Iraq’s Kurdish region wants to stay out of regional conflicts: PM Barzani

Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, says the semi-autonomous Kurdish region does not want to become involved in the ongoing regional conflict sparked by the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, adding that it supports Baghdad’s efforts to bring weapons under state control.

“No party has pressured us to get involved in the war and we do not want to be a party to any conflict in the region,” Barzani told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview on Saturday.

The prime minister said the region’s infrastructure has been severely damaged by more than 1,000 missile and drone attacks since the war began on February 28, either directly from Iran or from within Iraq via militias.

Barzani called the attacks “unjustified”, saying that “any issue must be resolved peacefully” through dialogue.

In March, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted the al-Harir Air Base near the regional capital of Erbil with five missiles, describing the facility as “the headquarters of the invading US army”.

Barzani said the base was empty as it has not hosted US troops for almost 10 years, since US-led coalition forces defeated ISIL (ISIS) and dismantled its territorial foothold. He added that US troops remained in Erbil to “fight terrorism” and that their presence had repeatedly come under attack.

Barzani also said the KRG supports the Iraqi government in restricting arms to official forces only.

In a speech before parliament in May, Iraq’s Prime Minister Ali a-Zaidi promised that the state will have a monopoly on arms in a country where paramilitary groups have been powerful since the 2003 US-led war on Iraq. The government has set a September 30 deadline for all armed factions to disarm and surrender their weapons to state control.