Interview
French Senator Remi Feraud (right) speaking to Rudaw's Alla Shally (left) on November 2, 2023 in Paris. Photo: Rudaw/screengrab
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The visit of Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani to France is a sign of Paris and Erbil’s advancing relations, a French senator told Rudaw on Thursday, stressing that Kurds need to remain united in the face of oppression to protect their achievements.
President Barzani arrived in Paris on Thursday and is set to meet with the French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday and discuss bilateral relations.
“The arrival of President Barzani to meet with President Macron is a sign of the strengthening of relations between Paris and Erbil and it is undoubtedly very important that these relations continue to be strong and have concrete and stable support through successive meetings,” French Senator Remi Feraud told Rudaw’s Alla Shally.
Barzani’s visit also signifies France’s awareness and concern for Kurdish interests in Iraq and the Middle East, according to Feraud, stressing that it is important for Paris to stand by its Kurdish allies and work towards ensuring the Kurdistan Region’s sovereignty and autonomy.
The French senator described Kurds as “the largest stateless nation in the world,” and noted that even though internal divisions may weaken them at points, they must continue to support each other and stand side by side when faced with oppression and persecution.
“The important thing for the Kurds is to know how to support each other when they are oppressed and threatened in the countries where they live, such as Turkey, Iran, and Syria.”
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.
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).
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.
Macron’s idea of a coalition against Hamas
Last week, during his visit to Israel, Macron proposed the expansion of the international coalition that fought against the Islamic State (ISIS) to fight against Hamas in Gaza.
Feraud said this was not a concept that he believed would work given that the geography of Gaza is different to that in Iraq and Syria and that the reason the anti-ISIS coalition was so effective because of the Kurdish forces.
"There would have been no coalition against ISIS without the Kurdish forces in the ground, without the Peshmerga, in Iraq and Syria, the bombing of US, French, and NATO forces would have not been effective,” he said.
"The special forces would have not been efficient without the Kurdish force,” he added about the troops that were involved in the fight.
ISIS seized control of vast swathes of land on both sides of the border in 2014 and was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019. While the group no longer controls any territory, it continues to pose a serious security risk through bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions.
The coalition advises and provides aerial assistance to Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi army as well as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against ISIS. In recent weeks, the SDF has carried out a string of raids against ISIS targets in northeast Syria (Rojava), in coordination with the US-led global coalition.
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