Kurdish Interior Minister Meets DHS Under Secretary
WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) – Reber Ahmed, Interior Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), participated in a meeting with a senior official of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday.
Ahmed, who is on an extended visit to the US, saw the DHS Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans, Robert Silvers, to discuss issues of shared concern. The KRG Representative in Washington, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, has met with officials from the Department, but Ahmed is the first KRG minister to do so.
In their meeting, Ahmed and Silvers “discussed global security challenges that impact our societies, how to cooperate on countering them and how to better support communities at times of natural disaster,” the KRG Representative tweeted.
A great first meeting between Minister @RayberAhmed and Under Secretary Rob Silvers @DHS_Policy @DHSgov.
— Bayan Sami Rahman (@BayanRahman) June 16, 2023
They discussed global security challenges that impact our societies, how to cooperate on countering them and how to better support communities at times of natural disaster pic.twitter.com/HvCCmMLJ2f
The KRG’s Interior Ministry and DHS deal with similar issues, as Abdul Rahman explained to Kurdistan 24. Both agencies are focused on protecting internal security from a wide range of potential threats, including terrorism, drugs, trafficking, natural disasters, etc.
DHS was founded in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 Americans—the most lethal single strike in U.S. history. With that attack, U.S. officials recognized the need for far better coordination among the various agencies involved in protecting the American homeland, and that is what DHS represents.
Until then, Americans—both leaders and people—had operated on the de facto assumption that the two oceans, along with friendly neighbors to the north and south, protected them against foreign assault.
The 9/11 attacks—followed by a series of letters containing the biological agent, anthrax, the last two of which were sent to U.S.senators and contained the most lethal form of anthrax that U.S. scientists had ever seen—put an end to that illusion, and the creation of DHS followed.
“All of Minister Reber Ahmed’s meetings in Washington, including at DHS, have been warm and productive, underscoring the friendship and relationship Kurdistan has with the United States,” the KRG Representative told Kurdistan 24.
“We are pleased that the Minister’s visit has been successful in so many ways,” she continued. “We are especially pleased that the KRG Minister of Interior met with Under Secretary Silvers, the first time we’ve had a meeting at this level with DHS.”
“We believe,” the Kurdish Representative concluded, “that there is great scope for further cooperation and collaboration.”