 Good afternoon, and welcome to CSIS. I'm John Ultraman, Senior Vice President of the Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geo-Strategy and the Director of the Middle East Program. And it is a great pleasure to welcome Kubad Talabani back to Washington. We miss you. I miss Washington. Kubad spent almost a decade here in the 2000s playing a remarkable role, being a spokesman for the Kurdistan region of Iraq, being a person who brought Iraqis and Americans together, being a person who learned how Washington worked better than perhaps most Washingtonians. He is now back in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where he is the deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan regional government. In the seventh cabinet, that is the one before he assumed his current job in June, he was the minister and head of the Department of Coordination and Follow-up. He is a person who I think those of us who worked with him in Washington hold in a very high esteem a person who has tremendous promise for the future of the Kurdistan region of Iraq and for Iraq itself. And with no further ado, I'm pleased to introduce, do you reintroduce to you Kubad Talabani. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you, friends, ambassador, colleagues. It is a really great feeling to be back in Washington. I miss Washington. I miss coming to CSIS even though since I left, I've come back, you've moved into much swankier facilities. Congratulations on that. But it's great to see so many old friends here. Delighted to be back here, although I'm here for a short period of time to primarily update friends in the administration and in the policy community and on the hill on some of the developments in Iraq and Kurdistan, but also to get a better sense of where the administration, where the United States is going in terms of how it intends to implement its policy to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL. So I wanted to just briefly talk about a few different issues. One is to start with some positive news and so much of what we talk about Iraq and Kurdistan over the last few years has been to do with conflict and disagreements and lack of political progress. I'd like to start off with some positive news. It was just over a week ago that I was part of a delegation that was in Baghdad, speaking with the new government in Baghdad. And we were able to reach an agreement on two very pressing and important issues. One is on the issue of oil exports and the other was on the issue of budget issues. And these were two very contentious issues. And I will preface that these agreements are, it's a temporary agreement. It's a very important first step towards what we hope will be a more lasting and more sustainable agreement. We immediately noticed a very different atmosphere in Baghdad when we arrived. We felt a much more positive reception by our colleagues in Baghdad. And I think that contributed to what I consider a very successful few days and a very successful and important first step to start to build a trust that had been eroded at for the last several years. The agreement, which I'm sure has been made quite public to many of you, is two-fold. One is that Kurdistan would contribute 250,000 barrels of oil to the national exports at the same time will allow for passage of 300,000 barrels of oil from the Kirkuk fields through Kurdistan's pipeline and out into the international markets. In return, we will get our share of the federal budget, which had been withheld from us since February of this year, as well as a partial payment towards the Peshmerga forces, the Kurdish security forces, which is a very important first step, because it's really the first time that we've been able to reach some sort of agreement on the issue of payments towards the Peshmerga. So this is a, it's a positive first step. I don't want to bill it as the complete agreement we have now. This agreement has to be ratified in the budget law of 2015, which we hope will go immediately in January, will be put into the parliament, hopefully will be voted on. Then we basically have a year to work with our colleagues and back that to reach a more sustainable agreement on the issues of revenue sharing on the issues of hydrocarbons as a whole, issues of Peshmerga and incorporating the Kurdish security forces into a broader national structure. So we were positively impressed with the pragmatism and the practical nature of Prime Minister Abadi and how he handled the negotiations and we again, I'll caution, you know, I'll try to refrain from getting too ahead of myself, but I think we're expecting a different way of communicating in a different way of cooperating and it is very positive. This obviously comes amid a backdrop of a war that Iraq is facing and a war Iraq is engaging in against the so-called Islamic State. Kurdistan forces are front and center at this war against the so-called Islamic State. We today in Kurdistan have eight fronts now open against this group. It's hard to know what to call them. The ISIL, ISIS, the Islamic State, whatever we call them, whatever name we designate for them, the one thing that we have to be very clear on is that this is a very dangerous organization and they're dangerous in a way that previous iterations of terrorist organizations that have taken foothold in Iraq have not been as dangerous as this because this group actually controls territory. This group is not a shadowy terrorist organization hiding in houses, in caves, or in mountains in parts of the country. This organization has taken over a large portion of the country and is it actually administering in portions of this