Interview with Kurdish President Masoud Barzani
Do you believe that the federal government in Baghdad considers you as its partners in government?
President Barzani: This is the main problem. During my recent visit to Baghdad, I emphasized this point. We asked them: Are we partners or not? If you consider us as your partners then this is one issue; if you do not then this is another issue. They stressed that we are partners. However, in real practice, I doubt this.
Do you yourselves feel that you are partners in the federal government?
This is a coalition government and we are partners in it. But the actions of this government are weird. We are partners but we do not have a role in the government. We are not partners in security, economic and military issues and we do not know anything about these institutions.
Do you talk openly to them in Baghdad? What is happening is that during you meetings with the federal governments, optimistic reports are issued but later the opposite happens.
During our recent visit, we reached good agreements and mechanisms to implement these agreements. We have a program on which we are in agreement with the government in Baghdad. But when we returned to the Kurdistan Region, everything we had agreed upon was ignored. The programs agreed upon are being marginalized. This state of affairs does not serve our coalition or Iraq or the future of Iraq. Performance should be based on the principle of partnership and agreement. This is the only way to build the new Iraq. The consequences of monopolizing authority are well known. This situation will not lead to any result in favour of Iraq.
Full story: http://www.krg.org/articles/detail.asp?lngnr=12&smap=02010200&rnr=73&anr=25402
