Iran helps Iraq's Kurds but Baghdad still priority
Iran has provided the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq with arms to fight the Islamic State but is wary of alienating Baghdad.
The Kurdish dream was never as close to reality as it was in July when the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (now the Islamic State, or IS) invaded the Iraqi city of Mosul. The vulnerability of the Iraqi state was at its peak and Kurds made rapid moves to secure control over disputed areas in Kirkuk. Iraqi Kurdistan’s leader Massoud Barzani called for an independence referendum, and the long-awaited Republic of Kurdistan appeared closer to reality than ever before.
Developments later on, mainly the failed IS attempt to take Erbil, gave the Kurdish leaders a wake-up call; had it not been for Iran and the United States, the semi-autonomous region could have become an occupied land. The United States provided aerial cover, hitting IS posts, while Iran provided the Iraqi Kurdish forces with arms and ammunition. “We asked for weapons and Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition," Barzani said at a joint news conference Aug. 26 with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Erbil, capital of Iraq's Kurdish region.
