US State Department welcomes Nechirvan Barzani as KRG President, says Iran must stop support for terrorism
WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) - “We enjoyed a close relationship” with Nechirvan Barzani, when he was the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Prime Minister,” State Department Spokesperson, Morgan Ortagus, said on Tuesday.
“We’ve worked with him on many important issues, including regional security, economic reform, and repairing relations between the KRG and Government of Iraq,” Ortagus continued, listing several of Washington’s top issues in dealing with Iraq.
“We are confident that he will remain a close partner on these priorities moving forward,” she added, concluding, “We congratulate him.”
The US thus joins several other governments, including Britain, Turkey, and Iraq, in expressing their good wishes to the new KRG President.
Read More: Kurdistan Presidency will be 'umbrella for unity,' Nechirvan Barzani says after election
Ortagus also reiterated the State Department’s position on Iran: the US dispute with Tehran includes its nuclear weapons program, but also goes beyond that.
“It’s not just about nuclear weapons,” she said. It is also “about Iran’s support of terrorism in the region, their malign behavior throughout the region.”
In fact, a year ago, shortly after the US left the Iranian nuclear deal, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out twelve steps that Iran needed to take to reach an understanding with Washington and secure the lifting of sanctions.
They included, as Pompeo articulated them then, “Iran must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi Government” and “permit the disarming, demobilization and reintegration of Shi’a militias.”
Read More: Pompeo: The US will confront Iran
However, on Monday, while on a state visit to Japan, President Donald Trump seemed to reduce the disagreement to one issue: nuclear weapons, as he expressed a somewhat unexpected readiness to “make a deal” with Tehran.
Read More: Trump signals Iran, amid possaible Japanese mediation
Asked if the US was using any back channels to communicate with Tehran, Ortagus replied, “There’s none that I’m aware of,” even as she reiterated the US willingness to talk with the Iranians, “if they’re serious.”
The US is sensitive to Baghdad’s balancing act between Washington and Tehran. On Sunday, as the Iranian Foreign Minister visited Baghdad, Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Mohammed al-Hakim, affirmed, “We oppose the unilateral actions taken by the United States. We stand with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” while he dismissed the US sanctions on Iran as “ineffective.”
Asked by Kurdistan 24 to respond to those remarks, Ortagus would say only,“Our sanctions are working,” while noting “the close partnership” the US has with Iraq.
There is an ongoing Russo-Syrian military campaign in northwest Syria, and Ortagus strongly condemned it.
Read More: Russian-Syrian offensive in northwest Syria escalates as talks begin in Geneva
“Indiscriminate attacks on civilians and public infrastructure, such as schools, markets, and hospitals is a reckless escalation,” she said. Denouncing such actions as “unacceptable,” she detailed the “massive civilian displacement” that the Russo-Syrian campaign has generated: 300,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes, while over 200 civilians have been killed.
In New York, the UN’s deputy humanitarian aid chief, Ursula Mueller, informed the Security Council that major aid programs have been suspended in light of the fighting, and asked, “Can’t this Council take any concrete action, when attacks on schools and hospitals have become a war tactic that no longer sparks outrage”?
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin claimed that his country was fighting terrorists. “The fighters from HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) are terrorizing civilians and they’re using civilian infrastructure for military ends and also using civilians as human shields.”
The British representative responded, “There are more babies than terrorists in Idlib.”
