Hemin Hawrami, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) foreign relations, discussed the formation of the Iraqi government, Kurdish expectations from Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) need for arms to fight the Islamic State (IS/ISIS) armies, in an interview with Rudaw. Here is an edited transcript:
Rudaw: What role did the United States and the United Nations play in convincing the Kurds and Sunnis to join the new Iraqi government of Prime Minister Heidar al-Abadi, despite the fact many of their demands were not met?
Hemin Hawrami: The government formation is not only important for Iraq, it’s important for a range of countries. The United States has invested a lot in Iraq and for their strategy against ISIS. The most fundamental point of that strategy is to have a new government in Iraq to cooperate with.
When ISIS moved into Mosul from June 9, (former) prime minister Maliki was asking for aerial support from the US. But since the government was sectarian, the US was hesitant. Unless we had a new government, with the full participation of the Sunnis and the Kurds, the US was reluctant to cooperate with the Iraqi government to deal with this terrorist organization.
The US was very interested and involved to make sure the government would be inclusive. In order to make it inclusive for all of us we had to remove Maliki because it became a personal issue: he wanted to be there himself for a third term.
The United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) mandate requires them to advise and support the political process in the country. That’s why both the US and UN were involved, and we appreciated their role.
Rudaw: Kurdish negotiators have presented a three-month timeframe. What will happen if this time passes without any concrete results from Baghdad?
Hemin Hawrami: It’s too early to say what our approach will be. But as the Kurdish political leadership indicated unanimously, we are giving Mr. Abadi a three-month opportunity to prove he is not Maliki. We are realistic. We understand that the things we are talking about will not all be implemented in three months. But some of them can. For example, within one week Abadi can reverse the decision that Maliki made to cut the budget of Kurdistan. It doesn’t need any legal procedure, the approval of the parliament; it doesn’t need the political consensus of Baghdad.
We know that Iraq may not have a lot of cash in the Development Fund of Iraq (the country’s account at the Federal Reserve in New York), but if they can commit themselves to a roadmap and a timeframe, it’s a good sign.
Rudaw: So you won’t be demanding that Baghdad pay almost $8 billion in arrears all at once.
Hemin Hawrami: They can start by sending August and September. Then every 2-3 months they can send back the amounts that they owe us.
Rudaw: What about the status of the Peshmerga?
Hemin Hawrami: We asked that the Peshmerga receive 17 percent of the Iraqi defense budget. Abadi mentioned in his program that he is going to establish the National Guard for each province, and within that the Peshmerga will be covered.
The Peshmerga are protecting Kurdistan and other places on behalf of the Iraqi defense system, they are part of the Iraqi defense system. So, they must be paid, trained, equipped, armed as part of the Iraqi system, not at the expense of the 17 percent share of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) budget.
Rudaw: In his first cabinet meeeting Abadi requested a draft of the National Guard Bill within two weeks. Do you expect to see any clarification of the Peshmerga’s status by then?
Hemin Hawrami: It’s too early to expect anything within two weeks, because we still don’t have a minister of defense or the interior. The Kurdish ministers have not all been decided yet -- who is going to take which portfolios in Baghdad -- so I don’t expect concrete results.
Rudaw: Can Article 140, which would once and for all determine the status of the disputed territories -- including Kirkuk – realistically be implemented during this time?
Hemin Hawrami: We just want Mr. Abadi to set a date for the referendum. We understand that it might not be possible to set that date within the next three months, but he can set a date in coordination with us and the UN.
Rudaw: Does an agreement on oil exports need to be enshrined in a new national Hydrocarbon Law?
Hemin Hawrami: We have a text from 2007. Are we going to agree on that text in these three months or not, or are we going to have a new formula? Within these three months, he must decide. He can give us good reasons for us not to pursue any other options. I think three months is more than enough to prove he is not Maliki.
Rudaw: Certain Kurdish lawmakers have complained that Baghdad has tried to link repayment of the budget to negotiating a new oil agreement.
Hemin Hawrami: The KRG budget is a separate issue. To show that Kurdistan is not part of the problem, we are ready to go back to the previous agreement from last year to send 100,000 barrels of oil from Kurdistan through the State Organization for the Marketing of Oil (SOMO) to sell to the international oil market. In exchange for that, they would send the budget.
