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Dramatic improvement in Kurdistan-EU ties, Kurdish envoy says
5/18/2015
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Iraqi Kurdistan’s envoy to Brussels, Delavar Ajgeiy, said his autonomous region’s ties with the European Union have improved dramatically in the last year as both Baghdad and the EU need Peshmerga fighters to help roll back advances by the Islamic State militant group.
In an interview with Rudaw in Brussels, Ajgeiy, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government mission to the European Union, said KRG officials are now fully included in talks between Iraqi government delegates and EU representatives, which wasn’t the case about a year ago.
“This is the optimal level,” Ajgeiy said.
In an interview with Invest Group that was published in December 2013, Ajgeiy said “the current commission’s position towards KRG is not optimal,” adding that the commission, which is the executive of the 28-nation EU, preferred to deal with Baghdad for reasons of protocol.
Under the Iraqi constitution, he said, the KRG has the right to be present during negotiations with foreign countries, but in fact it was excluded when the Iraqi government and the EU clinched agreements covering energy, trade, human rights and many other issues.
After the KRG complained to the commission and discussed the problem of being excluded with the Iraqi government, “it has been decided that the KRG can participate in these meetings,” he said. “We pushed and then the problem got resolved.”
On Tuesday, for example, Kurdish officials will be included in the Iraqi delegation to Brussels to seal a trade agreement with the European Union, he said. On Wednesday, they will also be included in another delegation aimed at clinching a deal on energy.
In a further improvement, he said, the EU’s external action service has decided to have its own office in Erbil. In addition, 14 EU member states have consulates or other diplomatic missions in the KRG capital.
And while relations have improved with the EU executive, “our best relationship is with the European Parliament,“ the head of the KRG mission said.
“We have a lot of supporters and MEPs (members of the European Parliament) who have sympathy towards Kurdistan and support Kurdish issues not only today but also before ISIS attacked our region,” he added.
Following lobbying from the KRG, 25 members of different parliamentary groups from 15 different countries formed the European Friends of Kurdistan.
“What they can do is they can have a resolution in the parliament and they can push the member countries to give more weapons, for example, to the Peshmerga,” he said. “We have done it many times before.”
This group also invites top officials from the Kurdistan Region to meetings at the European parliament, and arranges for MEPs to travel to the Kurdish region, including visits to battlefields and meetings with local Kurdish leaders.
Members of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee visited Erbil in March this year, and came back with a report recommending increasing the dispatch of weapons to the Peshmerga. They also recommended sending more humanitarian aid to the region to help the 1.8 million refugees and internally displaced people.
When the European Parliament shows majority support for helping the Kurds, he said, it makes it easier for the legislatures of member states to take action.
For example, he said, the Hungarian parliament decided last week to send 150 military advisers to Kurdistan.
Ajgeiy said the KRG has had contacts with members of the European Parliament about producing a bill similar to the one that was submitted to the US Congress by two Republican senators asking the White House to directly arm and assist KRG in their fight against Islamic State.
“We are working on this right now,” he said.
However, he said if a resolution to arm the Kurds passed in the European Parliament the member states, which have the real power, would not necessarily follow. The EP would have more impact if it showed support for humanitarian aid.
He gave a mixed reaction when asked about the military help that the KRG has been receiving from the United States and Europe.
”We are happy with the training that these countries have been giving the Peshmerga but we are not happy with the quality of the weapons,” he said.
“We need tanks, helicopters, armored vehicles to fight a very organized aggressive military like ISIS.”
He also said it is a problem that foreign countries send the weapons first to Baghdad, because the Iraqi government often does not transfer them to Kurdistan, particularly heavy weapons.
“In one instance the US sent 250 armored vehicles to Iraq but the Iraqi government decided to only give Kurdistan 25 of these vehicles and when we did receive them they were not good because some parts were missing,” he said.
He insisted weapons should be sent directly to Kurdistan because “we have joint military operations with the Iraqi army and the coalition (as) we are part of the fight against ISIS.”
In a rare instance when Kurdistan had the right weapons, the Peshmerga used MILAN anti-armor missiles sent from Germany to destroy 15 of 20 suicide car bombs launched by ISIS in Zumar.
“This would not have been possible with light weapons,” Ajgeiy added.
