The talks stalled an active telephone diplomacy between the center and the territory

by **Rocky** Wed 15 Nov 2017, 3:11 am

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The talks stalled an active telephone diplomacy between the center and the territory

by Rocky Wed 15 Nov 2017, 3:11 am

The talks stalled an active telephone diplomacy between the center and the territory

15/11/2017 12:00 am

[rtl]Margaret Coker / The New York Times

Translation / Annis Saffar
If you run the TV channels you want over the last three weeks, or the social networking pages fluctuate, the whole atmosphere will suggest, on any measured scale, that more clashes are imminent between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurds in the northern region.
Kurdish officials accused federal forces of committing a massacre last month when they took control of 20 percent of the areas that were under Kurdish hegemony, without providing evidence to support their claims. Iraqi legislators on their part have called for jail sentences for Kurdish members who supported the referendum on independence on September 25.

Despite this bitter atmosphere, the leaders in Baghdad and their counterparts in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah exchanged telephone calls almost daily in the hope of finding solutions to the problems exacerbated by the referendum and making thousands of elements of the federal and Kurdish forces, who are facing some of them within sight, loosening the state of alert they are on.
These channels of dialogue have been gaining increasing importance since the official talks to reduce the escalation on October 29 ended after two face-to-face meetings. As Saad al-Hadithi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, said, the channels of dialogue and communication have never stopped.
Three of the officials involved in the informal talks say they are negotiating temporary measures on the two sides' most pressing issues. This is the issue of controlling the border crossing with Turkey and Syria, where 20 percent of Iraq's oil exports pass.
The three officials spoke after taking a guarantee that their names would not be mentioned before going into this sensitive area.
These attempts to resolve the conflict over the blurry nature of politics in Iraq reveal that power brokers sometimes have no official status or authority derived from an electoral process. The effort also highlights the dangerous developments in Iraq's political spectrum, in which rival factions within the party itself, or even the family, can sometimes overwhelm elected officials.
These back-channel talks have, over the past two weeks, helped maintain trade across the border and the flow of oil, food and consumer goods between Turkey and Syria, but they were far from achieving the desired breach in this intractable position. Diplomats say the Iraqi tradition, which allows for continued secret negotiations, often conducted by people outside the role they define, is a matter of amazement and dismay.
In October, Abadi, still in the throes of his winning streak, issued an order to his forces to re-establish control over the rest of Iraq, but the referendum process spurred many of the long-overdue territories For the control of the Kurds.
In late October, after several brief skirmishes, federal forces advanced northward to penetrate deep into a distance of about 15 kilometers from the export point of oil in Vishkhabur and the border goods crossing near with Turkey, which is one of the largest trading partners of Iraq and the Kurdish region together.
On October 28, Baghdad announced a cease-fire and the opening of a round of talks between Iraqi and Kurdish military leaders. The apparent aim was to allow federal forces to take control of the border post without shedding more blood.
But the talks collapsed on October 29 because of the hardening of the Kurdish side for reasons related to the change in the balance of power. Sheikh Jaafar Mustafa, a veteran of the Peshmerga leaders and one of the four Kurds who took part in the negotiations, said the talks were a combination of security and politics.
He adds that the side he represents does not have the political powers to agree to an agreement with the Iraqi side.
"We have been waiting for political approval for the deal, but the decision has not come," Sheikh Jaafar said. "
Phone diplomacy has been active among leaders of the two sides, such as Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani and deputy chief of staff of the Iraqi army and head of intelligence.
These contacts have succeeded in preventing new clashes near the border, despite the continued growth of Iraqi forces, and have helped keep the trade corridor open and oil exports flowing, albeit at lower rates, Turkish and Iraqi officials say. But the reduction of this escalation and the border deal has not been welcomed by all political factions in Baghdad or Kurdistan.
On the Kurdish side, it is not clear who exactly has the power to put any future border agreement in place. Mansur Barzani, the son of Massoud Barzani, who remained a Kurdish leader for a long time, is leading an elite Kurdish security force based on a series of highlands that stand between the Iraqi artillery unit and the Vishkhabur port with the intention of defending it. But his cousin, Najirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the region, supports a deal through
negotiations.
"When there is tension on the ground and there is a military confrontation, it is normal to have to defuse the tension," said Barzani's spokesman Sven Dzai. The prime minister has maintained, through various channels, that such contacts remain open with the federal government, "he said, adding that those talks helped create more atmosphere of understanding and confidence-building.
In Sulaymaniyah, the second largest Kurdish city, relatives of former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, who died last month, are preoccupied with their disputes to control Talabani's party and its security force.
Such divisions have led to the failure of one attempt so far to ward off the military confrontation between the Kurds and Baghdad. Immediately following the Kurdish referendum, Pavel, the eldest son of Talabani and the brother of Qubad, began unilateral talks with Abbadi.
"He put forth his initiative to face what he saw as a firm determination on the part of Baghdad to strip the Kurdish region of its self-rule as a fracture," says Talibani, a Kurdish security leader with a British culture who has no elected office and no official political role.
Pavel's plan was to hand over the large military base near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to a US-led coalition force against the Da'ash, keeping federal and Kurdish forces loyal to his father's party. The Kurds had seized the base in 2014 after the withdrawal of the Iraqi army from the region.
"The military base deal would have given Abadi a political gain in the hot atmosphere of Baghdad," he said. "At the same time, it would have allowed the Kurds to maintain a small footprint in that region where many of their leaders see a vital part of their plans for independence. . Kirkuk is a desirable target for both Baghdad and Kurds to look forward to because of its strategic oil reserves.
An Ebadi aide, as well as two Western diplomats, acknowledge that such a deal has already been put forward and that Abbadi gave Talabani until Oct. 16 to get a green light from the Kurdish leadership to put the plan into action. Otherwise, a process would be launched to wrest the region from
Kurdish control .
Talabani says he has failed to achieve consensus between his father's party and the ruling party in the Kurdish region controlled by the Barzani family. When the deadline expired, Abbadi ordered federal forces to move towards Kirkuk instead of al-Qaeda and then go further towards the Turkish border.
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The talks stalled an active telephone diplomacy between the center and the territory

The talks stalled an active telephone diplomacy between the center and the territory

The talks stalled an active telephone diplomacy between the center and the territory

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