ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Baghdad has established a different tone while talking to Iran, one that has not existed before, the Iraqi foreign minister said in an interview aired on Sunday, noting that Iranian interference in Iraq is “unacceptable."
“These problems regarding Iranian interference whether political or otherwise, we have started talking with the Iranian side differently,” Fuad Hussein said, adding that “Tehran has started to hear a different language from Baghdad, one that did not exist before.”
Hussein added that Iran and Iraq share several mutual interests including, economic, religious ties.
Appearing in a 34-minute interview on al-Ghad TV, a pan-Arab news channel launched in 2015 in Egypt, Hussein was introduced by the news anchor with the TV screens showcasing an Iraqi flag with three green stars on it from the era of Saddam Hussein, a flag that has been abandoned since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent regime change. It is unclear when the interview was recorded.
Almost all political players in the Iraqi scene have been around since the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, and have haggled with one another on numerous occasions. Their failure to reach an understanding over how to share power has made them vulnerable to even greater interference from Iran, Turkey and the Gulf States, as well as the United States.
Several major militias operating in the country are backed by Tehran and often attack US and western bases in the country, the latest of them taking place last week.
“We have told our Iranian brothers that we are geographical neighbors and that will stay...therefore we need cooperation, we do not need interference from Iran,” Hussein said. “Interference in Iraqi affairs cannot be accepted from any state.”
Hussein’s comments circulated widely on Iranian state media and were labelled as “unfriendly” towards Iran.
But the comments came at a crucial time.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh on Monday refused to respond to a question during his weekly press conference on Monday about Tehran’s involvement in last week’s drone attack on Erbil which injured three civilians.
Khatibzadeh responded to a series of questions from several reporters regarding the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) missile attack on Erbil in March, as well as last week’s drone attack. “No comment,” Khatibzadeh said before adding that wherever the source of a threat to Iran is, Tehran would not hesitate to neutralize it.
Hussein discussed several other topics during the interview such as the water crisis in the region and their talks with neighboring countries to resolve the issue.
Addressing the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) presence in the country and Turkish operations, Hussein noted that the PKK's presence is a problem for both Iraq and Turkey.
Hussein added that Iraq's constitution is clear if someone, referring to Kurds coming from Turkey, wants to seek asylum but one cannot carry arms within the borders of Iraq to fight the country they come from.
However, Hussein also slammed Turkish operations inside Iraq. "This interference [from Turkey] is not legal, and there is no agreement between both sides," he said, adding that the agreement that Turkey refers to was done in 1984 and its duration was only for one year.
Foreign interference in Iraqi affairs has been rejected by officials on several occasions before.
The foreign ministers of Iran and Turkey condemned “foreign interference” in regional affairs while attending a summit in Baghdad that brought together representatives of nine neighboring countries, plus France in August.
Iran’s foreign minister said external interference in Iraq will cause instability, and his Turkish counterpart said the people of the region can resolve their issues themselves.
However, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in an interview in March said that the process of negotiation around the formation of Iraq’s next government has been crippled by foreign interference from regional and international players, claiming that the country’s parties would have reached an agreement by now if it were not for external interference.
“There has been clear political interference in all the processes [since 2003],” Maliki said. “We have not seen this level of interference in the history of the political process.”
