All-party delegation to Kurdistan Region

British Parliamentarians hail progress in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq and urge deeper and broader relations with the UK.

21st April

“It has been two steps forward but one step back for the Kurdistan Region in the last year. Links with Turkey have improved but relations with Baghdad have declined. Respect for the UK remains very high in Iraqi Kurdistan, thanks to our role in establishing the safe haven in 1991 and in what is commonly referred to as ‘liberation’ in 2003. English is also the second language. But we fear that opportunities for trade, investment and a host of political, cultural and educational exchanges are not being pursued as vigorously as they should for the mutual benefit of the UK and the Kurdistan Region as part of a wider Iraq. We urge the UK to play a bigger role in helping ease tensions between the Region and the federal government in Baghdad over issues such as disputed territories and the hydrocarbon law.”

These are the central conclusions of a week-long fact-finding delegation of British parliamentarians to the Kurdistan Region. The cross-party group visited the three main cities and met senior political leaders including President Masoud Barzani and the Deputy Prime Minister Imad Ahmed, two of the three Governors, the editor of an independent newspaper, trade union and women’s rights activists, university and business leaders and the Christian Bishop of Erbil as well as visits to two major religious minorities.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the Kurdistan Region in Iraq sent a delegation last year and noted “substantial economic and social progress since then.”

“The leaders and people of this beautiful, hospitable and resource-rich region have achieved much since their uprising in 1991 and especially since the shadow of Saddam Hussein was lifted in 2003. There is a clear determination to drive regeneration by creating a vibrant market system with social protections and by creating a transparent model of governance. We are encouraged by the decision of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to bring in outside groups such as the National School of Government and PriceWaterhouseCoopers to shine a light on and counter incompetent and corrupt practices that deter investment.”

The APPG will next compile a detailed report on its meetings with a wide variety of leaders in the Region over the past week. It will also seek meetings with key British ministers to press for “much deeper and broader political, diplomatic and commercial relations between the UK and the Kurdistan Region.

“We believe that UK businesses should capitalise on the clear opportunities for trade and investment in the safest part of Iraq whose stability has already done much and could do much more to help create a viable, pluralist and federal system in Iraq. We specifically urge the Business Secretary to organise a trade mission to the region in the future in a similar way to the one he recently organised to Baghdad and Basra.

Pressure from the APPG has already brought the visa issuing regime in Erbil into line with the rest of Iraq particularly for students and business visitors and there is a strong case for extending the visa regime, particularly for students and business visitors, to facilitate travel between the Region and Britain without compromising UK border security. University and political leaders are also keen that the British Council increases its profile in the region and we will seek to discuss this with the British Council. Longer term, there must be direct flights between London and Erbil.

The APPG provides a parliamentary bridge of friendship between Britain and the Kurdistan Region and celebrates its many achievements without neglecting key problems such as corruption and serious concerns over women’s rights and media freedoms. We commend the KRG for facilitating all our requests for meetings and open and frank discussions.

Whilst we were in the Region, Amnesty International issued a report on illegal detentions and torture which also acknowledged progress in tackling crimes against women. We raised this report with the Deputy Prime Minister and were impressed by his directness. He told us that, like many current political leaders, he had himself been tortured and that torture was intolerable. We will seek a meeting with Amnesty International, visit one or more prisons of our own choice on future visits and monitor this issue. We also note that the leadership of the Region is keen on judicial training and are pleased that the UK is helping them to create better trained judges.

The future is bright for the Kurdistan Region which has considerable potential thanks to its oil and gas reserves as well as possibly plentiful agricultural resources and tourism in bustling cities with increasingly better tourist facilities as well as rugged mountains and verdant and unspoilt plains. We felt completely safe in the Region. The UK should play a bigger role in assisting the Region to tap its potential in all these areas. The Kurdistan Region is vital to the success of Iraq and to British foreign policy objectives.

However, the past also casts a long shadow with the continuing legacy of Baa’thist genocide which claimed 182,000 people’s lives, systematically destroyed thousands of villages and agricultural assets and forced people into the cities. We met the minister responsible for dealing with the “Anfal” genocide and agreed to redouble our efforts to encourage the UK and the wider international community to mark Anfal in order to provide assurances that there will never be a repetition, to mobilise scientific help to exhume the mass graves that are still being uncovered and identify the victims.”

The delegation consisted of Labour MP Derek Wyatt, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood (both for the first half of the week) and Liberal Democrat Peer, Tim Clement Jones, Mark Phillips, Chief of Staff to Baroness Neville-Jones, Shadow Security Minister and Gary Kent, Administrator of the APPG (and Director of Labour Friends of Iraq.) The delegation was also accompanied by Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the UK High Representative of the KRG.