Kurdistan
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani delivers the keynote speech at The Kurds of the Middle East, an online conference that began on April 13, 2021. Photo: screengrab from conference stream
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Region needs the decades-long support it has received from the United States to continue so that the Islamic State (ISIS) can be defeated, President Nechirvan Barzani said in a speech shared on Tuesday.
President Barzani gave the keynote address for the first of a four-part virtual discussion series called The Kurds of The Middle East. The series is hosted by Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs in partnership with Justice for Kurds, a non-profit advocacy group based in the United States.
April 2021 is the thirtieth anniversary of Operation Provide Comfort, approved by the United Nations so that a no-fly zone could be created to protect Kurdish areas of Iraq from bombardments by the regime of Saddam Hussein. But in the three decades since, the Kurdistan Region and Iraq proper have continued to suffer terror, including at the hands of the Islamic State.
“Since those April days of 1991, America has supported and stayed engaged, with the Kurdistan Region, most recently, with the Global Coalition, to Defeat ISIS,” Barzani said.
“We don’t expect the US to fight our wars; however, we do expect the US to remain engaged with us in Iraq, to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS. To achieve this objective, we need the continued commitment of the US and its coalition partners to help our brave Peshmerga and the Iraqi Security Forces to win the war.”
Ever since, remnants of ISIS have kept up their attacks in the country, especially in territories disputed by the governments of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. The extremist group claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing in Baghdad on January 21 that killed more than 30 people, and the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) have lost personnel to clashes with ISIS in recent weeks. In the latest edition of its weekly al-Naba newsletter, ISIS claimed to have killed and injured 7 people in Iraq between March 31 and April 6.
Barzani said he welcomed the ongoing third stage of strategic dialogue between Baghdad and Washington. In a joint statement from the US and Iraqi governments on the dialogue, Washington said it would pull its troops out of Iraq.
President Barzani gave the keynote address for the first of a four-part virtual discussion series called The Kurds of The Middle East. The series is hosted by Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs in partnership with Justice for Kurds, a non-profit advocacy group based in the United States.
April 2021 is the thirtieth anniversary of Operation Provide Comfort, approved by the United Nations so that a no-fly zone could be created to protect Kurdish areas of Iraq from bombardments by the regime of Saddam Hussein. But in the three decades since, the Kurdistan Region and Iraq proper have continued to suffer terror, including at the hands of the Islamic State.
“Since those April days of 1991, America has supported and stayed engaged, with the Kurdistan Region, most recently, with the Global Coalition, to Defeat ISIS,” Barzani said.
“We don’t expect the US to fight our wars; however, we do expect the US to remain engaged with us in Iraq, to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS. To achieve this objective, we need the continued commitment of the US and its coalition partners to help our brave Peshmerga and the Iraqi Security Forces to win the war.”
ISIS took over swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014. The group was territorially defeated in Iraq by Iraqi and Kurdish forces and the US-led Coalition in December 2017.Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani speaks at the opening of The Kurds in the Middle East virtual discussion series pic.twitter.com/enKLvSns3A
— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) April 13, 2021
Ever since, remnants of ISIS have kept up their attacks in the country, especially in territories disputed by the governments of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. The extremist group claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing in Baghdad on January 21 that killed more than 30 people, and the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) have lost personnel to clashes with ISIS in recent weeks. In the latest edition of its weekly al-Naba newsletter, ISIS claimed to have killed and injured 7 people in Iraq between March 31 and April 6.
Barzani said he welcomed the ongoing third stage of strategic dialogue between Baghdad and Washington. In a joint statement from the US and Iraqi governments on the dialogue, Washington said it would pull its troops out of Iraq.
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