Iraq’s Kurdish region wants to stay out of regional conflicts: PM Barzani
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- Masrour Barzani told Al Jazeera that 'no party has pressured us to get involved in the war' and that the Kurdistan Regional Government does not want to be 'a party to any conflict in the region.'
- Barzani said the Kurdish region has suffered severe infrastructure damage from more than 1,000 missile and drone attacks since the war began on February 28, launched either directly by Iran or by militias inside Iraq.
- Barzani called the strikes 'unjustified' and insisted 'any issue must be resolved peacefully' through dialogue.
- Iran's IRGC struck the al-Harir Air Base near Erbil with five missiles in March, branding it 'the headquarters of the invading US army'; Barzani said the facility has hosted no US troops for nearly 10 years.
- Barzani said the KRG backs Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's push to confine arms to state forces, with a September 30 deadline set for all armed factions to surrender weapons.
- Barzani confirmed the KRG maintains no relations with Israel but is deepening ties with Syria and Turkiye; President Nechirvan Barzani this week made the first visit to Syria by an Iraqi Kurdish leader since Bashar al-Assad's fall in December 2024.
- Iranian Kurdish opposition parties based in the Kurdish region are on high alert, with Trump and Israel publicly floating the idea of arming them to tip the balance inside Iran, where Kurds make up roughly 10 percent of the population.
Why it matters: Barzani's neutrality stance matters because KRG is geographically sandwiched between Iran, Turkiye, and Syria and has already absorbed more than 1,000 strikes; his public rejection of being pulled in, combined with Baghdad's September 30 disarmament deadline, puts Kurdish-region armed groups and militias under direct state pressure to stand down or face forced disarmament.
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