Asst Sec State for Near Eastern Affairs: the KRG is an ‘excellent partner’

David Schenker

Laurie Mylroie 2020/01/20 05:55

world Kurdistan Region KRG United States David Schenker

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – During a recent visit to the Kurdistan Region, David Schenker, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, sat down to speak with Kurdistan 24.

“The KRG has been an excellent partner for the United States in the war against terrorism,” Schenker said during a Jan. 9 visit to Erbil, when he met with the senior Kurdish leadership, shortly after the Iranian missile strikes, launched in retaliation for the US assassination of Quds Force commander, Qasim Soleimani.

“You are great partners to the United States,” Schenker affirmed, as he also noted that the US is “doing a lot of humanitarian work” in the Kurdistan Region, which currently hosts over a million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees from other countries, the greatest number of whom fled the conflict in Syria.

“We provide all kinds of economic support,” Schenker continued, and “military support for the Peshmerga. You are great partners to the United States.”

Schenker also welcomed the position of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) toward the Dec. 31 assault on the US embassy in Baghdad, which he charged had been “organized” by Tehran.

“We appreciate the statements of President [Nechirvan] Barzani,” Schenker said, “condemning the attack on the US embassy by these Iranian-backed forces.”

“So we consider the KRG to be an excellent partner, and my meetings today affirm that,” he concluded.

For Washington, the attack on the Baghdad embassy recalled Iran’s 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, as well as the 2012 assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the death of the US ambassador, along with three other Americans.

Indeed, US President Donald Trump will have the opportunity to thank Barzani for his stance in person, when the two meet soon at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

It will be Trump’s first meeting with the KRG president and comes amid a period of unusually tense relations between Washington and Baghdad.

Iraqi Protests are Legitimate

Asked about the protests in Iraq, ongoing since October, Schenker characterized them as “legitimate.”

“Since day one,” Schenker explained, that has been the US position. He summarized the protestors’ demands as “the demand for good governance, for an end to corruption, for service provision.”

Although the demonstrators “have been protesting peacefully,” Schenker added, they “have been brutally suppressed by forces loyal to Iran.”

“Over 400 innocent Iraqis” have been killed, he continued, as he explained that their graves “were later desecrated by these same pro-Iranian forces.”

Schenker also cited the apparent collusion, or at least indifference, of elements of the Iraqi government in the attack on the embassy. Since October, the protestors have tried to cross the May 14 bridge over the Tigris River, “so they can protest outside of their ministries,” he noted. But “they were brutally repressed. Many were killed. Teargas canisters were fired into their heads.”

“Yet on Dec. 31, Kata’ib Hizbollah tried to come across that bridge and walked right across without a problem,” he noted, calling it a clear example of “Iran’s unproductive and really negative role in Iraq.”

Despite his complaints about Iran’s destabilizing activities in Iraq, Schenker, citing Trump, affirmed that the US was “looking for de-escalation.”

“We do not want a war,” he said, “but neither will we tolerate being attacked by Iran or its proxies—here or any place else in the region.”

Schenker served in the Pentagon during the Bush 43 administration, when he was Levant country director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, responsible for Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories. He assumed his current position in June of last year.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany

(Kurdistan 24’s Ferhad Resul conducted the interview in Erbil)