Exclusive report: Behind the scenes
of the Erbil Conference

Tehran (Qodsna) - On Friday, a conference entitled "Reconciliation and Normalization" was held in the center of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, with some well-known Ba'athist figures and a number of Sunni tribal leaders from Anbar and Nineveh provinces. The subject of this strange and controversial conference was the need to normalize relations with the Zionist regime and purge the so-called "Abraham Accords", which had already been signed by the UAE and Bahrain with the Zionists. Participants in the meeting called on their country to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with the Zionist regime and lift the ban on civil relations between Iraqis and Israelis.

Tel Aviv immediately seized the opportunity to support holding such a conference in Iraq. "Since the day this cabinet came to power, our goal has been to express our displeasure and support for the holding of such a conference in Iraq," said Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said. "The scope of the Abraham Accords has been to expand." Welcoming the conference, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett claimed: "This is a call from the people, not the government, and this conference is an action to recognize the historical oppression and injustice against Iraqi Jews." Naftali Bennett claimed: Israel responds to peace by extending its hand.

In a detailed report, the Zionist newspaper "Times of Israel" explained the details of the Erbil conference and wrote: At Friday's conference in the Kurdistan Region, Iraqi participants called on their country's leaders to end the war and join the "Abraham Accords". Emphasizing that normalization is a crime under Iraqi law, the newspaper wrote: "Participants in this meeting called for the re-establishment of relations with the Jewish diaspora."

Who are the organizers of the Erbil conference?

The Arabi 21 website reported that the Erbil conference was organized by an American organization called the Center for Peace Communications and was held under the auspices of Massoud Barzani and the Asayesh security apparatus. "The conference, which took place in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, caused a great deal of controversy because it was attended by personalities from different Iraqi provinces and tribal leaders, during which they were invited to publicly normalize [Baghdad's] relations with the Zionist regime,” the report says.

According to the report, "Joseph Braude" is an American-Jewish academic of Iraqi descent who works as a consultant at a study center funded by the UAE. He is an advisor to the Al Mesbar Studies & Research Center, founded by Turki Al Dakhil, the current Saudi ambassador to Abu Dhabi. Studied at Princeton University, he is fluent in Arabic and Persian and has lived, studied, and worked in most of the capitals of West Asia.

Another member of the conference organizing center is Hayvi Bouzo, an American-Syrian journalist and TV presenter who is a staunch supporter of the normalization of relations with the Zionist regime and has consistently endorsed the UAE and its policies in her Twitter posts. He worked for several years for the Dubai-based Syrian Orient News, during which time she repeatedly supported the normalization of relations with the occupiers. But today she runs a program through social media under the auspices of the American Center for Peace Communications.

Sahar al-Ta'i was the moderator of the conference and one of its coordinators, who stressed at the conference that Iraq should follow the example of the United Arab Emirates in order to normalize relations. "Israeli settlers are our brothers and sisters," said al-Ta'i, an employee of the Iraqi Ministry of Culture. "Participants in this conference want to join Abraham Accords with Israel," she said. "No power can stop our demand."

The angry reactions of Iraqi government, people, personalities and currents against the Erbil conference

Iraqi President Barham Saleh issued an official statement at the Erbil conference, stressing that concepts such as the normalization of relations with the Zionist regime are nationally and legally unacceptable.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had previously strongly condemned the holding of a conference on the normalization of relations with the Zionist regime in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region.

The Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council immediately announced on Sunday the arrest warrant of the participants in the Erbil conference. The council said in a statement that the court, based on information received from the National Security Council, had issued an arrest warrant against a man named Wissam al-Hardan for playing a role in the conference.

Reacting to the conference in Erbil, the head of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, Nechirvan Barzani, said that the meeting had nothing to do with the region, adding that we adhere to the country's constitution.

The purpose of the Erbil conference was to equate the executioner with the victim and to be an excuse for those in the region who are waiting for such opportunities, the Iraqi Kurdistan Islamic Union Party said in a statement, condemning the meeting.

The spokesman of the Iraqi tribes in a press statement condemned the tribal leaders participating in the conference and said: "The personalities present at this conference, headed by Sheikh Wassam Al-Hardan, do not represent us or Sunni Arabs and genuine Iraqi Arab tribes. “We call on the Federal government and the government of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region to open an investigation to identify the organizers of this conference because this conference has nothing to do with the Iraqi people in general and the Sunni tribe in particular.”

The Tribes of Nineveh also stressed that every person who participated in the conference came on his own behalf and does not represent their tribe or province.

The conference participants retreated from their position

"We, a group of tribal figures from different Iraqi provinces, would like to explain the truth of the peace meeting held in Erbil on Friday and the reason for our participation," Salah Mosleh, a tribal leader who had participated in the conference said in a statement.

“We received an invitation from a person named Wissam al-Hardan that the meeting was about raising salaries and joining government security agencies, but what happened surprised us because the subject of the meeting was completely different,” according to Salah Mosleh.

"We want full diplomatic relations with Israel and a new policy of normalization based on the relations between the people of both sides," Wassam al-Hurdan said during the conference. “We have to choose between tyranny and chaos on the one hand or legitimacy, decency, peace, and progress on the other hand.”

To justify his request, al-Hardan referred to the presence of ISIS and "militant groups" in Iraq, saying that the two had destroyed Iraq, but he had apparently forgotten that the main reason for his country's destruction was Saddam's wars, the US invasion, Saudi Wahhabi ideology and the dirty money of the Arab regimes in the region that sent ISIS and other terrorist groups to destroy Iraq and remove it from the world map.

Al-Hardan has forgotten that the United States, the Zionist regime, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE aim to take Iraq out of the battlefield with the Zionist regime, and if they fail to do so, they will divide Iraq because the Iraqi people who have always supported the Palestinian people, and have acted against the Zionist regime, and this was the main reason for the US invasion of Iraq.​

Considering some important points makes it doubtful that Erbil officials did not play a role in the treacherous meeting:

After the failure of the project to separate the Kurdistan Region from Iraq in 2017 and the failure of the referendum for this region, the Zionist regime has entered into the normalization of relations and is trying to attract countries that have close relations with Iran to tighten the siege against Iran.

The relationship between the Zionist regime in terms of security began during the Pahlavi regime in Iran and the Ba'ath party in Iraq. They boosted their ties with influential Kurdish families, especially the Barzani family.

There are reports that there are some blood relations between the Barzani family and the Zionist Jews, such as the one related to Nichervan Barzani's wife. After the occupation of Iraq by the United States, and at the same time with the beginning of the discussion on the formation of the Kurdistan region, the Zionists entered the Kurdistan region mainly with non-original passports and mostly with European passports. In a short time, they established more than 200 commercial and cultural institutions.

Those joint Israeli institutions, especially in the cultural and media dimensions, created and took possession of many facilities, and through this, they played a role in defining and implementing special and desirable demands of Israel in the Kurdish community.

The visit of an Israeli military delegation from the region in 1991 and holding several meetings with military and security leaders, and in particular a one-and-a-half-hour meeting with Masrour Barzani (Massoud's son), who was the commander of the regional Peshmerga, is also an important indicator in this regard.

Such actions appear to have been planned by the Erbil authorities to pave the way for a re-enactment of the referendum on the disintegration of Iraq, especially as discussions on the formation of a Sunni region in western Iraq are on the US agenda.

Writer: Ali Gholami - Iran-based political journalist