President Barzani’s Baghdad Visit another Step to Thawing Ti

[Aslan]

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A visit by the Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani to Baghdad on Sunday marks a major change in soured relations between the central government and Erbil, with committees formed to resolve issues ordered to begin their work in earnest later this month.

“Barzani’s visit to Baghdad is another step towards resuming talks between Erbil and Baghdad,” said the president’s chief of staff, Fuad Hussein.

He said that Barzani and Maliki have agreed that special committees formed in April to look into the issues between Erbil and the federal government would start their work in earnest in late July.

Hussein believes that Barzani’s visit was a major step forward, saying, “It took place after a long separation, and now dialogues have started again and the problems are on their way to solutions.”

Upon his arrival in Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did not receive Barzani at the airport, which was variously interpreted in the Kurdish media.

But in response, Hussein explained that, “When we arrived, half of the ministers in the (Iraqi) cabinet were at the airport and on the way back Maliki himself accompanied us to the airport,”

Representatives of several Kurdish parties accompanied Barzani to Baghdad, but Hussein said that the three main opposition groups, the Change Movement (Gorran), the Islamic Union and the Islamic League, were not present.

“All parties were in the delegation except the opposition,” said the president’s chief of staff. “And that is because we had not invited them.”

“Whenever we have invited them in the past, they have boycotted the offer, so we didn’t do it this time,” Hussein added.

The president’s visit to Baghdad came a few days after he returned from an official visit to Moscow, where he and Maliki have visited in turn in the past year.

Barzani’s chief of staff said the timing of Sunday’s visit was calculated so that the meetings could take place before the fasting month of Ramadan, which is due to start this week.

The visit by Barzani, and a similar visit by Maliki to Erbil last month, is expected to ease tensions between the autonomous government in Erbil and the federal government.

Relations between both sides had soured in the past two years over oil extraction and exports, Baghdad’s budget allocation for the autonomous Kurdish enclave and disputes over “disputed territories” claimed by both sides. Late last year, Erbil and Baghdad came close to war in the disputed territories south of Kirkuk and near the border with Syria.

That happened after Kurdish leaders stood against the formation of a military unit called the Dijla Forces that Baghdad deployed in disputed territories, and Erbil responded by sending thousands of its own Peshmarga forces.

“The Kurdish president will visit Baghdad again after Ramadan and Maliki has said that he will come to Erbil,” Hussein told Rudaw.

Barzani, unlike previous visits which were conducted in suit and tie, wore traditional Kurdish clothes on his visit Sunday, and Hussein explained that was meant to stress the Kurdish presence in Baghdad.