US officials assured a Kurdish delegation led by President Masoud Barzani in Washington last week that they will be watching that weapons sent to Baghdad for the Peshmerga are expedited
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5/18/2015
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Iraqi Kurdistan’s envoy to Brussels, Delavar Ajgeiy, said his autonomous region’s ties with the European Union have improved dramatically in the last year as both Baghdad and the EU need Peshmerga fighters to help roll back advances by the Islamic State militant group.
In an interview with Rudaw in Brussels, Ajgeiy, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government mission to the European Union, said KRG officials are now fully included in talks between Iraqi government delegates and EU representatives, which wasn’t the case about a year ago.
“This is the optimal level,” Ajgeiy said.
In an interview with Invest Group that was published in December 2013, Ajgeiy said “the current commission’s position towards KRG is not optimal,” adding that the commission, which is the executive of the 28-nation EU, preferred to deal with Baghdad for reasons of protocol.
Under the Iraqi constitution, he said, the KRG has the right to be present during negotiations with foreign countries, but in fact it was excluded when the Iraqi government and the EU clinched agreements covering energy, trade, human rights and many other issues.
After the KRG complained to the commission and discussed the problem of being excluded with the Iraqi government, “it has been decided that the KRG can participate in these meetings,” he said. “We pushed and then the problem got resolved.”
On Tuesday, for example, Kurdish officials will be included in the Iraqi delegation to Brussels to seal a trade agreement with the European Union, he said. On Wednesday, they will also be included in another delegation aimed at clinching a deal on energy.
In a further improvement, he said, the EU’s external action service has decided to have its own office in Erbil. In addition, 14 EU member states have consulates or other diplomatic missions in the KRG capital.
And while relations have improved with the EU executive, “our best relationship is with the European Parliament,“ the head of the KRG mission said.
“We have a lot of supporters and MEPs (members of the European Parliament) who have sympathy towards Kurdistan and support Kurdish issues not only today but also before ISIS attacked our region,” he added.
Following lobbying from the KRG, 25 members of different parliamentary groups from 15 different countries formed the European Friends of Kurdistan.
“What they can do is they can have a resolution in the parliament and they can push the member countries to give more weapons, for example, to the Peshmerga,” he said. “We have done it many times before.”
This group also invites top officials from the Kurdistan Region to meetings at the European parliament, and arranges for MEPs to travel to the Kurdish region, including visits to battlefields and meetings with local Kurdish leaders.
Members of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee visited Erbil in March this year, and came back with a report recommending increasing the dispatch of weapons to the Peshmerga. They also recommended sending more humanitarian aid to the region to help the 1.8 million refugees and internally displaced people.
When the European Parliament shows majority support for helping the Kurds, he said, it makes it easier for the legislatures of member states to take action.
For example, he said, the Hungarian parliament decided last week to send 150 military advisers to Kurdistan.
Ajgeiy said the KRG has had contacts with members of the European Parliament about producing a bill similar to the one that was submitted to the US Congress by two Republican senators asking the White House to directly arm and assist KRG in their fight against Islamic State.
“We are working on this right now,” he said.
However, he said if a resolution to arm the Kurds passed in the European Parliament the member states, which have the real power, would not necessarily follow. The EP would have more impact if it showed support for humanitarian aid.
He gave a mixed reaction when asked about the military help that the KRG has been receiving from the United States and Europe.
”We are happy with the training that these countries have been giving the Peshmerga but we are not happy with the quality of the weapons,” he said.
“We need tanks, helicopters, armored vehicles to fight a very organized aggressive military like ISIS.”
He also said it is a problem that foreign countries send the weapons first to Baghdad, because the Iraqi government often does not transfer them to Kurdistan, particularly heavy weapons.
“In one instance the US sent 250 armored vehicles to Iraq but the Iraqi government decided to only give Kurdistan 25 of these vehicles and when we did receive them they were not good because some parts were missing,” he said.
He insisted weapons should be sent directly to Kurdistan because “we have joint military operations with the Iraqi army and the coalition (as) we are part of the fight against ISIS.”
In a rare instance when Kurdistan had the right weapons, the Peshmerga used MILAN anti-armor missiles sent from Germany to destroy 15 of 20 suicide car bombs launched by ISIS in Zumar.
“This would not have been possible with light weapons,” Ajgeiy added.
US officials assured a Kurdish delegation led by President Masoud Barzani in Washington last week that they will be watching that weapons sent to Baghdad for the Peshmerga are expedited
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