Kurdistan Region in Iraq

I beg to move,

That this House has considered bilateral relations with the Kurdistan region in Iraq.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. It has been nearly two years since our last debate on bilateral relations with the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The political context has changed dramatically and is now improving quickly for the Kurds and for Iraq more widely.

When we last debated this matter, we were weeks away from a referendum on the principle of eventual and negotiated independence from Iraq. I supported the referendum, whereas the all-party parliamentary group for the Kurdistan region in Iraq, which I chair, broadly took a neutral position but supported the Iraqi Kurds’ right to self-determination. The APPG sent observers to the referendum, including the former UK security envoy, Sir Simon Mayall, who disagreed with the referendum. We observed it in Irbil, Kirkuk and Slemani on 25 September 2017. It was clearly a joyous and colourful day, and the result was also clear: a 93% vote for independence on a 72% turnout.

Nothing changed much on 26 September, the day after the referendum, and the Kurds hope to keep negotiating with Baghdad—maybe not for full statehood, but for confederation or genuine federalism. The referendum was a reaction to the failure of federalism and the feeling that the Kurds could no longer rely on Baghdad, which had grown increasingly hostile to them. After the referendum, Baghdad quickly realised these fears by blockading the airports for six months and issuing punitive diktats to stop international money transfers. Worse than that was its use of the army to seize Kirkuk—that violated the constitution, which bars the use of the military to settle internal conflicts. Some 100 peshmerga were crushed to death by Iraqi army tanks and Iranian proxy militia, using the same tanks that were sent there to help deliver the defeat of Daesh.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and I am following his speech with great interest. Given the fact that if it had not been for the Kurds, Daesh would have been all over Iraq, does he agree that the reaction of the Iraqi Government was even more extraordinary? When the Iraqi army was in full flight, it was only the Kurds who prevented Kirkuk from being taken by Daesh, and they also saved Irbil. Without the Kurds, Daesh would probably still be in control of Iraq.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the Kurdish peshmerga saved Iraq. When the Iraqi army dumped its weapons and ran, the peshmerga took up arms and helped contain Daesh. They were then instrumental in pushing them back. I will come on to that later in my remarks.

As my hon. Friend just said, Kirkuk had been saved by the peshmerga in 2014, but Kirkuk turned against the Kurds after the referendum. Their language was banned and their flag torn down, and Shi’a militia displayed photos of Ayatollah Khomeini in the governor’s office where we met Najmaldin Karim, who only just escaped with his life thanks to an American tip-off. Arson, rape, murder and extortion fuelled a mass exodus of Kurds from Kirkuk, and the situation there is not yet back to how it was in the past. I ask the Minister to make it clear that Kirkuk and other territories are still disputed and should be subject to article 140 of the 2005 Iraqi constitution, which promised resolution of the Kurds’ final status by 2007. I ask the Minister to encourage the UN mission in Iraq to make that a much bigger priority.

The Iraqi forces then sought to invade the Kurdistan region but were repulsed at several battles. France, Germany and the Holy See broke the diplomatic blockade by sending an invitation to the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani, who was able to transit via the land border—obviously the airports were out of use. Thankfully Baghdad backed down, and the KRG has parked the referendum result for now. I put on record that whatever the tactical or strategic wisdom of the referendum, I am disgusted by Baghdad’s violence, which was carried out, ironically, in the name of upholding a constitution that it had flouted. Its opening article states that Iraq is a “voluntary union”.

Fortunately, the supposed strongman in Baghdad, Haider al-Abadi, lost the premiership. His successor, Adel Abdul Mahdi, who once fought alongside the peshmerga, seems to be a much more reasonable character. A host of positive measures have now been agreed. Stranded oil in Kirkuk will eventually be piped via Kurdistan, and there seems to be a deal in the offing that finds a third way between total Kurdistani or Iraqi control of Kurdistani oil. Some will be sold by Baghdad in return for guaranteed salary payments to KRG civil servants and peshmerga, and some will be sold by the KRG. Internal customs posts are being demolished, which means that Shi’a militia can no longer extort duties and that Kurdistan can again become a dynamic gateway from the world to Iraq.

I think that is a positive and a potentially win-win position for all sides. Baghdad and Irbil are finding myriad ways to rebuild their relations, and we can do much more to make a strong KRG within a unified and fully federal Iraq. The Kurds might one day seek independence, as is their right, but not for now and perhaps not for a very long time.

I was with my hon. Friend on the APPG’s delegation. I congratulate him on securing this debate and on leading that successful delegation. We were there to monitor the referendum, but, as he said, we also had an opportunity to visit the Mercian Regiment, which was working alongside the peshmerga. Does he agree that that is another strong link between this country and the Kurdistan region in Iraq, and that it was a delight to see our troops working so hard, side by side with the peshmerga?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was an honour and a privilege to see our people making such a contribution there by training the peshmerga in vital skills such as counter-IED measures, the conduct of war and the cohesion of a modern military unit. It was inspiring to see our forces and theirs working so closely together.

