Kurdish PM discusses migration flow, climate change and regional peace

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region refused to accept that people have migrated because of a lack of jobs and security in a conversation with journalist Martin Chulov on Tuesday, which also touched upon issues including the impact of climate change, and the Region’s relations with Syria, Iran and the United States.

Speaking at the Middle East Peace and Security (MEPS) Forum at the American University of Kurdistan (AUK) in Duhok, Masrour Barzani told the audience of Iraqi and Kurdish leaders and experts that, “people did not leave this area under any sort of pressure,” and that the “concerning scenes” we are seeing at the moment appear to be part of a “political game”.

At least 8,000 Kurds have so far travelled to Belarus with the hope of gaining access to western Europe, which has in turn fortified itself against the wave of migrants it accuses Minsk of luring to the Polish border in protest of European Union (EU) sanctions.

In Tuesday's conversation, Barzani said that many of those currently at the Polish border, “have spent thousands of dollars to travel agents”, suggesting that “if they could come up with thousands of dollars to pay for their trip”, they could have also invested capital in creating employment opportunities at home. He also told the audience that his cabinet has so far created over 100,000 jobs.

“Yes we couldn’t pay full salaries every month, but we did pay salaries every month. And there are job opportunities; since the beginning of this cabinet until now, we have created about 112,000 jobs by reactivating some of the projects, some by the private sector, some by public partnership and some sponsored by the government itself,” Barzani said.

A number of the Kurdish migrants trapped in the standoff between Minsk and the EU are among the list of Iraqis scheduled to return home by the end of the week, an official told Rudaw on Tuesday, and Barzani echoed his intention to help people return home, calling on Europe to allow humanitarian aid.

“We are reaching out to our friends abroad and dealing with Baghdad to find a way for all of those who are willing to come back to return, and until then we are asking our partners in Europe to allow the Red Cross to provide immediate aid to people in much need.”

Questioned by Chulov about ongoing issues with Baghdad over the budget allocation, Barzani told the audience that the Region had “been receiving about less than 5% of the Iraqi budget”, lamenting the fact that Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) “never received 17% of the Iraq budget”; a figure based on the personal decision of a previous prime minister, which has been subsequently reduced over previous years.

Later in the conversation, he gave the example of the accumulation of collective debts from four years of fighting against ISIS from 2014 until 2017. “Not a single dollar was paid to the KRG from Baghdad, so the KRG had to borrow money from oil traders to be able to run its affairs.”

“When you look at the overall revenues, these revenues are not enough to pay the debts, to pay the salaries, and to also improve the economy of this region”, Barzani commented, justifying his government’s moves towards cutting expenditure and moving away from the situation in which 85% of the government budget goes directly towards the salaries of people on the government payroll.

“We are diversifying the economy to look at other sources of revenues. We are looking at improving agriculture, and building industries, and looking at tourism to be additional revenue avenues for the KRG.”

Asked whether, if the opportunity presented itself, he would join the rapprochement with Damascus and travel to see the “pyrrhic" victor Bashar al-Assad, or even invite him to Erbil, Barzani did not shut down the suggestion. Instead, the prime minister stressed his preference for peaceful dialogue. He would be keen to promote peace and stability with Syria in this way, he told Chulov, not least for Kurdish population in northern Syria. 

Of the 200,00 Syrian Kurds who came to the KRG during the last Turkish incursion in October 2019, “very few of them have returned”, Barzani said, attributing the reason for their lack of return to the uncertain future of Rojava.

“They don’t know if the United States is going to stay there or not. They don’t know if this part of Syria is going to be sandwiched between the pressure from the South and the pressure from the North, so they just don’t know what they should go back to, and that’s one of the main reasons why they are not returning until now.”

Further along in the conversation, addressing the KRG’s relations with Turkey, Barzani made his view clear that the administration in Rojava should break away from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

In Kurdish talks with Turkey, he told Chulov, “they’ve always told us that they don’t have problems with the Kurds, they have problems with the PKK... they’re willing to address the Kurdish issues and solve many outstanding issues, but they are not willing to do that with the PKK. To get back to Syria, I think one way to help the situation would be to break away from PKK."

