Peshmerga need ‘democratic controls’ in Kurdistan: Top US official

WASHINGTON, DC - The United States would like civil society in the Kurdistan Region and its Peshmerga forces to more normalize and standardize their two-way relationship, as the Kurdish fighting force develops, a State Department official has revealed.

‘’As the Peshmerga evolve into a long-term security force, it's important to have democratic controls over them and to have a professional structure that they work in,” US State Department Director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs Liam Wasley told Rudaw in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

The majority of the Peshmerga forces, numbering more than 100,000 troops, are made up of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) Unit 70 and the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) Unit 80.

For a decade, the United States and international partners have worked with Kurdish authorities to unify the Peshmerga forces, bringing troops loyal to the rival KDP and PUK under the umbrella of the Ministry of Peshmerga to operate as a modern army.

“The unification of that is one of the best ways to do that,” Wasley added. “So that it is a predictable, modern, democratic security force."

The Peshmerga began as revolutionaries fighting successive Iraqi rulers for greater Kurdish rights and independence. Winning some political autonomy in the 1990s and after 2003, the forces have remained cornerstones of the political parties that left their rebel camps in the mountains and entered the halls of governance.

“The Peshmerga were incredible, are incredible fighters, and the war against ISIS would have been very, very different without their mobilization,’’ he added.

Wasley has worked in Iraq and helped stand up NATO Mission Iraq, launched in 2018 in Baghdad, to help Iraqi Security Forces against ISIS and other threats.

“I think we are focused on helping the Iraqi government build a responsive security force both in the Ministry of Interior and in the Ministry of Defense that's responding to the Iraqi democratic authorities,” he said.

Wasley also touched on Washington and NATO’s concerns about militia groups that are not always responsive to the Iraqi commander-in-chief (currently Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani).

“We are very aware of some of the challenges that some of the militia forces pose,” he said, explaining that NATO and the US “are working to build a professional military, professional MOI that delivers on the security needs of a democratic state.”

While NATO’s office is currently in Baghdad and has lacked direct cooperation with the Peshmerga, ‘‘some of the cooperation with Peshmerga has gone very much through international partnerships, based out of Erbil,” according to Wasley.

NATO’s recent efforts largely have been preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, Russian threats, and cooperation between Russia and its partners like Iran, China, and North Korea.

“Iran and North Korea, but particularly the People's Republic of China, are enablers for the Russian war machine,” Wasley said. “Russia would not be able to continue this onslaught on the people of Ukraine if it was not getting the weaponry, the technology, and the support from its international partners.’’

Following the unexpected death of former President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran held snap elections on Saturday, resulting in the selection of Masoud Pezeshkian, who will be sworn in at the end of the month.

“I think we are very much in a wait-and-see mode to see how the new president chooses to act,” Wasley said days prior to the candidate’s win. “But the track record on Iranian flexibility and behavior in the past has not been good. So, the weight of that conversation, I think, falls on the new president.”

The State Department official was asked about NATO’s often debated purpose in the Middle East.

“We're not taking our eyes off the threat that terrorism poses in the region and globally,’’ he said.