US Army Spokesman: Kurdistan referendum has no impact on fight against IS

“We are continuing to work with the Peshmerga in the same way that we have in the past.”

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24)  “We are continuing to work with the Peshmerga in the same way that we have in the past.”

That was the response of Colonel Ryan Dillon, Spokesperson for the US-led coalition in Baghdad, when asked if the referendum on Kurdish independence was having any impact on the fight against the Islamic State (IS.)

In a Pentagon press conference on Wednesday via teleconference from Baghdad, Dillon was asked whether, as the referendum approached, there was any effect “on current operations or planning for future operations.”

Dillon prefaced his answer, saying that with any “use of forces that fall underneath the umbrella of the Iraqi Security Forces, he will defer to them.

But he continued, “From the coalition’s perspective and from what we are doing with the training and equipping of the Peshmerga forces, that does continue.”

The coalition has trained over 22,000 Peshmerga since 2014, Dillon explained, when the fight against IS began.

Describing the battle in Raqqa, Dillon said that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had cleared 55 percent of the city. IS fighters appear desperate: “malnourished, emaciated,” and many with “needle tracks” from what is thought to be amphetamines, used to maintain alertness and energy.

This view, as expressed by the Spokesperson for the US Army in Baghdad, stands in marked contrast to the view from Foggy Bottom, some 6,000 miles away in Washington DC.

On Tuesday, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert suggested the referendum would hurt the fight against IS.

“ISIS is the major serious threat in Iraq right now,” she said. “We’re concerned about a referendum at this time, that that referendum would be further destabilizing.”

Kurdistan24 asked Colonel Norvell De Atkine, retired from the US Army, where he focused on the Middle East, whether the US Army in Baghdad or the State Department in Washington would have a better sense of the referendum’s impact on the anti-IS fight.

“Definitely not the State Department,” De Atkine replied. “They’re not on the ground. It’s the military guys who know what’s going on, as far as fighting [IS.]”

Interestingly, Iran’s position toward the referendum seems to be shifting. On Tuesday, after the Kurdistan Referendum Delegation met senior figures in Baghdad, including the US and Iranian ambassadors, the Iranian envoy said Tehran would support any “negotiated agreement” between Baghdad and Erbil. Previously, Iran had been the country most opposed to the referendum.

On Wednesday, Tehran’s allies In Iraq seemed to follow the ambassador’s lead. Hadi al-Amiri, head of the Badr Brigade, the largest of the Shiite Popular Mobilization Units, said an armed clash with the Peshmerga was “impossible” after he met with the delegation. Indeed, Amiri praised the sacrifices of the Peshmerga, which had served both the people of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, he said.

Even Iraqi Vice-President, Nuri al-Maliki, a strongly sectarian Shiite figure, whom the US had insisted step down in 2014 before it would provide support for the fight against IS, has softened his earlier opposition.

After meeting the delegation on Wednesday, Maliki framed the referendum as a constitutional issue which could be addressed.

“We do not want to go back to the language of problems between us,” Maliki told reporters. If necessary, we hope “to have a process to reconsider the constitution” to give the Kurdistan Region the right “to such a referendum or such a right to self-determination.”

 

Editing by G.H. Renaud