VP Mike Pence visits Erbil, affirms enduring support for Kurdistan Region
WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – US Vice President Mike Pence landed in Erbil on Saturday, where he met with senior officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), including President Nechirvan Barzani, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, and Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, before visiting with US troops in the Kurdistan Region.
Pence’s trip there followed his unannounced arrival earlier on Saturday at Al-Asad air base in western Iraq. Because of the protracted unrest in Baghdad, Pence was unable to visit the city for security reasons, while Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi was unwilling to travel to Al-Asad to meet Pence, so the two leaders spoke by phone.
The primary purpose of the Vice-President’s visit was to demonstrate that the US was still fully engaged in combatting the so-called Islamic State, even after President Donald Trump’s order last month, withdrawing most US forces from northeast Syria.
“A senior US official said Pence’s visit was meant both to reassure Iraqi Kurds who remain allied with the US in the fight against [the Islamic State], as well as Americans who have long supported the Kurdish cause,” the Associated Press reported.
Indeed, as Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R, Tennessee) affirmed earlier this week, “support for the Kurds is a bipartisan issue.”
This visit marked Pence’s first trip as Vice-President to the Kurdistan Region and Iraq as a whole. In his meeting with the senior Kurdish officials, Pence recalled that he had visited Erbil once before, as a congressman. That trip was in March 2008, when Pence was part of a Congressional fact-finding mission during Operation Iraqi Freedom.