I am pleased to honour the sacrifice of the peshmerga, who lost 2,000 soldiers and had 10,000 injured in defending themselves—they were our frontline against the monsters and fascists of Daesh. We owe them a massive debt of gratitude and respect, and their efforts will never be forgotten. From my four visits to Kurdistan, I can say that it is a hospitable, beautiful and relatively safe place. They have significantly advanced women’s rights: nearly 40% of their MPs are women, which is a higher proportion than in Iraq and the UK. Christians, other religious minorities and ethnic minorities are respected.

The Kurdish Parliament has asked British MPs to help train its MPs in order to make it a more accessible institution and to instruct them on how better to hold the Executive to account. However, Kurdistan needs further and faster economic and political reform to take advantage of its better relations with Baghdad and its central position in the middle east. The peshmerga should be a single-state force. No political party should control security or have armed militia. The oil-dominated and state-centred economy should be diversified, and more efforts should be made to build a strong private sector so that economic pluralism underpins political pluralism and the agricultural, tourist and light-industry sectors are strengthened. We can help with that. I hope the Minister will reiterate the Government’s position on favouring direct flights, and thereby encouraging a commercial carrier service to establish such routes. That would send a very strong signal indeed that Kurdistan is open for business, and would fortify our good relations.

Will the Minister look at amending the Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel advice, which currently says that people should visit Kurdistan only for essential purposes? That raises insurance costs and presents liability issues to British companies and institutions that want to operate there. With new advice, it would, for instance, be easier for British universities to set up campuses with accredited UK degrees, which are in demand and can improve the quality of higher education there.

British companies also need to invite Kurds here for training, but as the Minister knows, there is a very high visa rejection rate—over 70%, often for what seem to be spurious reasons. That does us great harm and hinders our ongoing relationship. Of course we need to control our borders, but we could do that better by reinstating interviews so minor details can be ironed out. We should allow our Ministers and diplomats to exercise their discretion in our national interest. Trade and investment will be much more important after we have left the European Union, so we need to put Kurdistan back on the map. I suggest that she encourage an official trade mission.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I congratulate the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) on securing this important debate. He is the excellent chair of the all-party group for the Kurdistan region of Iraq, of which I am pleased to be a member. Although I have not visited the region yet, it has been an honour to meet representatives of the Kurdistan Regional Government, MPs and others from Kurdistan through my involvement with the group. It has been enlightening and valuable to learn about the region and its past struggles, and particularly about its pro-western values, its immense religious tolerance, which is unique in the middle east, and its role as the primary force in defeating Daesh.

I want to focus on early-day motion 2122, which I tabled last week, on establishing direct flights between the UK and the Kurdistan region. It focuses on an issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised and which has been pursued by the all-party group with Ministers over a number of years. We tabled it following the news that the KRG high representative to the UK, Karwan Jamal Tahir, recently met representatives of British Airways, which is considering establishing direct flights to Irbil from Heathrow from next summer.

As things stand, there is no choice but to travel via a third country. I am sure hon. Members agree that there is no incentive for companies from the UK or from across the Atlantic to explore the business opportunities that are available, especially as the region’s economy improves due to the increased stability between the Kurdistan region and Baghdad, if there is no opportunity to fly there directly. I know from my airport, Newcastle International, about the importance of seeking new markets, particularly after Brexit. Connectivity is a primary factor for businesses, as it enables them to trade abroad.

A survey has deemed Irbil the fifth safest city in the world, and direct flights would surely encourage more tourism to that beautiful region, which has a wealth of cultural history. A lift in tourism would strengthen the region’s economy and help to diversify it away from reliance on oil reserves. I am quite able to fly to Chicago—the most dangerous city in the whole world, in terms of murders—to visit my daughter, but not to a safer country. We should perhaps bear that in mind when considering where is safe for people in the UK to go.

I am listening to the hon. Lady’s speech with great interest—she makes a powerful point. Is she aware that Kurdistan attracts 2 million visitors per year for its tourism industry? Although it has a well-established tourism industry, very few of those tourists are westerners. Given that 95% of the economy is dependent on oil, she is absolutely right about the urgent need to diversify.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for emphasising that particular point. I think it adds fuel to the fire of why we want that situation to change.

The prospect of enhanced business connections and increased tourist travel depends on whether the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will consider revising its travel advice to UK travellers. At present, the advice means that UK travellers have to buy extra travel insurance, on top of their ordinary annual global insurance, to travel to Kurdistan. That sends out completely the wrong message to would-be travellers, who might question why they have to go for that extra insurance, and perhaps suggests to them that there might be more safety problems than there actually are. We do not want to deter would-be travellers from visiting that beautiful country.