Rudaw: A delivery of US military equipment, including Predator and Reaper drones and armed Navy EA-18 radar jamming aircraft, will arrive in Kurdistan this week. Will the U.S. military set up an airbase?
Hemin Hawrami: We don’t have an official American airbase in Kurdistan. We are using Erbil International Airport.
Rudaw: Can you explain how this will change the battle against IS?
Hemin Hawrami: By seizing the equipment of five divisions and the Iraqi Federal Police, Syrian opposition, and the Syrian regime, ISIS outgunned the Peshmerga. We have been under sanctions for the last 10 years. We have not been allowed to equip them, and we have not been given enough financial support to buy weapons for ourselves. The many countries that were asking to sell us weapons were telling us very openly that they were not allowed to sell us weapons. Thanks to the recent decisions of the US, France, UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania and others, this is going to change.
We just need armaments and training; we don’t need boots on the ground from any country to fight this war for us. We want these countries to support our Peshmerga -- arm, train, and make them capable.
Even for future confrontations against terrorists, there will be no need to support us militarily. In the coming 4-5 years, we hope the Peshmerga will be better equipped and trained, and that certain sanctions will be removed. Why should they not have tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers, for example? I hope that they will be a part of an international military unit to fight terrorists in other countries and be part of peacekeeping missions.
Rudaw: Many of the countries that have sent weapons have negotiated end use agreements with the KRG to make sure the arms are not used outside of Iraq. Do you see the Peshmerga playing any role in the war in Syria?
Hemin Hawrami: That’s a delicate situation because we are responsible for security of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. We are within Iraq, so we are responsible for the sovereign territorial integrity of Iraq. But we have not been asked to go into Syria. Even if we were asked, we have to defeat ISIS in Iraq first. It will be up to the international community to provide aerial support and partner with the Syrian opposition. Nobody can replace the Syrian opposition in the fight against ISIS inside Syria.
Rudaw: What role will the Syrian branch of the KDP (KDP-S) play in the fight?
Hemin Hawrami: The decision to equip and arm the moderate Syrian opposition includes the Syrian National Coalition (SNC). The KDP-S and the rest of the Kurdistan National Coalition are a part of the SNC. If anything goes to the opposition, it will end up with the KDP-S, which is a strong pillar of the SNC coalition.
Rudaw: What role did the United States and the United Nations play in convincing the Kurds and Sunnis to join the new Iraqi government of Prime Minister Heidar al-Abadi, despite the fact many of their demands were not met?
Hemin Hawrami: The government formation is not only important for Iraq, it’s important for a range of countries. The United States has invested a lot in Iraq and for their strategy against ISIS. The most fundamental point of that strategy is to have a new government in Iraq to cooperate with.
When ISIS moved into Mosul from June 9, (former) prime minister Maliki was asking for aerial support from the US. But since the government was sectarian, the US was hesitant. Unless we had a new government, with the full participation of the Sunnis and the Kurds, the US was reluctant to cooperate with the Iraqi government to deal with this terrorist organization.
The US was very interested and involved to make sure the government would be inclusive. In order to make it inclusive for all of us we had to remove Maliki because it became a personal issue: he wanted to be there himself for a third term.
The United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) mandate requires them to advise and support the political process in the country. That’s why both the US and UN were involved, and we appreciated their role.
Rudaw: Kurdish negotiators have presented a three-month timeframe. What will happen if this time passes without any concrete results from Baghdad?
Hemin Hawrami: It’s too early to say what our approach will be. But as the Kurdish political leadership indicated unanimously, we are giving Mr. Abadi a three-month opportunity to prove he is not Maliki. We are realistic. We understand that the things we are talking about will not all be implemented in three months. But some of them can. For example, within one week Abadi can reverse the decision that Maliki made to cut the budget of Kurdistan. It doesn’t need any legal procedure, the approval of the parliament; it doesn’t need the political consensus of Baghdad.
We know that Iraq may not have a lot of cash in the Development Fund of Iraq (the country’s account at the Federal Reserve in New York), but if they can commit themselves to a roadmap and a timeframe, it’s a good sign.
Rudaw: So you won’t be demanding that Baghdad pay almost $8 billion in arrears all at once.
Hemin Hawrami: They can start by sending August and September. Then every 2-3 months they can send back the amounts that they owe us.
