ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An Iraqi government spokesperson claimed on Tuesday that the Kurdistan Region is the site of the largest agricultural product entry point in Iraq. "The largest amount of smuggling is taking place at the Parvizkhan border crossing," Hamid Nayf, spokesperson for the Iraqi Agriculture Ministry told Rudaw on Tuesday, claiming the Iraqi government has gained control of illegal smuggling of these products in the central and southern provinces. Nayf went on to detail that "the smuggled products are brought to Baghdad and other southern provinces through Kalar city," and largely consist of food items including potatoes, eggs, and chickens. Rudaw contacted the head of the Parvizkhan crossing, but he refused to comment and the spokesperson of the crossing did not pick up his phone. Kalar is the center of the Kurdistan Region's southern Garmiyan administration and is 170 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. "We hope our brothers in the Kurdistan Region gain control of the crossing so vehicles enter [Iraq] in a legal way," the spokesperson added. There are three official Kurdistan Region-Iran border crossings – Haji Omaran in Erbil province, Parvizkhan in Garmiyan administration and Bashmakh in Sulaimani province – as well as many other unofficial border points. Two weeks ago, the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) finance ministry confirmed that a network smuggling hundreds of millions of dinars worth of goods into the Kurdistan Region through Parvizkhan has been uncovered. The network committed "fraud and smuggling worth hundreds of millions of dinars, and damaged public finance," the ministry said, which included creating fake documents to authorize the movement of goods through crossings. Even those in charge of Parvizkhan have previously acknowledged illegal movement of goods through the crossing "on a daily basis". "Eighty percent of the crossing's trade revenues end up with the companies, not the government," Aso Qadir, the director of Parvizkhan crossing, told Rudaw last month, with everything from onions to old vehicles being smuggled through the border. Though the KRG's agriculture ministry banned the imports of watermelons, potatoes, tomatoes, figs and apples in August, farmers say dozens of tons of these products are being smuggled in via Parvizkhan on a daily basis where they end up in Sulaimani, Erbil and other parts of Iraq. "We are determined to prevent our farmers from being financially damaged," Begard Talabani, the KRG agriculture minister told Rudaw on Tuesday. "Just last week, we confiscated hundreds of tons of smuggled produce" in the markets of the Region. "Whenever we learn that there are prohibited products in a place, we will investigate them and seize the products and close their shops," Talabani added. Farmers say the abundance of smuggled products have dealt a huge blow to their profits. "I have watermelon and tomato groves. I have never been as financially damaged as I am this year. I have lost more than 15,000,000 dinars this year. I have a hundred tons of tomatoes and could not sell them for a month and a half due to the smuggled tomatoes in the market," Soran Rauf, a farmer in Sulaimani's Penjwen town, said. Parvizkhan is not the only Kurdistan Region crossing to suffer from the illegal movement of goods, with Ali Hama Salih, a member of the Kurdistan Region's parliament from the Change Movement (Gorran) telling Rudaw earlier this month that "embezzlement and looting take place at [all] the Kurdistan Region's border crossings" – with security forces complicit in the crime. "All kinds of expired goods are imported into the Kurdistan Region through smuggling networks that have offices inside the cities of the Kurdistan Region, with the help of the security forces," the outspoken MP claimed. Reporting by Horvan Rafaat and Zhelwan Z. Wali
