It not only excuses a political deadlock while armed groups fire rockets with apparent freedom and impunity and ordinary people suffer, she said, but it excuses a political impasse while simmering public anger can boil over at any moment.
Hennis-Plasschaert said political leaders support dialogue or another round of negotiations. "But the willingness to compromise? It is painfully absent," she said.
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Visit any market and Iraqis will tell you: the national interest is, yet again, taking a back seat to short-sighted considerations of control over resources and power play, she said.
Hennis-Plasschaert said it is time to return the spotlight to the Iraqi people who are demanding adequate services for all people.
They also want, she said, an end to pervasive corruption, factionalism and the pillaging of state institutions, a diversification of the economy, an end to impunity, the reining in of armed groups and predictable governance instead of constant crisis management.
She was sharply critical of the sorry pattern of ad-hoc negotiations between the central government and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, saying an institutionalized mechanism is critically needed to solve all outstanding issues, including the recent Iraqi Federal Supreme Court ruling that the Kurdistan regions 2007 oil and gas law on production, revenues and exports is unconstitutional.
Having engaged with both sides on this matter, I am convinced that there is a way out, she said.
Hennis-Plasschaert called incoming missiles and rockets disturbing, disruptive and dangerous, pointing to Turkish and Iranian shelling activities in northern Iran and armed groups outside government control recklessly firing rockets, including at an oil refinery in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region, some two weeks ago.
Discussing Sinjar, the region where UN investigators say Islamic State extremists committed genocide against the Yazidi minority in 2014, Hennis-Plasschaert said the area has increasingly turned into an arena for external and domestic spoilers
Clashes in recent weeks have made Sinjar families again pack their belongings and go back to Kurdistan to seek shelter, she said.
(Edited by : Asmita Pant)
First Published: May 18, 2022 10:09 AM IST