Rudaw: What about the status of the Peshmerga?
Hemin Hawrami: We asked that the Peshmerga receive 17 percent of the Iraqi defense budget. Abadi mentioned in his program that he is going to establish the National Guard for each province, and within that the Peshmerga will be covered.
The Peshmerga are protecting Kurdistan and other places on behalf of the Iraqi defense system, they are part of the Iraqi defense system. So, they must be paid, trained, equipped, armed as part of the Iraqi system, not at the expense of the 17 percent share of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) budget.
Rudaw: In his first cabinet meeeting Abadi requested a draft of the National Guard Bill within two weeks. Do you expect to see any clarification of the Peshmerga’s status by then?
Hemin Hawrami: It’s too early to expect anything within two weeks, because we still don’t have a minister of defense or the interior. The Kurdish ministers have not all been decided yet -- who is going to take which portfolios in Baghdad -- so I don’t expect concrete results.
Rudaw: Can Article 140, which would once and for all determine the status of the disputed territories -- including Kirkuk – realistically be implemented during this time?
Hemin Hawrami: We just want Mr. Abadi to set a date for the referendum. We understand that it might not be possible to set that date within the next three months, but he can set a date in coordination with us and the UN.
Rudaw: Does an agreement on oil exports need to be enshrined in a new national Hydrocarbon Law?
Hemin Hawrami: We have a text from 2007. Are we going to agree on that text in these three months or not, or are we going to have a new formula? Within these three months, he must decide. He can give us good reasons for us not to pursue any other options. I think three months is more than enough to prove he is not Maliki.
Rudaw: Certain Kurdish lawmakers have complained that Baghdad has tried to link repayment of the budget to negotiating a new oil agreement.
Hemin Hawrami: The KRG budget is a separate issue. To show that Kurdistan is not part of the problem, we are ready to go back to the previous agreement from last year to send 100,000 barrels of oil from Kurdistan through the State Organization for the Marketing of Oil (SOMO) to sell to the international oil market. In exchange for that, they would send the budget.
Rudaw: A delivery of US military equipment, including Predator and Reaper drones and armed Navy EA-18 radar jamming aircraft, will arrive in Kurdistan this week. Will the U.S. military set up an airbase?
Hemin Hawrami: We don’t have an official American airbase in Kurdistan. We are using Erbil International Airport.
Rudaw: Can you explain how this will change the battle against IS?
Hemin Hawrami: By seizing the equipment of five divisions and the Iraqi Federal Police, Syrian opposition, and the Syrian regime, ISIS outgunned the Peshmerga. We have been under sanctions for the last 10 years. We have not been allowed to equip them, and we have not been given enough financial support to buy weapons for ourselves. The many countries that were asking to sell us weapons were telling us very openly that they were not allowed to sell us weapons. Thanks to the recent decisions of the US, France, UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania and others, this is going to change.
We just need armaments and training; we don’t need boots on the ground from any country to fight this war for us. We want these countries to support our Peshmerga -- arm, train, and make them capable.
Even for future confrontations against terrorists, there will be no need to support us militarily. In the coming 4-5 years, we hope the Peshmerga will be better equipped and trained, and that certain sanctions will be removed. Why should they not have tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers, for example? I hope that they will be a part of an international military unit to fight terrorists in other countries and be part of peacekeeping missions.
Rudaw: Many of the countries that have sent weapons have negotiated end use agreements with the KRG to make sure the arms are not used outside of Iraq. Do you see the Peshmerga playing any role in the war in Syria?
Hemin Hawrami: That’s a delicate situation because we are responsible for security of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. We are within Iraq, so we are responsible for the sovereign territorial integrity of Iraq. But we have not been asked to go into Syria. Even if we were asked, we have to defeat ISIS in Iraq first. It will be up to the international community to provide aerial support and partner with the Syrian opposition. Nobody can replace the Syrian opposition in the fight against ISIS inside Syria.
Rudaw: What role will the Syrian branch of the KDP (KDP-S) play in the fight?
Hemin Hawrami: The decision to equip and arm the moderate Syrian opposition includes the Syrian National Coalition (SNC). The KDP-S and the rest of the Kurdistan National Coalition are a part of the SNC. If anything goes to the opposition, it will end up with the KDP-S, which is a strong pillar of the SNC coalition.
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