SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A senior Kurdish official has “approved” a conference that called for the normalization of ties between Iraq and Israel, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
More than 300 Iraqis attended the conference of peace and reclamation organized by U.S. think-tank Center for Peace Communications (CPC) in Erbil on Sept. 24.
The conference called for Iraq to join the Abraham Accords, referring to the U.S.-sponsored process in which UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan agreed last year to normalize ties with Israel.
The conference’s demand drew a chorus of condemnation from Iraqi and Kurdish governments and political parties.
The Kurdistan Region Presidency and the Ministry of Interior said it was not informed about the event or the topics discussed during the conference.
The interior ministry added that it would take measures against organizers of the conference and that it would expel them from the Region.
The New York Times reported that it had seen “documentation that a senior official approved the conference, knew of its content in advance and offered logistical support”.
The newspaper said the Kurdish authorities “are refusing to turn over the wanted Iraqis who are their guests”.
Iraqi courts in Baghdad and Anbar issued arrest warrants for five Iraqis involved in the conference.
The New York Times said Sheikh Wissam al-Hardan, the main speaker at the conference, “is now under Kurdish protection along other attendees facing threats”.
Iraq’s federal government also rejected the conference’s call for normalization and dismissed the gathering as an “illegal meeting”.
The conference “was not representative of the population’s [opinion] and that of residents in Iraqi cities, in whose name these individuals purported to speak,” the premier’s office said in a statement.
The office of Iraq’s President Barham Salih, himself a Kurd, joined in the condemnation.
Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr urged the government to “arrest all the participants”, while Ahmed Assadi, an MP with the ex-paramilitary group Hashid al-Shaabi, branded them “traitors in the eyes of the law”.
