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Ex-KRG President Masud Barzani and ex-Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Erbil, 2009
By Kamal Chomani:
There is no state in this world as backward as Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. There is no election, no human rights, no freedom, and no freedom of speech. The thugs of MBS, Mohammed Bin Salman, the Saudi ruler, managed to cut the prominent Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi into pieces inside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia is a police state that kills women and children. If it wasn’t for the oil, there would not be any strategic connection between Saudi Arabia and the USA. The only factor enabling the Saudi family to stay in power and repress their own people is Oil.
In the policy of the KDP and Barzani, Oil is a strategy to survive. The Barzanis and Talabanis, in their current negotiations on this issue of Oil with Baghdad, are not driven by their love of the Kurds and Kurdistan or advancing the interests of the people of the KRG.
For the Barzani family and their partner, the Talabani family, oil is the only way to control their own security services and stay in power. For them, oil is the only way to finance their own militia, media, charity companies, hospitals, and discos and nightclubs.
For them, Oil is the tool to win elections. For them, oil is a tool for international relationships beyond Kurdistan. Oil in Kurdistan has enabled Nichirvan and Masrour Barzani to open their own hospitals, own TV station, own charities, own schools, own investment companies, own nightclubs and own malls. It’s the same with the PUK.
Oil is a strategy for the KDP and PUK to stay in power. They want Kurdistan to be starved, and then they can control civil servants and the way people vote for them. They don’t want a free Kurdistan in which nobody votes for them. Apart from torture, what has the KDP to give to the people of Kurdistan? The KDP and PUK don’t have a think tank institution, they don’t have an ideology or a humanitarian project. Has anybody heard Masrour Barzani talking about the rights of children and the rights of women in Kurdistan society or equal opportunities and social justice? Has anyone ever heard Masrour Barzani, the Prime Minister of the KRG, talk about enhancing culture in Erbil or cleaning up the environment?
Finally, the only time the KDP or PUK can reach an agreement with Baghdad is when they feel pressure from the people as a result of the mini-uprising in the cities and towns of Kurdistan.
Translated from Sorani.
