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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The US consul general to Erbil, Matthias Mitman, spoke at the American University in Duhok-Kurdistan on Monday on US policy towards events facing Kurdistan and Iraq, including the US response to the refugee crisis, the fight against ISIS and US attitudes towards the ongoing conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“We’re doing everything we can working with international donors, with the United Nations, to ensure security, to ensure basic human needs are met—shelter, food, clothing—of the IDPs, including Christians, Yezidis, Shabaks, even Shiite and Sunni who have fled the area where Daesh is,” Mitman said in regards to the Kurdistan region coping with refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). “We’re doing everything we can to ensure their safety while they’re in the Kurdish region.”
Daesh is the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
“We’re doing everything we can to defeat Daesh that will enable you to return to your homes,” he continued commenting on US support for the Kurdistan region’s war with ISIS.
Though Mitman was supportive of Kurds in the Kurdistan region, on the topic of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict he maintained US official views that PKK attacks against Turkish military and police targets amount to terrorism, and urged both sides to seek peace.
“We certainly support a return to the peace process between the government of Turkey and the PKK,” Mitman said. “We condemn the terrorist acts that have been committed and claimed by PKK against Turkish soldiers and Turkish policemen. We think those terrorist attacks should stop.”
More of Mitman’s comments can be found in the above video.
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