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Erbil Requests a UN Envoy to Organize Relations with Iraq

The Kurdistan region wants a UN Envoy to Organize Relations between Erbil and Baghdad (Reuters)
The Kurdistan region wants a UN Envoy to Organize Relations between Erbil and Baghdad (Reuters)
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Erbil Requests a UN Envoy to Organize Relations with Iraq

The Kurdistan region wants a UN Envoy to Organize Relations between Erbil and Baghdad (Reuters)
The Kurdistan region wants a UN Envoy to Organize Relations between Erbil and Baghdad (Reuters)

The Presidency of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq announced that the Security Council approved a request submitted by Erbil to send a UN envoy to organize the relationship with Baghdad and find radical solutions for their differences.

The Presidency said in a statement that Council members expressed their support of a request by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani, asking for the appointment of an official to facilitate dialogue between Erbil and Baghdad over outstanding issues.

The statement noted that the Security Council would issue next week a draft resolution to renew the work of the UN mission and discuss the issue in a special session.

The federal government in Baghdad did not comment on the request.

Relations between the two governments soured significantly in the energy file following the decision of the Federal Supreme Court regarding the unconstitutionality of the region's oil sector.

Head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the Iraqi Parliament Vian Sabri confirmed that the Security Council countries agreed to the request to send a special envoy to regulate the relationship between the two parties.

Sabri told Asharq Al-Awsat that the goal is to reach an agreement and find radical solutions to the differences between the two governments under the Iraqi constitution.

She noted that regulating the relationship between the two governments has become a necessary matter, especially since there have been outstanding differences, namely the issue of oil and natural resources.

Erbil's request comes when the political process in Iraq is going through a phase of political impasse due to the inability of the winning electoral blocs to form a new Iraqi government.

The Kurdish parties' distribution between two Shiite alliances significantly weakened their position towards Baghdad. The two parties' differences are related to the constitution, especially Article 140 on Kirkuk and the disputed areas and Article 111 on oil.

However, the differences between the two main Kurdish parties, the KDP led by Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) headed by Bafel Talabani, over the Presidency damaged the unity of the Kurds regarding the unresolved issues.

PUK senior member Mahmoud Khoshnaw told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Patriotic Union wants constitutional solutions, especially after the Federal Court's decision.

Khoshnaw explained that the internal dialogue, albeit under external auspices, is critical to resolving differences, some of which have lasted for decades, stressing that it has become necessary to separate political and economic issues.

On Saturday, the Iraqi Oil Ministry said that the federal government aims to establish a new oil company in the Kurdistan region, seeking to enter into new service contracts with oil firms currently operating under the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

On May 7, Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar said that the ministry would start implementing a February federal court ruling that declared the legal foundations of the Kurdistan region's oil and gas sector unconstitutional, Reuters reported.

Iraq then asked international oil and gas companies operating in the Kurdistan region to sign new contracts with the state-owned marketing company, SOMO, instead of the KRG.

The letters marked the first direct contact between the ministry and the oil companies operating in the Kurdistan region. The move follows years of attempts by the federal government to control the revenues of KRG, including local court rulings and threats of international arbitration.

The Ministry of Oil said it will pursue legal actions against companies that continue to operate under "unlawful production sharing contracts" and "do not engage in good faith negotiations to restructure their contracts."

Meanwhile, the UN Sec-Gen Special Representative for Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, presented a comprehensive briefing on the Iraqi situation before the UN Security Council.

Plasschaert said that Iraqis continue to wait for "a political class that will roll up its sleeves to make headway on the country's long list of outstanding domestic priorities."

"A sincere, collective, and urgent will to resolve political differences must now prevail – it must prevail for the country to move forward and meet its citizens' needs."

She warned that "Iraqi political inaction comes at a huge price. Not (in the short term) for those in power, but for those desperately trying to make ends meet daily."

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Former Israeli Spies Describe Attack Using Exploding Electronic Devices against Lebanon’s Hezbollah

An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
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Former Israeli Spies Describe Attack Using Exploding Electronic Devices against Lebanon’s Hezbollah

An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)

Two recently retired senior Israeli intelligence agents shared new details about a deadly clandestine operation years in the making that targeted Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and Syria using exploding pagers and walkie talkies three months ago.
Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war, The Associated Press said.
The agents spoke with CBS “60 Minutes” in a segment aired Sunday night. They wore masks and spoke with altered voices to hide their identities.
One agent said the operation started 10 years ago using walkie-talkies laden with hidden explosives, which Hezbollah didn't realize it was buying from Israel, its enemy. The walkie-talkies were not detonated until September, a day after booby-trapped pagers were set off.
“We created a pretend world,” said the officer, who went by the name “Michael.”
Phase two of the plan, using the booby-trapped pagers, kicked in in 2022 after Israel's Mossad intelligence agency learned Hezbollah had been buying pagers from a Taiwan-based company, the second officer said.
The pagers had to be made slightly larger to accommodate the explosives hidden inside. They were tested on dummies multiple times to find the right amount of explosive that would hurt only the Hezbollah fighter and not anyone else in close proximity.
Mossad also tested numerous ring tones to find one that sounded urgent enough to make someone pull the pager out of their pocket.
The second agent, who went by the name “Gabriel,” said it took two weeks to convince Hezbollah to switch to the heftier pager, in part by using false ads on YouTube promoting the devices as dustproof, waterproof, providing a long battery life and more.
He described the use of shell companies, including one based in Hungary, to dupe the Taiwanese firm, Gold Apollo, into unknowingly partnering with the Mossad.
Hezbollah also was unaware it was working with Israel.
Gabriel compared the ruse to a 1998 psychological film about a man who has no clue that he is living in a false world and his family and friends are actors paid to keep up the illusion.
“When they are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad,” Gabriel said. “We make like ‘Truman Show,’ everything is controlled by us behind the scene. In their experience, everything is normal. Everything was 100% kosher including businessman, marketing, engineers, showroom, everything.”
By September, Hezbollah militants had 5,000 pagers in their pockets.
Israel triggered the attack on Sept. 17, when pagers all over Lebanon started beeping. The devices would explode even if the person failed to push the buttons to read an incoming encrypted message.
The next day, Mossad activated the walkie-talkies, some of which exploded at funerals for some of the approximately 30 people who were killed in the pager attacks.
Gabriel said the goal was more about sending a message than actually killing Hezbollah fighters.
“If he just died, so he’s dead. But if he’s wounded, you have to take him to the hospital, take care of him. You need to invest money and efforts,” he said. “And those people without hands and eyes are living proof, walking in Lebanon, of ‘don’t mess with us.’ They are walking proof of our superiority all around the Middle East.”
In the days after the attack, Israel's air force hit targets across Lebanon, killing thousands. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated when Israel dropped bombs on his bunker.
By November, the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a byproduct of the deadly attack by Hamas group in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ended with a ceasefire. More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants, health officials have said.
The agent using the name “Michael” said that the day after the pager explosions, people in Lebanon were afraid to turn on their air conditioners out of fear that they would explode, too.
“There is real fear,” he said.
Asked if that was intentional, he said, “We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are. We can’t use the pagers again because we already did that. We’ve already moved on to the next thing. And they’ll have to keep on trying to guess what the next thing is.”