News / Interviews

US, Israeli support for Iraqi Kurds not about autonomy: Analyst

Saturday, 21 October 2017 3:08 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 21 October 2017 3:10 PM ]

Peshmerga fighters take aim from their position at the Altun Kubri checkpoint, 40kms from Kirkuk, on October 20, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

An analyst says the United States and Israel are using the Iraqi Kurds’ desire for self-determination as a kind of “asymmetrical weapon of war” against the central government in Baghdad in order to promote chaos and "national fragmentation" in the country.

"But we have to understand it is not actually about political self-determination, it is not about autonomy, it has a lot to do with ethnocentrism, it has a lot to do with the fact that Israel and the US are actually trying to damage the territorial integrity of Iraq,” Catherine Shakdam, the director of Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies, told PressTV in an interview on Saturday.

“What they are trying to do is just fan chaos and trying to actually accentuate whatever ethnic tension may have existed by playing not only the sectarian card but like I said ethnocentrism,” she added.