ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Kurds in Iraq have responded positively to the appointment of former London mayor Boris Johnson as Britain’s new foreign secretary.
Johnson, 52, is considered by some Kurdish officials in Erbil as a good friend of the Kurds. While still mayor of London, Johnson visited the Kurdistan Region in 2015 on invitation from Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani congratulated Johnson for his appointment as foreign minister in a tweet. “We look forward to your return to Kurdistan,” Talabani tweeted.
During his visit to the Kurdistan Region last year, Johnson said, “The relationships between Kurdistan and Britain in term of economy, trade and politics should be developed more.”
Kurdistan Region’s Foreign Relations Minister Falah Mustafa also congratulated Johnson onhis appointment as foreign minister by UK’s new Prime Minister Theresa May.
Following his visit to the Kurdistan Region where he toured Peshmerga front lines, Johnson urged the British government to supply the Kurdish forces with much needed arms and ammunition for their fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).
“They are incredibly pro-British. These guys really are in the front line. The Peshmerga are the guys who are taking on the terrorists,” he said.
“I was watching some footage of a huge battle where they were using a lot of German-made equipment to take out about 17 suicide bomb vehicles, you wonder what it is that is preventing us from giving them that kind of weaponry ourselves,”
Johnson was in one picture lying in a Peshmerga trench and aiming an AK47 Kalashnikov at ISIS areas while in another he is sitting at Erbil’s iconic Machko teashop with a Kurdish Jamana headband. Later the same year he hosted a Kurdish delegation in London led by PM Barzani.
“Over the last decade Kurdistan region has seen considerable economic growth and social development, and I'm here to mark London's role as an active ally in this,” Johnson said after his return to London, according to the website of the mayor’s office.
“We have a mutual interest in not only Kurdistan region's security and prosperity but that of Iraq as a whole,” he added.
As foreign minister Johnson may be a good advocate for the Kurds especially when there have been calls by a number of British MPs on the government to provide arms and ammunition as well as medical supplies to the Kurds, including treating wounded Peshmerga soldiers at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham.
The concerns of the Peshmerga also featured in former PM David Cameron’s final Question Time on Wednesday when he said: “The Kurds are incredibly brave fighters and are doing valuable work against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. I will look carefully at his suggestion of using the Birmingham hospital. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital has excellent facilities for battlefield casualties. Our Army is already providing medical instruction to the Peshmerga to help them deal with the situation, but we will look to see whether more can be done."
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