Studied in Tehran and wants peace with Israel: The surprising mediator between Donald Trump and the IRGC
Nechirvan Barzani, president of the Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, studied law at the University of Tehran and speaks fluent Persian, yet his government is close to Washington and suffers from Iran's heavy hand. His rule is a symbol of an almost impossible aspiration for regional stability, and the assistance he provided to the Americans in accessing the top brass of the IRGC demonstrates the complex political world he deals with.
The president of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, made headlines today (Sunday) after the news agency Axios revealed that he took an active part in mediating contacts between the USA and the IRGC.
According to the revelation, the president of the Kurdish autonomy, which maintains its own government in the city of Erbil in northern Iraq with a military force and a complex political system, established contact with senior officials in the IRGC and managed to bring the Americans critical answers regarding Tehran's readiness to enter into negotiations.
But who is the president who rules the autonomy that constitutes 'almost a state' in northern Iraq, and how does he manage to reach the most secret and senior figures in the Iranian shadow apparatus, where other mediators have failed? Some of the answers to these questions arise from the extraordinary biography of the Kurdish president.
Nechirvan Barzani was born in 1966 in the town of Barzan, a member of a well-known family of Kurdish freedom fighters, including the founder of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Mustafa Barzani. Already at a young age, Nechirvan was destined for a political career; he studied international law and diplomacy at the University of Tehran, where he learned fluent Persian and became acquainted with the ways of the then-new regime in Tehran, the Islamic Republic.
In the eighties, Barzani joined the governing body of the party founded by his father, and in 1991, after the Gulf War and the American declaration of a no-fly zone over northern Iraq, he participated in negotiations with the regime of Saddam Hussein, which allowed for the establishment of the Kurdish autonomy and its construction as a democratic framework.
In 1996, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister under the watchful eye of his uncle, Masoud Barzani, who led the construction of the autonomy that had been devastated by years of oppression under the Saddam regime. In 2006, after numerous political maneuvers, he was appointed Prime Minister for the first time, a position that allowed him significant control over the unofficial international relations of the region.
Within the framework of this position, he revealed a unique worldview. In his interviews, Barzani repeatedly emphasized that he wants to build an independent state that will maintain good relations with all countries in the region, including Israel. In one interview, he even wondered to the reporter: 'Many Arab and Muslim countries have relations with Israel, why are we not allowed to?'. Despite the referendum that determined unequivocally that the residents of the Kurdish region want to separate from Iraq and move towards independence, the vision of Kurdish independence did not materialize, and Iraqi Kurdistan remained a limited autonomy without the right to maintain independent foreign relations.
Barzani's aspiration to balance between the various regional powers such as Iran, Turkey, the Arab world, and Israel seems more important today than ever, and it comes with a price that the Kurdish autonomy is forced to suffer. Despite Barzani's ties with the Iranians and the IRGC, Iran has turned the Kurdish autonomy into a target for airstrikes as part of its war against the Iranian Kurds. The Shiite militias in Iraq, which are directly supported by the IRGC, have launched a terror campaign against the autonomy and its leader.
In March, unidentified drones attacked Barzani's home following a series of explosions in the city of Erbil. Barzani was not injured in the attack, but his prestige as a mediator was damaged. Despite this, Barzani continued to insist that the autonomy he heads is completely neutral in the regional war unfolding around it. What will be the fate of the democratic enclave in the heart of the hostile region is unclear, and while the international cards in the war between Iran, Israel, and the USA continue to be shuffled wildly, Barzani's diplomacy and aspiration for balance will face increasingly difficult tests.
