Kurdish Prime Minister receives US delegation to protect religious minorities
WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani received a US delegation on Monday that is pursuing the Trump administration’s concerns about the fate of religious minorities in northern Iraq and how they can best be assisted, now that the Islamic State (IS) is largely defeated.
A month ago, Vice-President Mike Pence publicly directed the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to speed assistance to religious communities in the area—specifically Christians and Yezidis—which had been left decimated by IS’ savage occupation of their ancestral homelands.
Pence complained that US support was too slow in getting to those who needed it.
“The Vice President will not tolerate bureaucratic delays in implementing the Administration’s vision to deliver the assistance we promised to the people we pledged to help,” Pence’s Press Secretary said in a statement that his office issued early last month.
Pence “directed USAID Administrator Mark Green to travel to Iraq in the coming weeks to report back with an immediate comprehensive assessment addressing any issues that could delay the process of aid distribution,” the statement from his office affirmed.
On Monday, in fulfillment of Pence’s directive, Green, accompanied by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R, Nebraska) and Frank Wolf, retired after 34 years as a Congressman from Virginia; Amb. Sam Brownback, US Special Envoy for International Religious Freedom; Douglas Silliman, US ambassador to Iraq; and Ken Gross, US Consul General in Erbil; met with the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Nechirvan Barzani.
According to a KRG summary of the meeting, they discussed “the situation of minorities in the Nineveh Plan.”
The US delegation “commended” the KRG “and the people of the Kurdistan Region” for accommodating and assisting a “large number of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and refugees,” who have fled the terrorism of the Islamic State (IS), “despite the challenges facing the Region.”
The Kurdistan Region currently hosts some 1.4 million IDPs and refugees—a very large number, but down from well over 2 million in 2015.
The US delegation also praised the “coexistence among various communities in the Kurdistan Region.”
Kurdistan 24 spoke with Amb. Brownback in May, following the release of the State Department’s annual report on International Religious Freedom, which his office produces.
Brownback expressed his high regard for the Kurdish people and his appreciation of their tolerance toward others.
“The Kurds have been particularly good about protecting people of minority faiths,” Brownback said, “and much more supportive of basic religious freedom.”
He attributed that, at least in part, to the fact that the political community of the Kurdistan Region is not “based on a particular faith, so much as defined more as a group and an area.”
The Kurdish Prime Minister, for his part, affirmed to the visiting US delegation, the KRG’s “readiness to provide all assistance to various communities,” even as he stressed the need for international support to address their plight.
In addition, he noted, “These communities have deep historical roots in Iraq and the region,” and a “confidence-building process should be launched” to encourage them to remain in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, rather than emigrating to other areas.