Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region suffers as US-Iran war drags on
The Kurdistan Regional Government says 70 percent of its trade has been cut by the regional conflict. Erbil, Iraq – For the last five months
The Kurdistan Regional Government says 70 percent of its trade has been cut by the regional conflict. Erbil, Iraq – For the last five months or so, Iraq’s Kurdistan region has suffered the impact and ramifications of the ongoing United States-Israel war on Iran. Despite efforts by the government to distance itself and not take sides or allow attacks on Iran from its territories, the repercussions were heavy on the semi-autonomous region and Iraq as a whole. Since the outbreak of the war in February, hundreds of missiles and drones have hit the Kurdish region. Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), told Al Jazeera the region has ”paid a heavy price” in the war. ”We have been targeted more than 1,000 times by missiles and drones directly from Iran or from inside Iraq by some of the militias. We think these are all unjustifiable attacks on Kurdistan. Unfortunately, we had casualties and we lost people. Many of our infrastructure have been hit badly,” Barzani told Al Jazeera in an interview. ”The regional conflict and the security repercussions led to a 70 percent decrease in trade across the Kurdish region,” he added. According to KRG data, the attacks hit military and security sites, energy facilities, bases and headquarters of opposition Iranian Kurdish parties, in addition to civilian areas. A direct casualty of these attacks is the economy: The oil and gas sectors, and the movement of companies and investment. And it comes at a time when the Kurdish region is facing a chronic financial crisis amid ongoing disputes with the federal government in Baghdad over salary payments for state employees, oil sales, and revenues. “The scale of losses inflicted on the Kurdistan region as a result of the war, up to April, is estimated at one trillion and 500 billion Iraqi dinars ($1.14bn), and these figures were also handed over to the Iraqi government,” Peshawa Hawramani, spokesman for the KRG, told Al Jazeera.
“There is no convincing reason to strike the Kurdistan region. We were not a party to this war, nor will we be a party to it, and we have not worked to make the territory of the Kurdistan region a launching point for striking Iran,” Hawramani said, adding that attacks were a “violation of the sanctity of Iraqi territory and Iraqi sovereignty”. Iran-backed armed groups Kurdish authorities say they have named the perpetrators behind the attacks and provided them to the central government in Baghdad. “We have provided the names of these factions to the former and current Iraqi governments. These are factions that bear arms outside state institutions illegally, and yet, no measures have been taken so far by the Iraqi government towards these factions, whether the former or the current one,” the spokesman said, adding that attacks were taking place even before the Iran war began. Within hours of the US-Israel attacks on Iran, US assets in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region came under retaliatory attacks from Tehran-backed groups, dragging the country into the conflict that has since expanded across the Middle East and beyond. Since then, US assets in Iraq have come under multiple attacks from pro-Iran groups and Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In response, the US has also carried out attacks against the Iraqi groups. The IRGC has also attacked Iranian Kurdish groups based in the Iraqi Kurdish region, after reports that Washington planned to arm them to fight Tehran. Last week, the leader of an Iranian Kurdish nationalist group based in the Kurdish region told Al Jazeera that it is “highly likely” that Iranian Kurds will stage a cross-border ground operation into Iran. During the war, Iraq was also attacked. Drone and rocket attacks have hit Baghdad International Airport, which houses a military base and a US diplomatic facility, as well as oilfields and other facilities. For many in the Kurdish region, the Iran-backed armed groups are a cause of destabilisation and a source of concern.
The BriefWire