LONDON, UK—Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani said on Saturday that borders in the Middle East are being redrawn with fighting and ‘blood’ and that Iraq has one last chance to stay together by changing its system.
“If Iraq wants to stay together it has to pursue a different system of governance,” Barzani told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper.
Barzani said that Iraq has so far failed and their Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi “is the last attempt to save that country,”
The Kurdish president told the newspaper that the Peshmerga are in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in full force but that “they need heavy weapons if they are to participate in a decisive battle against ISIS,”
Barzani said that the Kurds will not accept any force other than the Peshmerga to defend the borders of the Kurdistan Region, particularly in Kirkuk.
“The Peshmerga do not need the help of any other force,” he said. “And Kirkuk will not fall to ISIS.”
This statement is clearly a response to plans by the Iraqi government and Shiite leaders to form new National Guard and militia forces for Kirkuk, Diyala and other parts of Iraq.
The Kurdish Peshmerga have lost nearly 1,000 soldiers in the fight to push ISIS militants from the borders of the autonomous Kurdistan Region.
The Kurdish president told the Arabic newspaper that Iraq’s Sunnis “were the losers in this war because the war is destroying their towns and villages,”
He added that the Sunnis need to “form a leadership that can speak on their behalf,”
Barzani said that ISIS was a strong organization with 50,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria who are joined by retired officers and military experts from the former Soviet Union and Arab countries.
“They [ISIS] have people from Pakistan and a large number of former Iraqi army officers and officers from some Arab countries,” said Barzani.
The president said that coalition airstrikes and anti-tank Milan missiles supplied to the Peshmerga by Germany were decisive in the war against ISIS.
“Without those attacks [airstrikes] the war would have dragged on with more casualties,” he said.
