We recently read a report by the British House of Lords Foreign Relations Commission on the Middle East. A report that stated a need for a new approach towards the Middle East was submitted. There were also serious faults with the analyses in the report. One of these is that the KDP is waging an effective fight against ISIS and thus should receive military support.

The report mentions the Kurds’ fight against ISIS, but in the end claims that the KDP wages an effective fight, reversing the facts. The Êzidîs in particular who have suffered the most at the hands of ISIS know very well who fought ISIS and who didn’t. The House of Lords should know that the KDP has displayed the worst response to ISIS. Even though they had thousands of peshmergas in Shengal, they decided to retreat without resistance, in a still dubious way, and abandoned the Êzidîs to face a genocide. 12 guerrillas intervened and saved the whole of humanity, of course the UK as well, from a great shame. Certainly thousands of peshmergas could have managed what the 12 PKK guerrillas did. The 12 guerrillas did not have the weapons the peshmergas had. The 12 guerrillas held the strategic point of the Shengal mountain, and other guerrillas and Rojava’s YPG and YPJ fighters rushed to Shengal, thus saving the Êzidîs from this genocide. But as a result of the KDP not resisting when ISIS first attacked, thousands of Êzidîs, a majority of whom were women, were captured by ISIS. More to the point, ISIS took the Êzidîs hostage and used women as sexual slaves. How moral is it for the House of Lords to award the historic resistance the PKK and Rojava’s revolutionary forces displayed against ISIS to the KDP, when this fact is out there? If the British will change policies in the Middle East, they should take moral values as a base in politics first. This wasn’t done in the 20th century, it should at least be done in the 21st.

The Lords must have not heard the KDP Leader Masoud Barzani’s visit to Maxmur to thank the PKK guerrillas. Why did Masoud Barzani thank the PKK guerrillas? Because the PKK guerrillas held the gates in Maxmur which would have ended with ISIS invading Hewlêr. If those gates were not guarded, Hewlêr would have been evacuated. Hewlêr would have been surrendered to ISIS without a fight, like Shengal. As it is known, states and large scale armies fled when they heard ISIS’ footsteps at the time. Now everybody has gathered the courage to fight ISIS. But in 2014, nobody stood against ISIS but the PKK guerrillas and the Rojava revolutionaries. The House of Lords Foreign Affairs Commission should look at the newspapers, journals and televisions of the time to find out the truth. It was not the KDP who were hosted in Palaces and Parliaments because the fight against ISIS was successful, it was he Rojava Revolutionaries. For months, worldwide media spoke about these Kurdish fighters, and the women among them. The KDP has been an ally to the AKP government, who is the greatest supporter of ISIS, against these Kurdish fighters. The House of Lords may not be aware that the KDP is the greatest protector of people like the former governor of Mosul, who surrendered Mosul to ISIS, and Tarik Hashimi, who is in alliance with ISIS. When the KDP was dumbfounded and devastated in the face of ISIS attacks, ISIS found PKK guerrillas against them in Kirkuk.

All these facts show this: KDP has been in the same place Iraq and Syria have been in the face of ISIS attacks. The KDP has also suffered losses against ISIS in other places after the guerrillas held down the Shengal mountain, like the Iraqis and Syrians. But calling them the most successful force in the fight against ISIS is distorting the truth. Now it is understood that the KDP has taken more than their fair share from the sympathy towards Kurds that arose worldwide as a result of the PKK and Rojava revolutionaries resisting ISIS. It was the PKK and the Rojava revolutionaries who resisted, but many countries provided weapons to the KDP generously as if it was them who did. The KDP should thank the PKK and the Rojava Revolutionaries for this. Presumably they won’t point the guns they acquired thanks to the PKK and the Rojava revolutionaries towards the PKK and the Rojava revolution. When they pushed the counterrevolutionaries who fled Rojava to Shengal on March 3, KDP attacked the YBŞ and the guerrilla with these weapons. Like ISIS, KDP also murdered a female guerrilla. We don’t ask why the KDP was given these weapons, but they should point them at the enemies of Kurds, not the PKK and the Rojava revolutionaries who are the reasons they received the weapons.

The House of Lords Commission demanded support for the KDP. While they display a negative approach towards the PKK who fights ISIS, despite the great success and democratic values of the Rojava revolution, this fact was overlooked. Even the effect and significance of the revolution was downplayed. The House of Lords Commission made some analyses that claim democratic tendencies in the Middle East should be supported, but took as a base to support the KDP with authoritarian and antidemocratic characteristics instead of the Kurdish political forces who are the most democratic both among the Kurds and in the Middle East. This alone shows that the report did not take principles and measures as a base, and failed to make significant changes in Middle Eastern policy despite claiming there is a need for just that.

The House of Lords Commission is negative towards the US policies, doesn’t think they are geared towards a solution, while they themselves ignore the fundamental dynamics of change in the Middle East and fail to see that they are in the same criticized position like the US.

There is an understanding that the British make correct analyses in foreign policy, especially regarding the political reality of the Middle East. But when the House of Lords report is read, it can be seen that they prepared a generalized report far removed from the truth, written at a desk and not in the field. Maybe this article and our criticisms would encourage them to go out into the field and prepare a report in situ.

* This article first appeared on Yeni Özgür Politika newspaper and was translated by ANF English service.