It has been a year since Qubad Talabani, an eloquent, skillful and brilliant diplomat, has vacated his position as the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) representative in Washington DC.
During his tenure, Talabani was able to expand Kurdish networks and influence within the complex Washington government, Congress, NGOs, think tanks and business communities.
Most importantly, he was able to establish the first Kurdish-American Congressional caucus and the first American -Kurdish business Council, to encourage and improve Kurdistan-America trade and business relations.
Now, Talabani is in Kurdistan, presiding over the Department of Coordination and Follow-Up in the office of KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, and his departure has left big gaps.
The office seems to have been paralyzed, with its website outdated and no visible activity that would promote Kurdistan in a positive way. When Talabani was in DC, he followed a busy schedule of meetings, always promoting Kurdistan and the Kurdish issue.
The people of Kurdistan should have the right to ask why the DC office has remained vacant for a year at such a critical time. If it is rivalry between the KRG’s two ruling parties – the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan – that has kept the position vacant, then the future of Kurdistan is still being decided by internal frictions of the ruling parties.
And if it is because there is no qualified or competent person to be found among the five million population of the Kurdistan Region, then maybe we should hire a competent non-Kurd to represent and promote Kurdistan in the US capital.
The Kurdistan parliament, which is supposed to be a watchdog over government, needs to raise this issue in the legislature, so that the matter can be resolved as soon as possible. Nothing seems to be more important and urgent than this issue, at a time when our rivals in Baghdad, Tehran and Ankara have the best lobbying powers, undermining the image of Kurdistan and its status in the Middle East.
Thus, Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani needs to act and decisively push for an appointment at the DC office, regardless of personal and partisan interests.
I have heard many accounts – including by President Barzani and Iraqi Kurdish President Jalal Talabani – of the difficulties of attracting any Western journalist in the 1970s and 1980s to talk about Kurdistan and Kurdish suffering under the vicious regimes of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. They tried hard to meet even low-ranking officials in Paris, London and Washington, but to no avail.
Today, we have a great office in the world's most powerful capital and spend millions of dollars to maintain it. But it does not seem that we appreciate and use it to the benefit of our people.
Having a representative in Washington does not help only the Kurdistan Region. It can also be used to explaining the situation in Syrian Kurdistan. The representative can explain the killings that are being committed by the Al-Qaeda against Kurdish civilians, and influence the US administration to act to protect Syrian Kurds – in the same way that Iraqi Kurds were protected through “Operation Provide Comfort” in 1991 against the brutalities of the former Iraqi regime.
For the Kurds, the current Middle East situation somewhat resembles that of the eve of the 20th Century, when France and Britain drew artificial borders through the heart of Greater Kurdistan, cutting it into four pieces. That happened because we did not have a lobbying power in London or Paris. We did not have anyone to represent us in various conferences held on the future of the Middle East after the First World War. We depended on our guns to defend ourselves and achieve our rights. We failed!
Now in the 21st Century, the same thing could happen if we cannot represent ourselves. We have guns, and in the meantime we can have representatives and diplomats in every world capital. We could still depend on our guns and ignore diplomacy, but the risk would be too great, and we could see history repeated.
We can send Peshmarga forces to western (Syrian) Kurdistan, but our ability to change the outcome of the Syrian civil war through military force is very limited.
What we can do is to send a competent diplomat to Washington, to influence policies and garner assistance for Syrian Kurds without risking what we already have, and without turning other regional powers against us.
For decades we have been accusing and blaming others for our failures, for not having a state and experiencing a century of repression. This indeed has been a scapegoat. If we fail this time, we have no excuse but to blame ourselves.
* Yerevan Saeed is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston. He is a regular commentator on Kurdish and Middle East affairs in the international media.
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