EU-Delegations briefing on Kurdistan and Turkey

by Roni Alasor and Lorin Sarkisian

Brussels, 19 March 2015 - Middle East Diplomatic (MED) – Following two EU-AFET delegations to Kurdistan and Turkey, the European parliamentarians hold an information briefing on the outcome of the visits. The Kurdish issue, the Armenian genocide and isis terror were among the topics of discussion as highly attention of two official visits of Members of the European Parliament in Erbil (Kurdistan Region, KRG) and Ankara (Turkey) last week. The parliamentarians shared their impressions during a briefing meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET) in the European Parliament in Brussels. Kurdish diplomats from Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), HDP and Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) followed the briefing.

MEP Afzal Khan, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Security and Defence, briefed the AFET Members on the delegation visit in the capital of Kurdistan Region Erbil where they met Kurdish top leaders, heads of military forces and NGOs and visited refugee camp centres.

Mr. Khan praised the role of the Kurdish forces in the fight against isis terror and KRG’s efforts to help more than 1, 5 million of refugees and displaced people of different ethnic and religious groups, including many thousand Christians and Yezidi-Kurds from several regions in Iraq and Syria. Mr. Khan pointed out the difficulties faced by KRG, which on one hand has to fight intensively with isis criminals and on the other hand, to handle the refugees flow, while Bagdad does not assure any budget payments. Therefore, the MEPs asked for more EU and West logistical, training and weapons support for Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

On the role of Turkey in the region, Afzal Khan commented that Ankara is more interested to remove Assad than isis terrorist groups. On the other hand, according Mr. Khan, isis bands are not as stronger as before, they lost much of their capability and are now in difficulties and in defensive positions, despite the support of former Baas officers. MEP Khan do believe that  the radicalisation of many Sunni Muslims who support isis is a result of the wrong pro-Iranian Maliki-Shia government policies.   

In a comment to Med-Diplomatic, Head of the KRG Mission to EU Delaver Ajgeiy underlined the importance of the EP’s visit to Erbil for strengthening of the EU-KRG relations and closer cooperation in the future.

    

During the AFET meeting in EP, several hundred of Yezidi-Kurds gathered in the front of the EU Parliament in Luxembourg Place protesting isis brutalities and asked for urgent help.

AFET DELAGATION TO TURKEY

The delegation to Ankara, led by Elmar Brok, chairman of the AFET Committee and including Kati Piri, EP’s rapporteur on Turkey, held talks with Turkish ministers and officials, as well as the opposition parties HDP, CHP and MHP.

The Armenian genocide, Kurdish peace process and reforms in Turkey, the 10 % anti-Kurdish elections threshold, the relations with Cyprus, the Nabucco pipeline and the role of Russia, human right issues and freedom of speech, EU-Turkey relations, visa liberalisation and security package were discussed by the parliamentarians during the visit in Turkey.

Regarding the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, the delegation “exchanged view in the best way in European level”. It is expected that Ankara will allow ceremonies for commemoration of the 100 years of the Armenian Genocide on 24 April in many cities all over Turkey. However, as an anonymous MEP underlined, Turkey should also take the responsibility to insure the necessary security measures during the commemoration events.