ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) remains committed to actively supporting the federal government in addressing the economic and security challenges facing Iraq, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said Thursday.
"Today our joint efforts are laying the foundations of a new Iraqi state under the government led by [Iraqi] Prime Minister [Ali] al-Zaidi,” Masrour Barzani stated while addressing the commencement ceremony of the American University of Kurdistan in Duhok, adding “a government we have resolved to support actively and fully as it continues the political, security, and economic challenges facing Iraq and the wider region.”
Barzani said the Kurdistan Region had backed Iraq through actions, not just words, increasing its contribution to the country's oil exports when the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz disrupted regional energy flows and supplying electricity to other parts of Iraq despite facing its own power needs.
Iraq has relied on pipelines running through the Kurdistan Region as vital alternative routes for crude exports for several months amid ongoing disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies normally passes.
The disruptions followed a six-week conflict that erupted in late February when the United States and Israel struck targets across Iran.
For Iraq, disruptions to the maritime passage dealt a severe blow to the country's energy sector and wider economy, causing overall crude production to plummet from around 4.14 million barrels per day (bpd) before the crisis to as low as 1.49 million bpd at its worst point.
The Kurdish prime minister stressed that the Kurdistan Region had extended assistance to the federal government despite having “faced an intensive campaign of terrorism,” referring to attacks by Iran and its proxies in Iraq.
“More than 1,000 drones and missiles aimed at our infrastructure, our economy, and our progress," Barzani said, noting that the attacks had failed to halt the Region's governance.
"We confronted [Islamic State] ISIS and defeated it by standing together with our partners and allies," Barzani stated, adding, "we will confront this threat the same way. And we will defeat it the same way."
"A strong Iraq needs a strong Kurdistan. A strong Kurdistan brings peace and prosperity to this entire region. And a strong Kurdistan needs unity," Barzani said, reiterating that Erbil had chosen power-sharing and partnership with Baghdad to build functioning state institutions.