country in there? And this is what makes them different from Ansar al-Islam or Ansar al-Sunnah or some of the other groups that we've had to even al-Qaeda in Iraq that we've had to deal with from 2003 up until today. What also makes them dangerous is that their territory is not just confined to one country. There is today no border between Iraq and Syria and that's what makes it even more complicated. The one thing that is for certain though is the so-called Islamic State did not fill a security void in the country. The country had and has a robust security service. The ISIL filled a political void in the country and they were born out of a failure of politics in Iraq and they were able to capitalize on the disenfranchisement of a big portion of the country as a result of successive failed policies up until today. So any end game plan to eradicate the grade and so ultimately destroy this group has to have a strong political component to it. It can't just be looked at in pure military terms that we need this number of troops and this type of weapon and this type of operation to eradicate this group. There has to be lessons learned from the surge. If we recall, we'd done this once before. There was a concerted effort, a coordinated effort to wipe out then what was then al-Qaeda in Iraq and Zarqawi's group. The military component of the surge worked. The areas were able to be cleared but the hold and the build side of the surge plan didn't actually take place because politics never grew. The politics that was required for the various different groups that come together and come around a sort of vision for the country never transpired. So that's why this time around, parallel to any military attempts to eradicate this group which have to happen, have to happen. Parallel to that has to be a stronger political solution to make this military operation sustainable. And that requires greater coordination between Kurdish forces and the rest of the country, the Iraqi armed forces, but also greater cooperation with the coalition forces and in particular the United States. So as a result of the conflict and as a result of these eight fronts, Kurdistan has also been burdened with a major humanitarian crisis. Today we have 1.5 million internally displaced people that have sought refuge in Kurdistan. And when you think of our population being around five million people, this is a huge number and a major burden on our resources and on our government's ability to provide the necessary healthcare, education, electricity, water and sanitation services to these IDPs and refugees. So we are facing several different kinds of problems, the political problem in the country, the military and security problem, but also now parallel to that, a humanitarian problem. So it's important for me in my visit here and for us back home to get a better sense of US policy here and how the US intends to ultimately destroy this group. There are willing partners on the ground, the Iraqi government, the Iraqi armed forces have regrouped after the initial shock of this group and are now fighting admirably against ISIL. The Kurdish forces the same, but we all understand that we are limited in what we can do, we are limited in how effective we can ultimately be against this group. So greater coordination is required and greater cooperation is going to be required. Ultimately again, I will conclude by saying that this is a political problem and we have to come to an understanding that there was great disappointment after the surge that the politics didn't resolve and people in Mosul, people in Anbar, people in Salah-e-Din felt that the promises that were made to them back then were never fully delivered upon. So it's very important this time around that there is a more holistic approach to this and a better understanding that in order for this country of Iraq to work and I wanna make very clear here, the Kurdish side, the Kurdish leadership has made a decision to try its best to make Iraq work. We made this agreement when we chose to join the current government of Iraq. This was a political decision that the political leadership of Kurdistan made to assist in giving Iraq one last chance to make it work. We will be committed to that and we have been committed to that but in order for Iraq to work, it's not just a matter of Iraq reconciling its differences with the Kurds. Iraq has to reconcile its differences with the Sunnis. There has to be better political inclusion. There has to be a political system that governs in Iraq that reflects the diversity of Iraqi society and we have to step away from the notions of this centralized rule of Iraq in dominating Iraq from the political center because Iraq today is fractured. Iraq today is occupied by a foreign, by an alien force. An alien force that for better or for worse, rightly or wrongly, has at least at best acquiescence from parts of the communities in Iraq. So we need to change this dynamic. We need to get people to turn against this so-called Islamic state and we can't just do that with words. We can't just do that by including Sunni members into the government. There has to be better policies nationwide. There has to be more inclusion and that requires a shift in focus from Baghdad but also from the United States in coming up with a vision for the country that will make the country work. We are willing to play our part to make Iraq work. We are willing to play our part to help shape that vision but that requires not two to tango in this case but several of us to tango in this case and I think that if there is the political will and we're starting to sense that there may be a different