Nechirvan Barzani Can No Longer Hide Behind Diplomacy. He Is Not a Diplomat.
Dr. Sharif Ali | Exclusive to iKurd.net
Translated by iKurd.net from Kurdish Awene
Why Did Nechirvan Barzani Insult the Sleeping Forces of Eastern Kurdistan?
Nechirvan, the outgoing president of one-third of Southern Kurdistan [Iraqi Kurdistan], launched a harsh and insulting attack on the forces of Eastern Kurdistan [Iranian Kurdistan] yesterday. In his remarks, he also deliberately avoided mentioning Nawshirwan Mustafa’s role during much of Southern Kurdistan’s history.
Why did he do so deliberately? Because Nechirvan has dozens of advisers who appear to be Iranian and Turkish agents. They carefully tell him what to say and what not to say!
In other words, Mr. Beglerbeg Nechirvan Barzani is not someone who simply throws words around or speaks without thinking. Rather, these statements are deliberately prepared for him and serve a specific purpose!
They even call this subservience “diplomacy.” As someone who specializes in diplomacy, I can say that remarks made by a president of a nation have nothing to do with diplomatic skill or political balance. Instead, they insult and humiliate his own nation and serve the interests of occupying powers.
Honesty is the most important standard for any human being! It is well known that I have three reasons for disliking Nawshirwan Mustafa:
Nawshirwan Mustafa was a leader who put Sulaimani first. I, too, am a committed nationalist and academic. To me, there is no difference between Khanaqin, Shingal, Mosul, Kermanshah, Diyarbakir, Ilam, Afrin, Urmia, and Gaziantep!
Nawshirwan spent part of his life serving the occupiers of Kurdistan. For a time, he was a member of the 66th Division. Later, he was among those who paved the way for the Revolutionary Guards to enter Southern Kurdistan, which subsequently suffered the Anfal campaign and chemical attacks.
Nawshirwan took millions of dollars from the nation’s wealth and property and deliberately left that wealth to his descendants. By contrast, I have always placed the general interests of the Kurdish nation ahead of my own interests and everything else, because I firmly believe in developing a [modern nationalism] for the great Kurdish nation of Zagrosian origin.
Even so, I do not want to abandon [scientific candor] and honesty. Despite the shortcomings I have mentioned, Nawshirwan Mustafa was the most highly educated leader in Southern Kurdistan, more highly educated even than Jalal Talabani and Ibrahim Ahmad. Nechirvan’s own level of education is, in fact, completely inadequate. These points are clear to academics who investigate the matter carefully and speak the truth!
Although writers and commentators from Southern and Eastern Kurdistan have condemned Nechirvan’s insults, I want to explain, through my own analysis, the hidden motives behind his attacks on the dormant forces of Eastern Kurdistan!
Why is this analysis important? Because it will make Nechirvan understand that there are people among the Kurds who can expose the hidden schemes behind the statements prepared for him and the words he is told to utter!
Western media reports have alleged that Nechirvan, the KDP as a whole, and the PUK as a whole received weapons and ammunition from the United States and secretly sent them into Iran. There was even talk of Israeli assistance.
Through these insults directed at the forces of Eastern Kurdistan, Nechirvan wants to conceal the schemes he and the PUK carried out against the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has gone so far as to suggest that Iran is sending drones against them because of their secrets and dealings with the United States. That is why he irresponsibly accuses the forces of Eastern Kurdistan: he has learned from them!
But the Persians are cunning, and Nechirvan, Bafel Talabani, Qubad Talabani, and the PKK cannot fool them. The Persians know very well what the PUK and KDP have done against the Iranian regime. Nechirvan’s statements will not deceive them!
Go ahead, Nechirvan. Keep making statements against your own nation and siding with the occupiers. I know very well what makes your stolen palaces tremble. That is why I am directly exposing what lies behind the secrets of your statements!
The Iranian regime will not be fooled by your statements, nor will it forget that you were the ones who received money and weapons from the United States, sent them into Iran, and caused thousands of casualties!
If the cowardly leaders of Eastern Kurdistan have even a little courage, they will not simply forget Nechirvan’s insults. At the very least, they should issue a joint official statement declaring that they will refuse to give statements or interviews to Nechirvan’s oil-funded Rudaw channel for three months. That would be the smallest possible response to Mr. Nechirvan Barzani’s remarks!
The statement Massoud Barzani issued in opposition to the MERI Forum is also a trick, a smokescreen, and an exercise in dividing roles: Massoud and Masrour on one side, and Nechirvan on the other.
Otherwise, if Massoud is genuinely outspoken and opposes the MERI Forum, let him take practical action in response to the insult Bafel directed at Massoud Barzani during the MERI meeting, when he said: “Who are you to refuse to accept the agreement between us in the PUK and the New Generation Movement?!”
If Massoud takes concrete action in response to Bafel’s insult, then the statement issued by Barzani’s headquarters will contain at least a little truth. Otherwise, it is simply role-playing and a smokescreen!
