New EU Commission president says she has ‘enormous respect for the Kurds’
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - European Union Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday that she has “enormous respect for the Kurds” and their fight against the Islamic State as a result of her previous visits to the Kurdistan Region in her former role as Germany’s defense minister.
Alongside the president of the EU parliament, David Sassoli, von der Leyen said she knows the “Kurdish people very well due to my previous work in Iraq,” while answering questions asked by Kurdistan 24 reporter Barzan Hassan.
In Iraq, the official said, she saw what it meant for people to be subject to “inconceivable brutality.”
“First of all, we saw the attempted genocide against the Yezidis [in August 2014] and I noted how courageous the Kurds fought against ISIS. Not just in their homeland, but also with our support. I have so much respect for the way they cared for and protected the many refugees in northern Iraq,” she added.
Sassoli added that there has been much protest across the world for “what happened in Syria,” referring to Turkey’s assault on the Syrian Kurds that began on Oct. 9 and has continued since.
“I think above all the EU parliament [has] protested,” he said. “We have been very clear about the responsibilities that the Turkish authorities should be shouldering. Recently, we had discussions with the Turkish minister and it is our commitment, I think, that is clear here; Turkey has to modify its stance and we always expressed solidarity with the citizens of northern Syria.”
He added, however, that Europe is not responsible for all events in the world and EU member states are often left only with the option to strongly express their opinion that they don’t believe in violence.
“I think to put everything on Europe is not very positive. There are Kurdish people in many countries in the Middle East. And we have always said that we want to help.”
Von der Leyen was elected as the new president of the Commission, the EU’s executive body, with 461 votes in favor, 157 against, and with 89 abstentions in July 2019. Before that, she visited the Kurdistan Region and Iraq at least five times as Germany’s Defense Minister.
In February, she commended the role of Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the fight against the Islamic State and described a German-built military hospital in the autonomous Kurdistan Region as “crucial.”
Read More: German defense minister praises Peshmerga, highlights German-built hospital in Kurdistan
“It was very important for us, because we’ve seen the courageous fight of Peshmerga against Da’esh [Islamic State], to help over time to restructure and rebuild what [has] been damaged.”
As part of its support to the Kurdistan Region, Germany completed the construction of the Peshmerga Hospital and officially handed it over to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Jan. 31.
Editing by John J. Catherine