atmosphere and greater will to come to terms with the realities in the country, it may just work but it is the country's last chance and it's facing major, major challenges from a group that is intent on staying in Iraq and with that I wanna thank you for the opportunity. Happy to answer questions that you have and engage in a lively discussion that I know that CSIS always generates. So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for inviting me here and giving me this chance to catch up with old friends. I appreciate that. Well, Khubad has to leave promptly at three until then he's all ours. I suggest that in order to maximize the utility of our time that we try to go around with questions that everybody identify yourself to ask just one question till we've had a chance to go around and my pet peeve as many of you know is questions that aren't really questions but rather statements saying what do you think of my statement? So if we could avoid that, I would be grateful. I will try to model this. I'm John Ultraman, I work here at CSIS. When I talk to the most thoughtful people I know about Iraq, the thing they are terrified about is that in pursuing the Islamic State we will be empowering Shia militias which will prove to be the long-term threat to the success of Iraq. What do you think Iraqis need to do to prevent that from happening and what would you like to see outsiders do to try to avoid that eventuality from coming about? I think it's a genuine fear and it's something that we would have hoped, all of us would have hoped that the conventional forces in Iraq should have stood up to the job and should have done their job in defending the country and I think that basically reinforces what I was trying to say earlier in the sense that this is not just a security problem, it's not a security vacuum. ISIL being in Iraq and covering a large portion of the territory is really it's a political problem and there has to be, I think ultimately, a political solution to get people to stand up and reject ISIS and shun them away and I think that is partly going to require reorganizing, restructuring maybe the Iraqi forces but that's gonna take time and I'm hearing efforts to take place, it's gonna take six months to reorganize, restructure the forces. I know that the Iraqi Defense Ministry is very eager and gung-ho about doing this quickly and having the forces there but I think that if we purely look at this in militaristic terms, I don't think we'll come up with a sustainable strategy. How we deal with the militias, I think it's a very complicated issue because the militias, for better or for worse, not talking about any tactics that may have been used, have been effective in repelling ISIS and have been effective in clearing towns and cities in the country. So I think it's gonna be equally dangerous just to say, okay, thank you, your job is done. You can now go back to wherever you came from. I think they may want to somehow be included into the national defense structure. At the same time, we're also hearing about efforts and intentions to arm Sunni tribes to have them take up arms which I think if it's part of a larger strategy to create regionalized defense forces that's fine. But I think if we rush to this and just arm people and say, okay, go and take these arms and fight this group. Again, if it's not part of a more cohesive and thought out strategy, it could have disastrous consequences in these weapons, these efforts immediately being handed over to extremist groups that could turn around and use them against Iraq or against us or against Americans. ISIS's armory is basically the Iraqi army's armory. So what would you like outsiders to do to try to head off the seed of militia rule? I think, again, it's very difficult but it has to be, we can't just look at this from a military operation view. This is a military operation. We need to do this and carry out this operation here and eliminate this group here because again, the root cause of the problem is political. You settle the political issues, you can settle the militia issues. The militias will continue to exist if they feel that Shi'ism is under threat by Sunni extremism. Sunni extremism will continue to take hold in Iraq if they feel under threat from Shi'ite dominance. Kurdish nationalism will continue to grow if we feel that we are pressured by Arab nationalism. Arab nationalism may continue to rise up if they feel the Kurds being two Kurdish nationalists and taking away from Iraqi sovereignty. So here we're talking about psychological issues that these various different communities and groups have vis-a-vis each other. There is lacking trust in the country. So trust that can eventually begin to normalize and stabilize once there is a sound political order in the country that makes me as a Kurd feel that somebody's not trying to take my share and what I feel is rightfully owned to us. And that's why I think the way you keep militias or extremism in check is by having sound policies that does not alienate, but that actually makes it more inclusive and brings people together rather than push them apart. Thank you. Kubad, great to see you. Barbara Sladen from the Atlantic Council and Almonitor.com. Does Baghdad have enough money to pay the 17% that they promised you what is that 17% in dollar terms? And what share should the Sunnis get of the national budget to entice them to remain part of Iraq? The Iraqi finance minister is a Kurd now. And there's a good friend to many of you in this room and a good friend to us. And of course he's first day on the job. The first thing we all did as Kurds was call him and say, hey, Uncle Lashar. So