MESOP : ABOVE ALL – CONTROL THE WEAPONS ! – Kurdish Intellectuals Concerned About Peshmerga Armament
August 25, 2014 by Kurdsh Policy Foundation – In the wake of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) campaign to eliminate minorities in Iraq, thousands were forced to flee to the Kurdistan region in the north. The Peshmerga have been challenged by ISIS and lost control of several cities and villages in disputed areas. The Kurdistan region President has reached out to US and Europe for arms, and received positive international response toward arming Peshmerga forces.
Despite this, many Kurdish scholars are concerned about how arms would be delivered and who should oversee the deals. We spoke with two leading experts on the subject of arming Kurdish forces and got their take on both the advantages and their concerns.
Mariwan Wria Kanie is a prominent Kurdish intellectual and an assistant professor at University of Amsterdam. He is the co-founder of the Rahand Group, an intellectual group working on Kurdish internal politics, and has nearly 20 years of experience in Kurdish affairs.
Rauf Kareem Mahmood holds a PhD in Linguistics and Language of Media from the School of Languages at University of Sulaimania, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. He is the dean of the School of Language and Culture at the University of Human Development, Sulaimania and has contributed to regional coverage of political issues in major news outlets in Kurdistan.
The Concerns
Kanie’s concerns center around internal politics that preventing army nationalization. The Ministry of Peshmerga has unified only 12 divisions under their direct control, about 20 percent of all Peshmerga forces. The remaining 150,000 are under the control of two major ruling parties: the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Most of these forces joined KDP and PUK in the early 2000’s, as these parties ramped up efforts for membership and therefore government funding. They are often more concerned with the paycheck than with military ambition as this report finds.
Kanie says,
“In the absence of a professional, politicized, and national army, distributing arms on the political parties will create huge problems in the future for Kurdish society and the political pluralism of Kurdistan. The danger is to the extent that each influential political figure within the same political party owns a special army. Apart from that this would lead to having more than an army head, this causes having different sources of getting command, each army gets commands from a different source which eventually a military mess will emerge as we have seen recently some elements of this mess.”
Mahmood believes lack of unified army may harm the democratic process in Kurdistan.
“The Peshmerga are not shaped in the form of a national army, but are rather distributed between the two major military forces (Corps 70 for Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Corps 80 for Kurdistan Democratic Party). The armament may resultantly become a source of threat and showoff by the political powers and a source of fear for those political parties with no armed forces. Hence, the whole democratic process in Kurdistan would be jeopardized.”
The Argument for Arming
Despite these concerns, both experts agree that ISIS’s cannot be immobilized without modern arms and effective training for Peshmerga forces. Kanie advocates the armament to protect Kurdistan from outside threats, particularly ISIS, saying,
“ISIS has become a ‘terrorist state’ now. Therefore, the armament is necessary for Peshmerga to stop ISIS advancement. The Peshmerga has not gotten a sufficient share of weapons from Iraq in the past. The initiative by Western countries to deal with Kurdistan directly is an opportunity to strength defense lines alongside ISIS territories.”
Mahmood agrees with Kanie that the Peshmerga are the sole defenders of Kurdistan region, saying:
“It is certain that Peshmerga forces are the only military power that Kurds depend on in confronting external threats. Armament of Peshmerga is not only a positive step, but a required move by major powers to help Kurds defend their rights. However, that must be done in the right way.”
Both experts agree though, that changes need to be made in order to prevent future abuses of arms given during this conflict.
Caveats and Recommendations
Our experts recommended these steps:
For the Ministry of Peshmerga
- The weapons need to be stored in military warehouses after undergoing strict inventory, and only afterward be handed over to Peshmerga through KRG’s Ministry of Peshmerga.
- The Ministry of Peshmerga should sign a contract with the countries providing arms to train Peshmerga on the new weapons. Parliament should oversee these trainings and the quality of service the Peshmerga get to prepare them for the battlefield.
- The ministry of Peshmerga should seize the opportunity to form new divisions through incorporating and regulating the forces controlled by KDP and PUK. The ministry might condition or prioritize the distribution of arms and training benefits to the forces under the ministry only.
For the Parliament
- The Kurdistan parliament must set up a committee presided over by an MP, and comprised of representatives from the countries providing the arms, civil-based organizations, and Kurdistan region’s Presidency.
- The Kurdistan parliament should work on a new bill to regulate the use of arms, arms deals, and authorized institutions to access the weapons. The new bill should authorize the KRG to use forces to protect Kurdistan’s interests and lands under law .
- The Parliament should review the contracts and the arm deals signed by KRG.
- There are multiple forces from other parts of Peshmerga who joined the fight to defend Kurdistan Region. The ministry and the parliament should regulate the participation of those of those armed groups in accordance with Kurdistan’s law and regulations. http://kurdishpolicy.com/2014/08/25/kurdish-intellectuals-concerned-about-peshmerga-armament/