Iraqi Kurdistan faces crisis in Iraq and Syria

The Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq (KRG) named Safeen Dizayee as the new head of the KRG Department of Foreign in Relations in July 2019. Prior to becoming Iraqi Kurdistan’s top diplomat, he served as chief of staff to the prime minister, senior KRG spokesperson, and minister of education, among other posts. On November 20, 2019, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) hosted Minister Dizayee for a discussion moderated by Dr. Bilal Wahab, the Nathan and Esther K. Wagner fellow at WINEP.

Dizayee discussed the ongoing protests and instability reverberating throughout Iraq. Civil unrest has not been uncommon in post-Saddam Iraq. The current widespread protests are a culmination of 16 years of corruption and other problems within the government. From 1999 to 2003, Iraqi Kurdistan was independent of the Ba’athist government, but voluntarily joined the new democratic-federalist government after Saddam Hussein was overthrown. The Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq (KRG) is now an autonomous region and is supporting and working with Baghdad to address the grievances of the protesters.

Iraq needs to be changes in the patronage system, reforms to lower corruption, improvements to the provision of services, but the protests must remain peaceful to reach these goals in a progressive and stable way. As for the potential role of the US, the foreign minister noted that the US has no leverage in the protests and the next head of government will likely be less friendly to the West.

ISIS has regrouped and its militants are active almost daily in Iraq. Dizayee discussed how sleeper cells in many villages have emerged and gained support of locals either voluntarily or by threatening communities. They are mainly active in empty, ungoverned spaces near the Syrian-Iraqi border that the Iraqi government did not move into after the official fall of the Caliphate. ISIS has filled that vacuum and operates primarily at night, when their people are less prone to strikes.

Since the attempted independence referendum in 2017, the KRG has addressed structural flaws between the two Kurdish political parties as well as relations with the Iraqi, Iranian, and Turkish governments. Dizayee discussed how political parties have their own peshmerga forces. The KRG is doing the groundwork now to address the differences between the parties, but the parties and their peshmergas are all loyal to Kurdistan despite disagreements on governance.  

Dizayee talked in the end about Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) and the recent Turkish invasion. The Kurds in Syria have faced human rights violations for many decades and did not have the opportunity to influence the country until the beginning of the civil war in 2011. The KRG supported the unification of Kurdish political parties in Syria, but Dizayee said that the PYD ultimately has governed Rojava alone. Looking through a Turkish lens, he discussed how the PKK attempting to impose their agenda in Syria scared Ankara and encouraged the Turks to pursue offensive campaigns to protect Turkish national security.

However, extremist groups spearheaded the October incursion into northeastern Syria and acted in heinous ways against the population. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and most of them will try to find refuge in KRG-controlled Iraq. 16,000 people have already fled to the Iraqi border, adding to the 250,000 refugees who began arriving in 2011.

On the US decision to withdraw troops from northeastern Syria, Dizayee said the YPG was used as a security company to defeat ISIS, and now that the job is perceived to be done, he is not surprised that support was withdrawn. He nevertheless appreciates the support of the US government overall to the Kurdish people. The lack of clear policy from the current administration will not ruin that relationship in the long run.