Mulla Bukhtiyar, head of political office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), attends a news conference after a meeting of the three main Kurdish parties in the region in Erbil, Iraq on Sept. 12, 2017. The Kurdish parties on Tuesday expressed their regret for the Iraqi parliament's decision to reject the independence referendum of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region slated for Sept. 25. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood)
