By Alexandra Di Stefano Pironti

BARCELONA, Spain –

The autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq hopes for a “friendship group” inside the European Parliament as well as a European Union office in Erbil, KRG foreign minister Falah Mustafa said during a visit to Brussels.

He also called for greater European engagement to ensure that Iraq, where sectarian violence and the death toll have spiked in recent months, begins to move in the right direction. At a human rights conference in Brussels, Mustafa said the Kurds were proud of what they had achieved in their autonomous enclave.

“We would like to see increased engagement from the European Parliament to help Iraq move in the right direction,” the Kurdistan government’s official website quoted Mustafa as saying.

“We also hope that a friendship group focused on Kurdistan can be established inside the European Parliament,” said Mustafa, who is director of the KRG’s Foreign Relations Department.

Mustafa briefed officials about the significance of Iraq´s parliamentary elections in April, Erbil’s relations with Ankara and an oil deal with Turkey that Baghdad has vehemently opposed.

The minister also called for EU assistance to ensure that the KRG benefits from European cooperation deals signed with the central government in Baghdad.

The Kurdistan Region is the only stable and prospering portion of violence-torn Iraq. More and more countries have been opening consulates in Erbil.

At a human rights conference on Iraq in Brussels, Mustafa said that the Kurds were proud of what they had achieved in Kurdistan.

“We in Kurdistan are proud of our culture of tolerance and peaceful coexistence. Respect for human rights is the guarantee for peaceful coexistence, progress and prosperity for people living together,” he was quoted as saying. “This is what we have done in the Kurdistan Region.”

The conference, focused on human rights in Iraq, was organized by the European Parliament. It followed a recent report by Human Rights Watch saying Iraqi authorities are detaining thousands of Iraqi women illegally and subjecting many to torture and ill treatment.

International concern over the situation in Iraq has been growing, together with a spike in sectarian violence, as well as fighting between security forces and armed groups.

In his meetings with European and Belgian officials, Mustafa appealed for the EU to recognize the brutalities committed against Iraqi Kurds by ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, as genocide.

Among European countries, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom recognize Saddam’s so-called “Anfal Campaign” against the Kurds as genocide.

Mustafa also highlighted the plight of the more than 250,000 Syrian refugees in Kurdistan, and asked for more humanitarian support.

The KRG representative also visited the Belgian foreign ministry, where he discussed the governance models of Iraq and Belgium.

“We want to learn from other countries' experiences of federalism, and especially Belgium, a country which, like Iraq, is comprised of different ethnicities,” said Mustafa, who was accompanied on his visits by the KRG’s EU representative, Delavar Ajgeiy.


Rudaw