Maliki: Kurds are ‘Israeli sympathisers’

Former Iraqi Prime Minister and current Vice President, Nouri Al-Maliki, has slammed the Kurdish leadership, and in particular Masoud Barzani, for implementing Israeli policies in the region, branding them “Israeli sympathisers”.

In a broadcast interview aired yesterday by Euronews, Al-Maliki, a Shia Arab, accused Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) based in Erbil, of working with Iraq’s foreign enemies, including the US, Israel and Turkey.

“The Kurdistan Region has become a strategic and developed platform for the implementation of US-Israeli policy,” Al-Maliki said, adding “Kurdistan will become a second Palestine…[as] Israeli sympathisers and elements are abundant in Kurdistan.”

Al-Maliki also targeted Barzani and the KRG for having relations with neighbouring Turkey, saying: “The Turkish Army came to Bashiqa by the permission of the Kurdistan Region…[The KRG] thinks that it is a neighbour and friend of Iraq, not a part of Iraq.”

The KRG invited Turkish forces to Bashiqa as part of a mission to train anti-Daesh forces in preparation for the current operation to recapture Iraq’s second city Mosul from the extremist group.

However, Ankara maintains that Baghdad assented to the deployment of Turkish forces, and state broadcaster TRT even released footage of former Defence Minister Khalid Al-Obeidi touring the Bashiqa camp with Turkish officers present to prove the point.

KDP retaliates against Maliki in war of words

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), to which Barzani belongs, lashed out against Al-Maliki in response, mocking him for his “failed cabinet” and failed army that fled in the face of a Daesh onslaught in 2014, Rudaw news agency, who are close to the KDP, reported.

Referencing Al-Maliki’s controversial legacy, the KDP statement said: “Al-Maliki’s role in inciting sectarianism, his entanglement in corruption and his harming of Iraq’s political, security and economic standing is clear to all Iraqis as well as the international community.”

Accusing Al-Maliki of betraying the KDP and Barzani for loyalty shown to him, the statement continued to say: “The disloyalty he has shown and the crimes he has committed against the Kurdish nation are no less than the crimes of Ali Hassan Al-Majid.”

Ali Hassan Al-Majid was former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s cousin and one of his senior aides who perpetrated war crimes against Kurds earning him the moniker of “Chemical Ali” during the US-led illegal invasion of 2003.