United States Congressman James Andrew Himes speaking to Rudaw on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 18, 2024. Photo: Screengrab/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - While Erbil and Washington have a common interest in “stopping Iranian violations of sovereignty,” the process of approving air defenses is not an easy one, United States Congressman James Andrew Himes told Rudaw on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) on Sunday.
Himes, a Congressman for Connecticut in the House of Representatives and ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, reported having had a “very constructive” conversation with Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani on the sidelines of the MSC, on topics ranging from energy, where the US and the Kurdistan Region also share common concerns, to defense, more specifically the issue of “Iran’s destabilizing influence.”
On the issue of whether the US is going to provide Iraq and the Kurdistan Region with an air defense system, Himes noted that President Barzani “told us precisely what happened with the Iranian cruise missile strike on Erbil,” adding that while this constitutes a real concern in the eyes of the US, the “process of air defense is a complicated one, but I do think that we have a common interest in stopping Iranian violations of sovereignty.”
Himes also noted that the conversation regarding a potential US provision of air defense to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region does not exist in a vacuum but rather “gets wrapped up in the status of forces of the United States and the coalition in Iraq,” stressing that despite this, “we have a very strong common interest in making sure the Iranians don’t feel like they can violate sovereignty the way they did.”
In relation to the fact that the Iraqi government has begun the process of winding down the coalition’s mission in the country, Himes said that the US would also like to reduce its presence in the country as “it is both a vulnerability as well as an expensive thing,” underscoring that nevertheless, “we don’t want to do it in a way that either empowers Iran or it allows Daesh [Islamic State, ISIS] to come back in a significant way.”
The Munich Security Conference (MSC) serves as the primary global platform for discussing matters related to international security policy, creating a space for diplomatic efforts aimed at tackling the most urgent security issues on a global scale. Barzani arrived in Munich late on Thursday and had numerous high-level meetings over the three-day conference.
The event brings together 450 high-profile and senior decision-makers and thinkers, including heads of state, ministers, as well as leading figures in the international NGO scene, industry, media, academia, and civil society.
The MSC was first launched in 1963 and initially served as a space for discussions focusing on Western policy against the backdrop of the Cold War, later on evolving into the wider international conference that it is today.
Throughout the conference President Barzani met with several high-profile figures, including European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, energy security adviser to United States President Joe Biden Amos Hochstein, France's Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Stephane Sejourne, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. He also met with British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday.
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