ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Tensions in the Persian Gulf risk throwing Iraq back into a cycle of terrorism and violence, Iraqi President Barham Salih warned during his address to the 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Wednesday.
Missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil installations, which temporarily knocked out half of the kingdom’s oil output last week, raised already strained relations in the Persian Gulf to fever pitch.
Saudi Arabia, the United States, and several European powers have all accused Iran of being behind the attacks – allegations denied by Tehran.
Iraq, which enjoys close relations with both the US and its neighbour Iran, risks being dragged into a proxy war if tensions between the two continue to escalate – disrupting Iraq’s recovery from decades of violence.
Salih told UN delegates Iraq’s priority is “working on peace, not war”.
“Regional tensions give terrorism space to rise again in the region,” Salih said. “Targeting the Gulf and Saudi Arabia is a dangerous development that threatens the security of the region.”
Tensions have been rising in the Gulf since US President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed economic sanctions.
Washington has since blacklisted Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Tehran has responded by boosting its nuclear weapons program and threatening oil shipments passing through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Sandwiched between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, Iraq is keen to maintain good relations with both sides. While Salih was speaking in New York, Iraq’s Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi was in Riyadh to discuss trade and regional security.
Baghdad hopes to become a hub where regional interests converge.
“Iraq is keen on making positive relations with everyone, and every neighbor of Iraq,” Salih told UN delegates, arguing the security and stability of Iraq is a common interest to all in the region.
Security vacuums in the region could allow terrorist groups including the Islamic State (ISIS) to regain a foothold, threatening wider stability.
“Terrorism is looking for a gap to rise again, therefore conflict and tensions in the region will create this vacuum that terrorism can take advantage of, so let’s make peace not war,” Salih said.
ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in December 2017. However, the group continues to pose a serious security threat in both Iraq and Syria. Militants have formed sleeper cells and resorted to their earlier guerrilla insurgency tactics.
Col. Myles Caggins III, spokesman for the US-led coalition, warned last week that ISIS is resurging in Iraq and Syria, mainly in Sunni-majority provinces of Iraq such as Diyala, Saladin, Nineveh, and Anbar.
According to a report from the Pentagon Inspector General, which covers April to late June this year, ISIS has attempted to expand its influence over populations in the Sunni-majority provinces north and west of Baghdad and has reorganized its leadership and established safe havens in rural Sunni-majority areas.
Salih, who is ethnically Kurdish, switched from Arabic to give 40 seconds of his speech in the Sorani dialect.
“I salute our people and youth, and the families of the victims of dictatorship in mass graves and Anfal,” he said, addressing the people of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq directly.
“I congratulate you for your endeavor to achieve a free and prosperous life, peace and security. Making your hopes and aspirations real is our duty. Our path is difficult but we will prevail with unchanged ambitions and international support,” he added.
Salih who was born in the Kurdistan Region province of Sulaimani, is the third Kurd to serve as president of Iraq, inheriting the mantle from his political mentor Jalal Talabani and Fuad Hussein.
Many Kurds had been hoping Salih would say a few words in Kurdish in acknowledgement of his identity and Iraq’s official second language.
Parez Omer, a civil activist in Erbil, told Rudaw on Tuesday: “If Barham Salih says few words or a sentence in Kurdish tomorrow, it will make Kurds happy.”
Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s first Kurdish president and founder of Salih’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), set a precedent for Iraqi presidents using Kurdish in their UN General Assembly address when in 2005 he told delegates in his native tongue: “It is a source of pride that Iraqi Kurdistan has become a model for democratic experience, economic and cultural and social development.”
While Iraq is home to many minority languages, including Turkmen, Assyrian and Armenian, Kurdish was recognized alongside Arabic as an official language of Iraq under the 2005 constitution.
