Kurdish Premier: We had Warned US, Baghdad about Islamist Threat

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Months ago, Erbil had warned Baghdad and Washington to watch out for the Sunni insurgents now rampaging across Iraq with stunning military victories, but no action was taken, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said in an interview.

“Nothing happened,” Barzani told US TV network, NBC News, aired ahead of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s meeting in Baghdad with Nouri al-Maliki, in which he pushed the Shiite prime minister for a more inclusive government.

Barzani said in the interview that Maliki should step down. “By having him as a prime minister it will be more complicated” to find a solution to the Iraq crisis.

Barzani added that Erbil had known about the growing danger to Iraq from the jihadi Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“They told us they will put pressure on Iraq and they will tell Baghdad, but nothing happened,” Barzani told NBC.

He also disclosed that Erbil had tried to get Maliki to do something about ISIS, particularly about the danger it posed to Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which fell to the rebels less than a fortnight ago. Its collapse started a dominoes-fall of cities and territory that has the rebels closing in for a fight for Baghdad.

Barzani said that Maliki had turned down an earlier offer of a joint operation in Mosul.

“We just offered him a joint operation almost six months ago,” Barzani said. “He just refused that. He said ‘everything is fine, there is no problem, everything is under control.’”

The premier added that a federal form of government, with the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds each controlling their own territory, was probably the best way for Iraq to survive as a united country.

“Look, prime minister… this situation needs a political solution,” Barzani said, when asked what he would tell Maliki, who is expected to plead for military help from a reluctant United States.

“This is not a military solution… it will not be solved through a military operation. The only solution is a political solution,” Barzani added.