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Masrour Barzani Meets US Officials: Warns of increased ISIS attacks, stresses need to protect Syrian Kurds

Masrour Barzani Meets US Officials Warns of increased ISIS attacks stresses need to protect Syrian Kurds
Masrour Barzani Meets US Officials: Warns of increased ISIS attacks, stresses need to protect Syrian Kurds

2019-02-17 00:00:00 - Source: kurdistan 24

Barzani explained that the Kurdistan Region “is alarmed” by the Islamic State’s “increasing attacks in several Iraqi provinces,” as he “noted that the nature of their operations has evolved.”

The Chancellor emphasized “the need to address the root causes” that led to the Islamic State’s emergence in the first place.

The fundamental problem, as an informed Washington source recently told Kurdistan 24, is the weak, sectarian, and unrepresentative government in Baghdad.

Aziz Ahmad, an aide to the KRSC Chancellor, recently summarized the problem in the New York Review of Books:

Overlaid across territory that has been reclaimed from the Islamic State is a patchwork of various sectarian militias that now claim fiefdom. Thousands of families with alleged links to ISIS are exiled, their birthrights reduced to being names on militias’ wanted lists, their dignity violated in irreversible ways. Rather than address this deep residue of fears and feelings of injustice felt by many, Iraq has foolishly declared the Islamic State defeated, as though its threat were now confined to the country’s past. But the signs of the ISIS’ resurgence are troubling, and the sense of grievance that fired it in the first place remains just as palpable—and just as unresolved.

Jeffrey is also US Special Representative for Syria Engagement, and the two officials discussed developments there. Barzani expressed his “concern about the future of the Kurdish people” in Syria, urging a “permanent settlement, based on dialogue with all communities and inclusive talks with political factions.”





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