessly behind the scenes for the past two years to retain the stature of a powerful politician and is now reported to be preparing for a comeback.

Maliki's visit to the Kurdistan region came at a time of deep fissures among the major Kurdish factions and disagreement over how to deal with the government in Baghdad. The two dominant parties in Sulaimaniyah, the PUK and Gorran, formed an alliance in mid-May that has put them at odds with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Led by Massoud Barzani, acting president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the KDP is the dominant party in the Kurdish government and has adopted rhetoric highly critical of Maliki. Whereas the KDP publicly advocates secession from Iraq, or at least greater powers for the Kurdish region in the form of a confederal structure, the PUK and Gorran favor reconciliation with Baghdad and exhausting all available options before any decision to push for statehood.

Against this backdrop, many have questioned Maliki's motive for visiting PUK-Gorran representatives and ignoring the KDP at a time of such acute political rivalry among Iraqi Kurds. “Whether Maliki’s visit was as innocent as he said or not, suspicions about his real intentions can only deepen when it is rumored … that Maliki is plotting to form a new alliance with the aim of returning to power as prime minister,” said Kamran Karadaghi, a veteran Iraqi Kurdish journalist and former chief of staff to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, also the PUK's leader.