Mick Hartley

An interesting interview from Al-Arabiya TV with Mas’oud Al-Barazani, president of Iraqi Kurdistan:

Interviewer: You are saying that the true dream of a Kurdish state has not been realized, but every time I reach Kurdistan, what I see is an independent state. All that you are lacking is a declaration of a state. You have a parliament, a government, a president of the province – yourself. You have the Peshmerga, an army, a police. You have your own language, your own culture, your own nationality, and so on. It seems like a political maneuver on your part, to keep saying you are protecting Iraq, while in fact, what you have is an almost complete state. You have international airports… Is this a political maneuver – to refrain from declaring the state, in order to avoid throwing the neighbors into confusion and causing problems, while in fact, there is already a state?

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: Brother, let me be clear. After the fall of the [Saddam] regime, we Kurds protected the unity of Iraq. To this day, we are the main reason that Iraq is united.

Interviewer: But Iraq is not united.

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: At least formally. We devoted our greatest efforts to expand the Kurdistan experience to the other regions of Iraq, but the brothers in the other regions, I’m sad to say, did not benefit from our experience. We adopted a culture of forgiveness, whereas they adopted a culture of vindictiveness. […]

Some Sunnis oppose Iranian interference, but seek the help of Turkey, and call upon the Turkish army to intervene. I believe these people are playing with fire. There are Sunnis who oppose Iran, but accept Turkey. What is the difference? Our problem is that the Shiites are fearful because they suffer from a complex of the past, while the Sunnis are fearful because they suffer from a complex of the future.

Interviewer: And what are the Kurds afraid of?

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: Of everything.

Interviewer: What is the greatest fear of the Kurds today?

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: That the dictatorship will return to Iraq.

Interviewer: How can it possibly return?

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: Allah willing, it won’t. We won’t let it return, but you asked about the Kurds’ greatest fear. It is the return of the dictatorship.

Interviewer: Don’t the Kurds fear Turkey?

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: No.

Interviewer: How come? If Kirkuk is annexed to you, the Turks will not be at all happy. They are constantly declaring that they will not let the Kurds annex Kirkuk.

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: For our part, we say that we will not let the Turks intervene in the issue of Kirkuk.

Interviewer: How do you intend to prevent them?

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: How do they intend to prevent us? […]

Interviewer: Do you support peace with Israel – a peace agreement, and an end to this conflict?

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: I support a peaceful solution to the Palestinian issue. I support the rights of the Palestinian people, but at the same time, I am against driving Israel into the sea.

Interviewer: So you don’t support the plan to destroy the state of Israel?

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: Of course not.

Interviewer: Some groups among the Palestinians and among the Lebanese, like Hizbullah, are still calling, in their ideology, for the destruction of Israel.

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: This is impossible.

Interviewer: Are you against it merely because it’s impossible, or because you don’t want to?

Mas’oud Al-Barazani: No, in my opinion, this policy is wrong, illogical, and unreasonable. Why annihilate a people?

Interviewer: Because many consider it to be a plundering, occupying people. I believe this statement will reverberate and draw much criticism, Abu Masrour.

A telling comment from the interviewer: a failure to support the annihilation of Israel will “reverberate and draw much criticism”.