"Not all of the Kurds, in fact, a minority of them are affiliated with them but the majority are not, including the 200,000 refugees that now are in Kurdistan. They’re not going back because they don’t accept this sort of ideology. The best way for them would be to start a Kurdish-Kurdish dialogue, to reach an agreement and break away from PKK, and that would definitely, I believe, reduce the sensitivities and the tensions with the Turks as well.”

Regarding Iran and the upcoming resumption of nuclear deal talks with the US under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Barzani said the situation goes well “beyond the JCPOA.”

“Iran is an important player in the region, and of course having any sort of peaceful solution that would promote peace and the rules of engagement can be limited to non-interference in neighboring countries, of course that would be the ideal solution for the region… in order for the region to feel safer, and from the talks that we’ve have with many of the regional leaders, we need to have a better system and better relations on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference”, he said, pledging his desire that the talks hold out.

“Let’s hope that there will be some sort of understanding that will help the region and the stability of the area.”

Asked about the recent political assassination attempt against Iraq’s prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, which many suspect Iranian-backed militias were behind, Barzani told the audience that it “was a cowardly act.”

“That was an act intended on creating more chaos, more problems, and I don't think that anybody that is a friend of Iraq or cares for Iraq would be involved in such acts.”

On the topic of national identity, Barzani acknowledged the fabricated nature of Iraq and said that he considered himself to be a Kurd first - and that Iraq should aspire to the values of the EU in order to promote coexistence.

“They realised that they could create a European Union, lifting borders, living together… that mentality must also be accepted in the Middle East”, he commented, telling the audience that Arabs, Turks, and Iranians must all feel the same as Kurds in order to bring a sustainable peace to the region.

“If there was an engineer in Germany, or an engineer in France, they could have more in common that a physician and an engineer in the same country. That mentality must also be accepted in the Middle East, especially in the areas that the Kurds live.”

“We don’t have to follow the steps of Europeans to go into war, to create borders, and then to lift borders. We can just jump into the final step and lift borders and all live together, but that mentality cannot be enforced if only Kurds feel that way,” he added. 

Stressing how much all people in the region have in common, Barzani recommended looking “at the commonalities that we all share, and let’s build on that and give each other guarantees that the atrocities of the past will never be repeated.”

We are victims of our past, and everybody is afraid of what could happen in the future if there are no guarantees that one community, or one society, one group, one regime cannot abuse the power that they possess against the other. That can only be done by a system, not just by ink on paper”, he said, calling for a new mechanism by which to hold each other accountable. 

When pressed on the KRG’s relationship with the United States, Barzani acknowledged that “the situation in Iraq was not created by Iraq themselves.”

“Iraq still needs help, and that help must come from Iraq’s friends… we still believe the US is a friend, and we believe they must stay engaged in the region.”

Towards the end of Tuesday’s conversation, Barzani addressed the pressing issue of climate change and the related concerns of water and food security, telling the audience that it was a collective responsibility. “Nobody should think that if I secure my situation, and in this case it is food security, then I don’t care about what happens to my neighbour,” he warned.

“We can’t just think about our own security as an isolated entity, we have to look at collective security in the region and this is important,” he added, giving the example of his government’s decision to build 23 new dams in the region as a sign that they are treating the issue of climate change seriously.

Experts in June said that the Kurdistan Region is facing a crisis because of water shortages that could lead to displacement and conflict. Iraq is the fifth-most vulnerable nation in the world to the effects of climate change, and low rainfall levels and high temperatures caused by climate change are depleting water supplies across the country. Water levels in the Euphrates and Tigris rivers - shared by Iraq, Syria, and Turkey - have dropped by more than half.

“If we don’t respect the earth and the environment, the environment and the earth will retaliate against us”, Barzani concluded.

The full interview is available to watch here, and a transcription of the conversation here.

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