EU mission chief, Kurdistan Region premier discuss training to combat terrorism and organized crime

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and Christoph Buik, head of the European Union Advisory Mission in Iraq, met Wednesday to discuss the EU’s work in the Kurdistan Region and security assistance and reforms, the Kurdish government said.

The EUAM has operated in Iraq since 2017 with a mandate to provide security advice and help build an accountable civilian security sector.

During Wednesday’s meeting in Erbil, Barzani and Buik “discussed ways to develop cooperation between the relevant institutions in the Kurdistan Regional Government and the European Union Advisory Mission, especially in the field of training and assisting the police and internal security agencies in the Kurdistan Region in the face of organized crime and terrorism,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

The two men emphasized the importance of developing a strategy to prevent extremism and combat violence, with Barzani expressing the Kurdistan Regional Government’s readiness to cooperate with the EUAM.

The EUAM program aims to build state institutions capable of consolidating security and using the rule of law to prevent conflict. It outlines a number of threats to Iraq’s national security, including terrorism but also corruption and political instability.