Bafel was also behind his younger brother Qubad Talabani's emergence as a political figure with the latter becoming deputy prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan.

He is claimed to have had a decisive role in bringing back traditional PUK leaders as a high-ranking member of the Talabani family.

He rejected as "baseless" claims that this was part of a deal he had brokered with Baghdad and Tehran, arguing that his forces had indeed fought and lost soldiers but decided to withdraw because of too many losses had occurred within the ranks of the Peshmerga.

[6] Moreover, it emerged in a New York Times interview published in November 2017 that before the hand-over of Kirkuk, Bafel proposed yet another out of the box solution.

According to the New York Times article, Bafel was unable to build consensus among the PUK and the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party to proceed with his alternative plan.