Although the Government have to be cautious and do all they can to ensure the safety of all UK citizens, wherever we may be or are travelling to, in the light of the increased stability in the region—the hon Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke referred to it—which boasts English as its second language, I hope that the Minister will tell us that her Department will give serious and urgent consideration to revising advice for travel to Kurdistan, and that many more people will be able to enjoy all the delights that that wonderful region in Iraq has to offer.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) for his speech introducing the debate.

I want move away from the areas that my hon. Friend covered to look at some of the capacity-building and humanitarian aid issues that occur in the country. If one thinks back, only a few years ago the humanitarian aid made available to Kurdistan was not reaching its target by around 63%. The UN could manage only 37% of its aid fund target. We have to ask why, and maybe the Minister will be kind enough to give a take on that.

It is crucial, in the light of the history of warfare with Daesh and the huge number of people who have been caught up in it, that the humanitarian aid for the crisis is more prevalent there than in other regions. The area’s need for humanitarian assistance is much greater and we should therefore mention that there is and has been a major short-term funding gap in the provision of humanitarian aid for the country. That need for humanitarian aid is not finished—it is still growing because of the result of the conflict; the aid needs to be predictable; and improvements need to be seen and appreciated on the ground.

A number of things are putting enormous pressure on the provision of that humanitarian aid, one of which is the mass movement of people. Where there is a mass movement of people, there will always be a need for more humanitarian aid. As to a country where there is such need for that aid, it is difficult to talk of the need for capacity building, but I will mention five points in no particular order. They are not ordered by priority, but are just my thoughts on a number of issues.

First, I want to stress the need for capacity building in the provision of gender equality. There are two aspects to gender equality: the provision of humanitarian aid and the way women and girls have been treated as a result of the prevalence of Daesh in the area for so long. The number of vulnerable women is quite large, and they are vulnerable whether or not they are the female heads of their households. There is an enormous risk of gender-based violence and there have been absolutely horrific reports of sexual and gender-based violence throughout the region.

It is always a pleasure and a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) on introducing the debate. My first contact with Iraqi Kurdistan was in 2010, when I received a telephone call from the then Chief Whip of my party, asking me whether I would be willing to fly via Vienna—no direct flights even then—to Irbil in order to speak to the Kurdistan regional Parliament about the importance of opposition parties. That was a good introduction to being in opposition in 2010, which was fairly new to us after 13 years in government. I had been to Iraq once before, in 1980, but I had never been to the north, to Irbil.

As the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke said, what a surprise it was to arrive in a region of a middle eastern Arab country that I had visited so long ago—it was quite progressive in 1980 and went downhill after that—and to see the progress being made. What a surprise to see how that Parliament was developing, and to see the Kurdish values that I already know from my constituency, where we have a small but substantial population of Kurdish refugees in the city of Leeds, who sadly are now increasing. I saw for myself what was going on, and it felt like a separate nation. It felt like a region that was going to secede from the Republic of Iraq any time soon, because the values seemed so different. We were told that a visa was needed to go from Baghdad to Irbil at that time.

I was fortunate to go back to Irbil and Slemani just a year later with the all-party parliamentary group, under the leadership of the hon. Gentleman’s predecessor, and with the secretary, Gary Kent, who knows the region and the country very well. During that visit we learnt more about the Anfal—the terrible slaughter of Kurds because they were Kurds under Saddam’s presidency. We learnt what the Halabja gas attack really meant for men, women and children. We heard more about that in a conference two or three years ago in London on the anniversary of the 1988 atrocity. The Labour, coalition and Conservative Governments have since learned—we have agreed—that was genocide.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) on securing this debate and on his long-standing passion and interest in this area. I am probably the only person to speak in the debate who has not had the pleasure of visiting the Iraqi region of Kurdistan. Obviously, my colleague the Minister for the Middle East would usually have responded to such a debate, but he is travelling. He sends his apologies for not being able to take part.

We have heard a range of really interesting and enlightening speeches. I will start by trying to address some of the common points that were raised before recapping the UK’s long-standing partnership with the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Some important issues have been raised. We heard questions about the UK’s position on the 2017 referendum for independence. Colleagues will want to know that we continue to support the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq. That is why we did not support the Kurdistan region’s referendum and do not recognise the results of the referendum. We believe that any referendum or political process towards independence must be taken as a result of an agreement with Baghdad and in line with the Iraqi constitution. We continue to help Iraq to build a more stable, prosperous and inclusive Iraq in which all Iraqis, including Iraq’s Kurds, have the security, jobs and opportunities they want and deserve.

The UK continues to encourage the Iraqi Government to resolve outstanding disputes with the Kurdistan Regional Government, and we continue to encourage the Kurdistan Regional Government to respect the Iraqi federal court ruling that the referendum was unconstitutional. At the right time, when both parties are ready, we would want both sides to return to substantial negotiations to resolve all outstanding issues, in line with the Iraqi constitution, including making further progress on oil and revenue sharing and the status of the disputed territories, so the Baghdad-Irbil relationship is placed on a more sustainable footing within a unified Iraq.