The president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, traveled to Tehran on Monday to meet with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who warned him to prevent “anti-revolutionary elements” from getting too friendly with the autonomous Kurdish region.
The warning appeared to be a threat intended to dissuade Kurdish cooperation with the United States and any potential cordial ties with neighboring Israel. The KRG maintains friendly relations with the United States and cooperates militarily with Washington, particularly against the Islamic State (Isis) jihadist organization. The KRG’s Peshmerga forces were pivotal in the ouster of the ISIS “caliphate” from its regional stronghold in northern Mosul, and the KRG’s capital, Erbil, took in a large number of persecuted Christians fleeing the Islamic State genocide.
The KRG is an entity in northern Iraq that operates largely independently from Baghdad, though it is not sovereign and attempts to establish a nation of Kurdistan have failed catastrophically. In 2017, following the collapse of the Islamic State “caliphate,” then-Kurdish President Masoud Barzani held a referendum that found the majority of KRG residents wanted to secede from Iraq and found their own country.
Despite the KRG’s key role in helping fight ISIS, the administration of then-President Donald Trump opposed the referendum, ensuring its failure amid a wave of attacks by Iranian proxy forces on the KRG. Barzani stepped down from the office shortly thereafter. Iran, meanwhile, celebrated the KRG defeat as an American failure to establish a “second Israel” in the Middle East, meaning an administration friendly to America and its values.
Prior to traveling to Tehran, Barzani hosted two American senators, Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Ted Budd (R-NC), to discuss security cooperation, underscoring Erbil’s relationship with Washington.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani on Saturday, May 4, 2024, received two United States senators in Erbil. The visiting delegation reaffirmed Washinton’s “unwavering” support for the Kurdistan Region. The delegation included Republican Senators Joni Ernst and Ted Budd who both sit on the Senate Committee on Armed Services (Kurdistan Region Presidency).
Raisi, the Iranian president, reportedly welcomed Barzani with demands for an end to the presence of “anti-Iran elements” in Iraq.
“Complete disarmament and the absence of anti-revolutionary elements in the Iraqi territory are a necessity,” the Iranian state-run PressTV quoted Raisi as saying. “We are confident about the goodwill and friendship of our Iraqi and Kurdish brothers.”
Similarly, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported that Raisi pressured the Kurds not to consider any non-hostile relationship with Israel.
“We are confident in the goodwill and friendship of our Iraqi and Kurdish brothers, but considering the hatred of the enemies, including the Zionist regime, against the Iranian nation,” Raisi reportedly said, “we expect the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan region to absolutely prevent any abuse of the soil of this region against Iran by the elements of the Zionist enemy and anti-revolutionary elements.”
In exchange, Raisi allegedly promised an increase in commercial activity, “but security is an essential base for any kind of cooperation or the expansion of interactions.”
A statement from the office of the Kurdish president said Barzani and Raisi “emphasized the significance of strengthening the ties between Iran, Iraq, and the Kurdistan Region, based on the principles of good neighborliness, shared interests, and advancing trade and economic relations.” It claimed Barzani “expressed gratitude to Iran for their support and assistance to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (R) meets with Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) head Nechirvan Barzani (L) in Tehran, Iran, on May 6, 2024 (Iranian Presidency/Anadolu via Getty Images).
Barzani’s trip to Tehran was the first since the Iranian terrorist proxy organization Hamas launched an unprecedented siege of the nation of Israel, invading the country and engaging in widespread crimes against humanity, including door-to-door executions of entire families, gang rape, desecration of corpses, and other atrocities. The visit also preceded an increase in hostile Iranian military activity in the KRG, including the bombing of a civilian home in Erbil in January. The strike killed a Kurdish businessman, Peshraw Dizayee, and his daughter Zhina, who was ten days shy of her first birthday.
At the time, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – a U.S.-designated terrorist organization – vowed to keep bombing Kurdistan “until avenging the last drops of martyrs’ blood.” The IRGC claimed that it had bombed a “Mossad base” in Erbil, offering no evidence for this claim, and linked the base to an attack on a memorial for dead IRGC General Qassem Soleimani, perpetrated by the Islamic State. Soleimani was eliminated in an American drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, 2020.
In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, worshippers chant slogans during Friday prayers ceremony, as a banner shows Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, left, and Iraqi Shiite senior militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed in Iraq in a U.S. drone attack on Jan. 3, and a banner which reads in Persian “Death to America” (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP).
The KRG adamantly denied the existence of any Mossad presence in Erbil and confirmed that the IRGC only succeeded in destroying the home of a Kurdish civilian.
“These attacks and hostilities against the Kurdistan Region are without reason and are unjustified,” Prime Minister of the KRG Masrour Barzani said at the time. “We at the Kurdistan Region have done all we can to provide more services for our people and develop our relations with neighboring countries in a peaceful manner.”
Discussion of the tensions necessarily arising from Iran bombing the KRG was absent from both Iranian state coverage of the Raisi-Barzani meeting and from the official statement from the KRG. KRG presidency spokesperson Dilshad Shahab told reporters that “coldness” did exist between the countries, but Barzani was hoping to ameliorate tensions with his visit.
“It is no secret that there has been a kind of coldness in these [Erbil-Tehran] relations in recent times; we want to be assured that the common interests of both sides outweigh the obstacles that may arise,” Shahab told Rudaw.
PressTV claimed, bizarrely, that Barzani “hailed the leading role played by Iran’s legendary anti-terror figure Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in boosting security in Iraq and its Kurdistan region” and that he “emphasized that the Kurdistan Regional Government will not prefer relations with the Israeli regime, which is currently in its worst position, over its ties with a powerful and friendly country like Iran.”
Soleimani, who was head of the IRGC’s foreign terror unit the Quds Force, was responsible for terror plots resulting in the deaths of at least 600 Americans and was at the time of his death coordinating with Iran-backed militias in Baghdad. His absence devastated Iran’s ability to rapidly plot and execute terrorist attacks against Americans.