ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—After some diplomatic efforts by the Kurdish government for representation at the coalition defense ministers meeting in Washington this week its representative in the US capital, Bayan Sami Abdulrahman, attended the gathering on Thursday where she said the Kurdistan Region was playing a vital role in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS). “It’s important for the Kurdistan Region to have a voice in these conferences because of the role of the Peshmerga in the fight against ISIS and the KRG hosting big numbers of internally displaced people and refugees,” she told Rudaw. Kurdish leaders criticized their coalition partners for not inviting them to this and other anti-ISIS conferences in the past, and after reports of Kurdish absence from this week’s meeting, KRG representative Abdulrahman was invited as part of the Iraqi delegation led by foreign minister Ibrahim Jaafari. Abdulrhman said that she was at the meeting to thank members of the coalition and tell him to continue their support for the Kurdistan Region and Iraq. She added that in a brief meeting the US special envoy to the global anti-ISIS coalition, Brett McGurk had acknowledged the role of the Peshmerga in the fight against ISIS and that without the Kurds the war would not be won. On excluding the KRG from the event, Masrour Barzani, Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council tweeted on Wednesday: “It’s a travesty for US-led Global Coalition to exclude Kurds from the meeting in Washington DC given our leading role in war on ISIS,” According to KRG’s Washington representative, the US government sends official invitation to such events only to the Iraqi government, expecting to include the Kurds in the delegation. Therefore, Abdulrahman said, it’s the responsibility of the government in Baghdad whether or not the Kurds are represented. The US State Dept. confirmed in an email to Rudaw English that “Iraqi Representation at the Conference will likely be reserved to the head of the Iraqi government and the composition of their Delegation is a decision for the Iraqis to make,” For his party, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter praised the role of the Kurdish forces in the fight against ISIS and stressed the significance of closer cooperation between Baghdad and Erbil. “Kurdish forces have been -- have performed spectacularly well in the course of the counter-ISIL campaign and make a very strong contribution. The -- the -- therefore, the cooperation between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan regional government under President Barzani is very important,” Carter said at a press conference on Wednesday “By the way, not only the United States but many of the other coalition partners are -- are supporting the Peshmerga as well. We're supporting them in salaries, other with equipment and supplies and so forth,” he added.
