SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Washington primarily wants to help Iraq’s Kurds defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) while also supporting greater autonomy for the Kurdistan Region, US deputy presidential envoy Brett McGurk told Rudaw.
“Our strategy first and foremost is to help you defeat Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Sunni militant group that controls roughly a third of Iraq and as much of Syria.
“We are conducting airstrikes every single day. We are helping the brave Peshmerga forces to defeat Daesh on the ground,” McGurk, the US Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for the global coalition against ISIS, said on a visit to the Kurdistan Region last week.
“Thanks to the Peshmerga and Iraqi security forces in the south, Iraq has now taken back 25 percent of territory that Daesh controlled in August,” he added, speaking to Rudaw on the sidelines of last week’s international Sulaimani Forum.
McGurk said that Washington also was working to achieve greater local control for Iraq’s autonomous Kurds in the north.
“We are also supporting Iraq move towards a functional federalism with more local autonomy, more local control. That’s something we are working with all of you -- Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, allowing local people to protect themselves against these threats,” McGurk said.
Asked about whether Washington would support Kurdish independence from Iraq, McGurk said: “These are decisions for the Kurds and Iraqis to make. There’s a constitutional framework here that we think provides the best future for Iraq and for the Kurds; it establishes a federal system.”
He advised that, “We have to make the constitution work; the constitution does not work effectively in recent years.”
The presidential envoy added that Washington was more optimistic that Iraq’s federal model would work better under Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, who assumed office last September.
“We do think there is a chance with this new government in Baghdad with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the cooperation we have seen for a federal model which is embodied in the constitution to work,” he said. “It will require Iraqis to come together and make some important decisions.”
Iraq’s Kurds, who have their own regional government, parliament and army, have threatened to break away from Baghdad, following serious differences over oil exports, finances and disputed territories.
McGurk stressed that, “We don’t insist in the unity of Iraq; we support the constitutional framework of Iraq.” He said: “We think that model is the basis on which you can have stability here in which all Iraqis can prosper, in which the Kurds can share the oil wealth from the south and the oil wealth from here can be shared with the rest of Iraq.”
The US official expressed concern about Iran’s role in Iraq, where Tehran has exercised growing influence since after Saddam Hussein was toppled in the 2003 US-led invasion and has commanders directing the Iraq Army in its war with ISIS.
“We’re concerned (over) some of the activities Iran is conducting in the region, and we have ways to counter that,” McGurk said.
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