Kurdistan feels betrayed by USA: Barzani

The USA knew about Iraq’s attack on Kirkuk in advance and the Kurdistan Regional Government will consider working more closely with Russia in the future, the region’s former president, Masoud Barzani, told journalists Wednesday.

“We regard ourselves as friends of the people of the United States, as friends of the government of the United States but […] we have to revise our relationship with those who are responsible for this,” said Barzani, who stepped down on November 1 after the Iraqi army rolled over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and other Kurdish-held territories in October following the Kurdish independence referendum held on September 25. “I can say we are going to have a very strong revising of our relationship,” he told NPR.

The Iraqi government and Iran-backed forces used US-made tanks and military equipment to defeat the Kurds, a US ally since several decades, Barzani added.

Barzani’s comments to journalists, some of the first since the independence referendum, came days after the Iraqi parliament reportedly proposed slashing the KRG’s share of next year’s budget from 17% to 12.6%. According to reports by the Kurdistan 24 media agency citing the head of Iraq’s state oil-marketing company SOMO, Baghdad has also started talks about exporting oil from Kirkuk to Iran.