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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Former American Ambassador to Iraq Douglas Silliman on Friday called on Kurds to strive for unity in order to strengthen their position in the country.
“I'm afraid that the divisions in Kurdistan seem to have gotten sharper since I left, although there are always divisions in Kurdistan,” Silliman, who served in Baghdad from 2016 to 2019, told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda in Washington.
“As always, I wish that Kurds could find a unified position and have a stronger joint position with Baghdad that would give them a stronger role in the government in Baghdad and clearer goals to follow, even if they did not agree on every issue,” he added.
Kurdistan Region’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) have been at odds for years over several issues, mainly power and income sharing as well as how to conduct long overdue parliamentary elections.
Silliman also commented on Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, who is currently on his first trip to the US as prime minister.
“I've been very pleased with the way that Prime Minister Sudani has tried to address some of his electoral promises to improve services for the Iraqi people. I think that is one of the most important political goals. There are a couple of other issues that concern me that I know the government is working on,” he said.
“There will need to be more jobs for young Iraqis, and the development of a stronger private sector is something that the government is working on. That needs to also come with finance reform and a stronger banking sector,” he added.
“Those are issues that I know that have been addressed on the prime minister's trip. I see progress, but as always in Iraq, there are many more issues that need to be addressed,” he noted.
The former ambassador said he is “worried” that some pro-Iran militia groups operate outside Iraq’s borders “without the permission” of the Iraqi government.
“I think Prime Minister Sudani is trying to walk along the top of the fence. On one side, he has people who would like to pull him closer to Iran and make Iraq part of the Axis of Resistance. On the other side, he has people who want to develop the economy, tie the Iraqi economy to the Gulf and the world economy, and maintain relations with prosperous countries like the United States and Europe so that Iraq can take advantage of that. He has to balance these two political forces. We wish him luck and hope that he chooses to go a little bit more on the side of the West and economic development,” Silliman said.
Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as the US ambassador to Iraq between 2005 and 2007, told Rudaw that the situation in Iraq is a “very mixed one.”
“On the one hand, the regional developments, conflict in Gaza, and now the expansion of the war to include attacks by the popular movement in Iraq, Hashd al-Shaabi, against the US, although that has stopped recently - that is positive,” he said.
“Compared to the time that I was there, there has been some significant progress in terms of the economy, although the services are not where they ought to be. By now Iraq should have had its own energy independence, electricity for the people,” he said.
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