'Amnesty should apologize to Peshmerga, Kurdistan'

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (K24) – On Saturday, Nineveh Provincial Council (NPC) in northern Iraq released a statement rejecting all the accusations made by Amnesty International against Peshmerga. The council also urged the organization to apologize to Peshmerga and the Kurdistan Region.

Recently, Amnesty International released a report about the human rights violations in northern Iraq, stating that there has been “mass destruction in Peshmerga-controlled Arab villages.” According to the report, Peshmerga have prevented the displaced Arab families from returning to their liberated territories.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) strongly rejected all the accusations. “The Peshmerga have liberated large swaths of territory from Da’esh [IS] and have helped civilians regardless of their ethnic and religious backgrounds,” the head of the KRG Committee to Respond to International Reports, Dindar Zebari, told K24 on Wednesday.

Following the KRG’s response, many displaced Arab tribes in the Kurdistan Region rejected Amnesty’s report and showed their support for Peshmerga forces.

They mentioned that the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) have prevented the displaced people from returning to their liberated areas, not Peshmerga.

On Saturday, NPC released a statement saying, “After receiving Amnesty International’s report, we immediately started to investigate the case and visited the places that were mentioned in the report. We didn’t find proof to confirm Amnesty’s report.”

The statement reveals that, “What we witnessed in those places was the ruins of the battlefield where Peshmerga forces with the aerial support of the international coalition warplanes had targeted Da’esh [IS] bases.”

The accusations against Peshmerga and the Kurdistan Region are “baseless,” the statement reads.

NPC also acknowledges that IS uses civilians as a shield against the attacks of Peshmerga and coalition warplanes; the insurgents also station their militant bases in the area.

The statement notes that IS has forced many Arab Sunnis in northern Iraq to help them fight against Peshmerga.

“Amnesty International should apologize to Peshmerga and the Kurdistan Region,” the statement concludes.

Reporting by: Mewan Dolamari

Editing by: Karzan Sulaivany