Kurdish leader urges Iraqi decision-makers to find 'reasonable solution' to crisis

Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), called on Tuesday for Iraqi politicians to seriously work toward resolving the current national turmoil amid spiking tensions between the United States and both Iran and militias it backs in Iraq.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), called on Tuesday for Iraqi politicians to seriously work toward resolving the current national turmoil amid spiking tensions between the United States and both Iran and militias it backs in Iraq.

“Iraq has been faced with a critical and risky situation over the past few days in which everyone is feeling unsafe,” Barzani said, urging all sides to “seek a logical and rational approach to the issues at hand and not to base their decision on emotions and political opportunism.” 

He continued, “With the circumstances reaching a critical phase, those who are responsible for how the situation is developing need to reach a reasonable solution that will serve the best interests of the whole of Iraq.”

A US drone strike targeting a convoy leaving Baghdad International Airport early Friday morning killed leading Iranian general Qasim Soleimani, the long-time head of the paramilitary arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) known as the Quds Force.

Read More: US strike kills Qasim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis

The strike also killed the head of the Iranian-backed militia Kata’ib Hizbollah, which the US says was responsible for killing a US contractor in a Dec. 27 rocket attack on an Iraqi military base near Kirkuk.

Iran has vowed to respond harshly to the US military action and declared on Sunday that it would no longer abide by a nuclear accord it signed in 2015 with world powers, an agreement the US withdrew from in 2018.

Caught in the middle of two nations with which they must deal, many officials from both the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region have called for restraint and calm, stressing that Iraq must not be an arena for settling international scores.

Others call for US troops to be forced to withdraw from Iraq. A Kurdish lawmaker in the Iraqi parliament told Kurdistan 24 on Sunday that representatives from the Kurdistan Region would not attend a special session later that day which ended with a non-binding resolution to expel US forces.

Read More: Kurdish MPs won't attend parliament session on US troops' future in Iraq

Outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi attended the session, where he expressed his grief at the loss of the two leaders. “The only way for foreign forces to remain in Iraq is to train Iraqi forces and nothing further,” he said.

“We have constantly requested the US not to violate Iraq’s sovereignty,” he stated. “It is in the interest of both Iraq and America to end the US’ military presence in Iraq.”

On Sunday, the US-led coalition against the Islamic State also announced it was suspending operations against the terrorist group to focus on ensuring the security of the military bases in Iraq from which its troops operate.

In his Tuesday statement, Barzani expressed his willingness to participate in efforts to find a meaningful resolution, if “the process benefits the general public and all sides. We will not, however, play any part in exposing the country to a proxy fight and into an unforeseeable future.”  

Editing by John J. Catherine