Iraqi Prime Minister’s Visit to Kurdistan Could Restore Some
Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 5:09 pmIraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki ended a more than two year-long boycott when he met with Kurdish Regional Government President Massoud Barzani on Sunday.
Given the spectacular increase in tit-for-tat terrorist attacks over the past several months between Sunnis the Shiites, Mr. Maliki’s visit to Erbil seem more political maneuvering than than an earnest stab at national unity, according to some analysts. Even so, it brought some hope that a new equilibrium could come to an Iraq increasingly riven by violent sectarian divisions.
“The current rapprochement is a political tactic being used by Maliki to re-establish political balance within Iraq that has become destabilized by the reaction to his government’s attempts to disenfranchise much of the Sunni Arab community politically,” said Crispin Hawes, the director of the North Africa and Middle East program at the New York-based Eurasia Group consultancy, in a briefing note on Monday.
The past few months have certainly left Mr. Maliki and his Shiite-backed government in need of a few more friends. A nationwide wave of car bombings on Monday killed more than 70 people, adding to a rising death toll of more than 2,000 people since April.
Mr. Maliki’s mostly Sunni opponents have continued to protest against the Baghdad government and the worsening sectarianism has once again brought Iraq to the brink of the kind of full-on civil war seen in 2006 and 2007.
Mr. Maliki’s tenure is no stranger to violence. But this latest round is uniquely troubling due to the absence of US troops (which left in December 2011) and the growing threat of unrestrained violence in next-door Syria, whose extremist Sunni rebels share common cause with the Al Qaeda in Iraq group thought by many Iraqis to be behind the wave of bombings.
Despite criticism surrounding Mr. Maliki’s visit, senior Kurdish officials expressed a mild optimism that regardless of the Iraqi prime minister’s motivations, this week’s talks were a step in the direction of normalizing the central government’s relations with the KRG following more than two years of quiet bitterness.
“That was one of the results: normalization of the relationship,” said Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff to the KRG’s presidency. “So why did Maliki do this? That’s not my business.”
If nothing else, the meeting signals the start of seven joint committees dedicated to tackling the outstanding grievances between Iraq proper and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
The two sides agreed to the committees in April, when Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani visited Baghdad in a bid to end Kurdish politicians’ walkout from parliament and Mr. Maliki’s government.
But Eurasia Group’s Mr. Hawes said he does not expect the most crucial questions — whether the KRG can sign its own oil contracts and what percentage of the national budget will go to Kurdistan — to be resolved until long after parliamentary elections scheduled for next year.
The continuing impasse belies mounting pressure from Turkey, the United States and the United Nations for the two parties to resolve their differences.
“It could well be 2017 or beyond before the necessary legislation is in place” to resolve the acrimony between Erbil and Baghdad, said Mr. Hawes in the note.
Given the spectacular increase in tit-for-tat terrorist attacks over the past several months between Sunnis the Shiites, Mr. Maliki’s visit to Erbil seem more political maneuvering than than an earnest stab at national unity, according to some analysts. Even so, it brought some hope that a new equilibrium could come to an Iraq increasingly riven by violent sectarian divisions.
“The current rapprochement is a political tactic being used by Maliki to re-establish political balance within Iraq that has become destabilized by the reaction to his government’s attempts to disenfranchise much of the Sunni Arab community politically,” said Crispin Hawes, the director of the North Africa and Middle East program at the New York-based Eurasia Group consultancy, in a briefing note on Monday.
The past few months have certainly left Mr. Maliki and his Shiite-backed government in need of a few more friends. A nationwide wave of car bombings on Monday killed more than 70 people, adding to a rising death toll of more than 2,000 people since April.
Mr. Maliki’s mostly Sunni opponents have continued to protest against the Baghdad government and the worsening sectarianism has once again brought Iraq to the brink of the kind of full-on civil war seen in 2006 and 2007.
Mr. Maliki’s tenure is no stranger to violence. But this latest round is uniquely troubling due to the absence of US troops (which left in December 2011) and the growing threat of unrestrained violence in next-door Syria, whose extremist Sunni rebels share common cause with the Al Qaeda in Iraq group thought by many Iraqis to be behind the wave of bombings.
Despite criticism surrounding Mr. Maliki’s visit, senior Kurdish officials expressed a mild optimism that regardless of the Iraqi prime minister’s motivations, this week’s talks were a step in the direction of normalizing the central government’s relations with the KRG following more than two years of quiet bitterness.
“That was one of the results: normalization of the relationship,” said Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff to the KRG’s presidency. “So why did Maliki do this? That’s not my business.”
If nothing else, the meeting signals the start of seven joint committees dedicated to tackling the outstanding grievances between Iraq proper and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
The two sides agreed to the committees in April, when Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani visited Baghdad in a bid to end Kurdish politicians’ walkout from parliament and Mr. Maliki’s government.
But Eurasia Group’s Mr. Hawes said he does not expect the most crucial questions — whether the KRG can sign its own oil contracts and what percentage of the national budget will go to Kurdistan — to be resolved until long after parliamentary elections scheduled for next year.
The continuing impasse belies mounting pressure from Turkey, the United States and the United Nations for the two parties to resolve their differences.
“It could well be 2017 or beyond before the necessary legislation is in place” to resolve the acrimony between Erbil and Baghdad, said Mr. Hawes in the note.