Of course, part of my work, as someone who opposes the oppressive PUK and KDP and the occupying powers, is to fish even in muddy waters! I analyze things as I see fit. Because I am impartial, I oppose oppression and collaboration with the occupiers! Even when it is deliberate, I know exactly where to strike the collaborators!
As I have said dozens of times since 2014, “Every opposition force in Southern Kurdistan is fake, fabricated, and created by the security and intelligence apparatus. Even if they promote reform and change in the region through the hollow democracy of the Kurdistan Region and its cardboard parliament, nothing will change. Only an armed uprising or armed revolution can bring an end to the KDP-PUK’s oppressive, tribal rule!”
In fact, this year’s “MERI Forum” should have been called “The Meeting of the Iranian Consulate’s Dervishes in Erbil!” Almost every official from Southern and Western Kurdistan gathered there! It is as if Iran had meticulously engineered the entire event!
Mr. Nechirvan, you know what you have done against the [sacred!] regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past year or so. You are afraid that Iran’s Islamic Republic leaders will find out more about your actions or remove you from the presidency. That is why you want to wipe your greasy hands on the forces of Eastern Kurdistan! If those forces had been effective, they would have heeded my writings, seized their opportunity, and avoided becoming the laughingstock of you, Bafel, Qubad, and the PKK!
Nechirvan, I do not believe the Persians are so naive or easily deceived that they will fail to uncover more of your actions! Still, it is true that these insulting statements against your own nation and your betrayal of the Kurds of Eastern Kurdistan may help you regain the position that honorable and dignified people in Kurdistan despise you for holding.
Go ahead and remain president of the Region for another hundred years. If your own nation hates you and the occupiers use you, what value does that position have beyond allowing you to profit from it? Let it be of benefit only to you and those like you!
Nechirvan and Qubad pioneered the dismantling of Kurdish family values and the promotion of so-called “model girls.” In doing so, they undermined the family structure of Kurdish society, delivering a major strategic benefit to the occupiers of Kurdistan. Eastern Kurdistan is the cradle of authentic Kurdish culture and the Zagros Mountains. That is why it has become a thorn in the side of Kurdistan’s traitors!
Nechirvan was also the mastermind behind the squandering and plundering of the Region’s oil revenues to establish the Rudaw channel. Hundreds of employees funded by oil revenues receive enormous salaries, while the families of martyrs and Anfal victims live below the poverty line.
These employees funded by oil revenues are on the side of the oppressors. They do not have even the slightest courage to produce a program about the millions of dollars that the Barzani, Talabani, and Ibrahim Ahmad families, including Nechirvan and his children, continue to spend!
Nechirvan has been given the opportunity to praise Abu Mohammed al-Golani, Erdogan, and Khamenei while insulting his own nation and trampling on its dignity! If he did not hold the position of regional president and had chosen this path, it would have been understandable. But this is the opposite of political integrity and patriotism. Nechirvan calls these behaviors “diplomacy!”
Nechirvan should also be aware of a Turkish proverb. When the Turks began using Sheikh Mahmud against the British in March 1919, they had a saying that seems to fit Nechirvan’s position perfectly. It is almost as if the Turks created this proverb specifically for him.
For more than a century, the Turks have said:
Ağaçtan olmaz maşa
Kürt’ten olmaz paşa
The first line means that you cannot make tongs out of wood to handle objects in a fire or among hot coals, because the wood itself will burn.
The second line means that you cannot make a “pasha” out of a Kurd.
In other words, even if a Kurd presents himself as a “king” or “pasha,” a single letter from an officer such as Mustafa Kemal can make him serve whoever they choose!
The Turks, who have been a major imperial power on Kurdish lands for more than five centuries, have undoubtedly learned a great deal about Kurdish leaders who collaborate with the occupiers, sell themselves, and trade away their own nation’s interests. That is why hundreds of former Turkish and Persian Muslim Brotherhood members and collaborators now receive generous salaries from the Barzani and Talabani family channels.
If the Turks had not understood the Kurds so well, they would not have been able to exploit Kurdish leaders under the banner of “religious brotherhood” during the opportunity for change presented by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, drawing them into the Battle of Shaiba. Nor would they have been able, in recent years, to use the slogan of “brotherhood among peoples” to turn Western and Northern Kurdistan into a political mess!
Fine, suppose the leaders of the dormant forces of Eastern Kurdistan had also attended the MERI Forum. Apart from empty talk and the waste of the nation’s wealth, what would this so-called meeting have achieved for the poor and the families of Kurdistan’s martyrs? What strategy did it have, or could it have had, for liberating Kurdistan?
It is clear that [many] leaders of the Democratic Party act as servants of the enforcers of both occupying powers: the KDP and the PUK. All Iranian Komala organizations, too, are collaborators with the KDP, PUK, and PKK! That is why they dare not make a sound. They have brought disgrace upon the Kurdish cause in Eastern Kurdistan, and now the question of Eastern Kurdistan has become a joke at the MERI Forum.
Dr. Sharif Ali: PhD in International Diplomacy, United Kingdom.
This article was originally published in the Kurdish language in Awene Newspaper on October 14, 2026.
The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.
Copyright © 2026 iKurd.net. All rights reserved.
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