ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani told a meeting of communist and leftist groups from Iraq and neighboring countries that leaders should place their trust on their own people, not outsiders.
"Our experience proved that when we count on our own people we will be successful," Barzani told the leaders of groups from Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, Jordan and Egypt in Erbil on Wednesday.
"In politics, anywhere in the world, when you look up to others for help, the result will only be failure," Barzani told the leaders, who met with him in the Kurdish capital.
Barzani told the delegation, led by Hamid Majid Musa who heads the Iraqi Communist Party, that the Kurds have paid dearly for the freedom they enjoy today in their autonomous enclave in northern Iraq.
Musa, who spoke on behalf of the Arab parties and applauded Kurdistan's stability and advanced economic progress, said that the Middle East is “a region where the regimes are responsible for the suffering of their people.
"These regimes are responsible for their citizens' poverty and corruption even though we have abundant natural resources.” he said.
In a joint statement, the groups said they observe the Kurdistan Region as an oasis of stability and peace in a region ravaged by war and turmoil.
Barzani, who is regarded as one of the most influential leaders in the region, told the delegates, "No matter how strong a state might be, if it doesn't have its people's trust it will collapse."
Speaking of the Kurds' long history of struggle for freedom and their rights, Barzani said, "The Kurds have a spirit of tolerance and forgiveness and they have never resorted to vengeance, even against their enemies."
"I am proud to be a member of a nation that has a culture of forgiveness and never resorted to extremism and vengeance," he added.
The Kurdistan Region is a three-province enclave of some five million people, most of them Sunni Kurds, but also Christians, Yezidis, Kakeis, and Shiites. Kurdistan has also provided shelter for thousands of Christians who fled Iraq's sectarian violence following the 2005-2008 civil war and most recently to more than 250,000 Syrian refugees.
