Interview
Wadih Batti, the Iraqi ambassador to France, in an interview with Rudaw's Alla Shally on November 2, 2023. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi ambassador to France on Thursday said the Kurdistan Region and France share a “distinguished” relationship amid an ongoing visit by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani to Paris, adding that the visit will strengthen relations further.
“France has a distinguished relationship with the Kurdistan Region, so the visit of President Nechirvan Barzani will play an important role in consolidating and strengthening these relations,” Wadih Batti, the Iraqi ambassador to France, told Rudaw’s Alla Shally.
President Barzani arrived in Paris on Thursday and will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday at the Elysee Palace.
“Iraq and France have very strong and solid relations, and we can say that it is the golden age in Iraqi-French ties,” Batti said. “All events confirm that we are moving in the right direction by taking Iraqi and French relations to higher levels.”
Batti also touched on the value of Barzani’s meeting with Macron, calling the former a “major political figure in the Iraqi and regional scene and on the international scene.”
The meeting “will be very important, because when such figures and political leaders meet, the result of these meetings affect the political scene as a whole,” he said.
The ambassador also said that Macron is expected to visit Iraq by the end of November.
Iraq and France made a number of strategic agreements early this year, meant to boost cooperation. The Iraqi government and France’s TotalEnergies also signed an energy deal.
On the slow implementation of the TotalEnergies project, Batti explained that “it is not a small project, but rather includes four projects with a value in the tens of billions of dollars, so it needs discussions,” but stressed that the implementation of the project will progress regardless.
In July, Iraq and TotalEnergies inked a mega $27 billion contract to develop Iraq’s oil, gas, and renewable energies sector. The finalized deal saw TotalEenergies holding the lion’s share with a 45 percent stake in the Gas Growth Integrated Project (GGIP), followed by Iraqi state-owned Basra Oil Company with 30 percent, and QatarEnergy with 25 percent.
“There is cooperation at the educational and university levels, and we have signed six memorandums in the fields of education, and even in the fields of integrity and drug control,” he said about increased cooperation between Baghdad and Paris.
A core member of the US-led global coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS), France has trained about 10,000 Iraqi soldiers, including Kurdish Peshmerga forces. The country’s armed forces continue to play a key role in the anti-ISIS fight through Operation Chammal.
France’s Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu announced in July that 80 French trainers would conduct a two-year training course of about 2,100 Iraqi soldiers, the equivalent of five “desert battalions.”
The relationship between the Kurds and France goes back to the 1980s. Danielle Mitterrand, first lady of France from 1981 to 1995, advocated for Kurds suffering under the regime of Saddam Hussein and was instrumental in campaigning for the no-fly zone that allowed the Kurdistan Region to develop its current autonomy. She was affectionately known as the “Mother of Kurds”, and inaugurated the first Kurdish parliament in 1992.
France was one of the first countries to open a consulate in the Kurdish capital of Erbil after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 and played a critical role in helping Kurds both in Iraq and in Syria in the war against the Islamic State ISIS.
ISIS seized control of vast swathes of Iraqi land in 2014 but it was declared territorially defeated in 2017. Despite the group’s lack of territorial control, it still continues to pose serious security risks through bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions in the country, particularly in areas disputed by Erbil and Baghdad.
When Kurds in the Kurdistan Region held an independence referendum in 2017, Baghdad imposed a flight ban on the Region for months. A historic visit by President Barzani, then prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), to France helped reconnect the Kurdistan Region to the world.
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