MONTREAL, Canada – The Kurdish National Congress of North America (KNC) has done such a great job of creating important contacts between Washington and Kurds around the Middle East that it must now find a new role for itself.
Among other things, the KNC is credited with facilitating and promoting ties between the United States and Iraqi Kurds, which led to US support for an autonomous Kurdistan Region.
Today, thanks in great part to the KNC, the KRG has its own office in Washington. So does Turkey’s Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which promotes Turkey’s large Kurdish minority.
‘’Years back, it (KNC) was more popular, because it was the only entity to represent Kurdistan,’’ former KNC president Dr Kirmanj Gundi told Rudaw over the phone from the University of Tennessee, where he teaches.
‘’Now, Kurdish leaders are welcomed to the White House and have their own representatives, to the point that the Kurdish National Congress of North America’s role has been diminished,’’ he said.
Non-profit and member-driven, the KNC was created in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s 1988 poison-gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja, which killed 5,000 Kurdish civilians, among them mothers and fathers clutching dead infants.
It was the KNC that helped tell the story of the Kurds before many American institutions, in hopes of promoting the idea of a “Free United Kurdistan.”
‘’At the time Kurds were not very well known to the political entities (in North America). The Kurdish National Congress of North America had a very important role in bringing Kurdish leaders to the White House,’’ said Gundi.
‘’More people know of the Kurds and Kurdistan because of organizations like the Kurdish National Congress of North America,’’ said Kani Xulam, director of the American Kurdish Information Network.
‘’I have seen some of the Kurdish National Congress members interviewed on national television, such as the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), to educate Americans about the Kurds and Kurdistan,’’ he recalled to Rudaw.
Through meetings between Kurdish and American representatives and lobbying before institutions and media, the KNC opened many doors in the United States and Canada to Kurdish political parties.
That work may now be finished for the KNC. But current president, Luqman Barwari, believes the organization still has a role to play.
‘’It is unfortunate to say that the role and importance of the Kurdish National Congress of North America has been diminished, due to the fact that there are now larger political players including the Kurdish Regional Government, the Peace and Democratic Party (BDP), etc.,” he told Rudaw.
Barwari explained that the dialogue between Washington and Erbil would benefit from the KNC’s support. He said that, because the KNC is a neutral organization and its members come from all of the Middle East’s Kurdish regions, it could use that to assist in discussions and negotiations.
The KNC is now focusing on promoting networking among Kurdish communities around the United States.
‘’There are many Kurdish organizations in the USA, but with very limited connections or no bonds between them to network nationally,’’ Barwari said.
The KNC still holds seminars and conferences with Kurdish and non-Kurdish scholars, academics and politicians.
Xulam believes there is a lot more work to be done to educate Americans about the Kurds.
‘’When you mention Kurds, most Americans think of Saddam rather than Saladin or Talabani. A few may have heard of Barzani or Ocalan or Sivan, but many more remain ignorant of Kurds and Kurdistan,’’ he said.
Barwari said that the KNC had hoped to hold its 25th annual conference in the Kurdistan Region, but that a sponsorship request send to KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani was never answered.
For the non-profit KNC, whose income comes from membership fees and donations, money woes are another problem. Barwari described the KNC’s limited budget these days as “one of the most important challenges.”
Comments
0 0 66mahmoud | 6 hours ago
To get full support from the US, Kurds should offer the US an unconditional cooperation and military bases in Kurdidtan, not only in Iraki Kurdistan, but also in the Turkish Kurdistan on the Mediterranean sea.
