ISIS is still serious threat, says US diplomat

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – James Jeffrey, Special Envoy to the International military intervention against ISIS, on Wednesday told Kurdistan24 that “ISIS is still a serious threat, particularly in the Assad areas of Syria and less so in Iraq and in Northeast Syria where US forces are.”

“I think that the US and Iraq are continuing to discuss how to strengthen the Iraqi armed forces against all threats beginning with of course the Islamic State… there is a NATO training mission that the US participates in in Iraq that I believe will stay. The United States plans on having a bilateral military presence of one or another sort in Iraq into the future as we have in many other countries,” Jeffrey said.

He also stated that Turkey has very significant security concerns to “its north with Russia to its south with Iran but also the PKK, the Islamic State, Assad and even Russia in Syria and it wants to coordinate with the US on how best to deal with all of these problems.”

“Iranian pressure exercised through Iraqi courts and to some degree the Iraqi government has marginalized the Kurdistan region just as it is marginalizing the Iraqi Sunni Arabs in the Parliament and marginalizing Christians. We're very concerned about this,” the diplomat noted.

Regarding the recent Turkish President’s visit to the Kurdistan Region, he added that “Erdogan would like to see three things. One is most importantly a strong Kurdistan region not an independent or autonomous one for his own internal Kurdish political reasons but a strong region that is a friend of Turkey and a provider of energy to Ceyhan port.”