how about these payments? And I think he was rather pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised at the state of the country's finances. Unpleasantly surprised. I mean, the country is facing massive financial crisis. And we thought it was only us in Kurdistan that had massive financial issues, but no, Iraq has massive financial issues. And somebody needs to look into why that is the case. What happened to the reserves? How were they spent? How were they not spent? And I think that requires some sort of investigation somewhere down the line. But the fact of the matter is, Iraq right now's finances are in trouble, which is why I think adding 550,000 barrels of oil to its exports is going to create significant increase of revenue for Iraq, which will hopefully be able to pay the Kurdistan region its share of the budget. And if you do the math, it actually adds up. Our 17% equates to about 500,000 barrels of oil. That was at oil prices a couple of weeks ago. More bad news today that oil prices have continued to decline. Now, that said, the more Iraq can boost its production, the greater the revenue stream will be. The reality is we're actually not getting 17%. We have never been getting 17% of the budget. I could bore you with the technicalities of it, but I'll try to really keep it simple, is Iraq has something called sovereign expenditures. Funding of the army, funding of the government, funding of the parliament, expenses that are sovereign. So we get 17% after sovereign expenditures has been taken off the top. Now, we believe that there are certain functions that are sovereign, but we feel that we have certain institutions that are carrying out sovereign duties. Kurdish security forces today are fighting not just on behalf of Kurdistan, but on behalf of all of Iraq. We feel that those forces should be included under sovereign expenditures. Oil company costs have been a sovereign expenditure up until today, but not the oil companies operating in Kurdistan. So there's been a double standard on what is sovereign and what is not sovereign. So I think if we can come to terms of, okay, we talk about the 17%, which was actually an agreement that was reached. It actually works out to be between 10 to 11% that we get. And obviously it depends on the oil prices and it changes each year, but ultimately, we in Kurdistan, we need about a billion, two billion, 300,000, 300 million to sustain ourselves a month. That is to cover the running of the government, the paying of the salaries and the payments to kind of the local contractors and overall, and this is after our own spending cuts. And one of the things that this war has done, it's made us take a look at ourselves and do a lot of soul searching. We have carried out major spending cuts in our government, sometimes as high as 70% in certain ministries. Now those ministries are still functioning, which leads us to believe that there may have been some excessive waste to begin with, which leads us to make a decision that even once money starts to flow, we're gonna keep some of those cuts in place. Well, I think this is part of the revenue sharing formula and I think that there needs to be a greater, and this is why we have this year now to reach an agreement on the revenue sharing law. That for me is the critical piece of legislation because that is the piece of legislation that can really force some sort of unity in the country. And it's not just to having the piece of legislation, it's what are the institutions that are in place to actually execute that piece of legislation? Because so many times we have great laws, we have great decisions, but the institutions that are in place to actually execute that causes problems, causes delay and the furthest any mistrust. Yes sir. My name is Saadi Othman, hi Kubal, good to see you again. I know you didn't recognize me. Good to see you. Yes. Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, you mentioned several times in your opening statement and in your responses to John about political solutions. This is not just a military thing. You know, everybody is against ISIS, almost everybody, let's say in Iraq, and they agree on that. Are there any plans for the aftermath? Are there first steps? So okay, ISIS is gone as we have seen in certain areas, whether it's in the Allah or further, you know, like south of Baghdad or there. And there were problems, some of it, some of it or issues, let me say, between Kurds and Arabs in Jalalullah and Saadiya, as we heard in the last few days, there were certain problems in Jaffa Sakhir and in other areas over there. Are there plans and steps taken by all Iraqi leaders from different communities about what to do after ISIS or ISIL is finished and gone so there will not be problems where then there will be serious issues between Kurds and Arabs, Shiites and Sunni and so forth? Thank you. Honestly, no. There hasn't been the level of discussion, the strategic discussions that need to be taking place between the various communities, the leaders of the various communities, the leaders of the various political parties. There may be discussions inside the federal government. I may not be privy to some of those discussions. The ambassador is in a better place here. I want to put him on the spot here. But certainly in terms of a strategic national dialogue on why this happened, how this happened, how this could be prevented from happening, what needs to be done to make any attempts to clear these areas successful, no, that hasn't happened yet. And if it doesn't happen, then it won't happen. And if it won't happen, ISIL will remain in the country. Dave, out of the way from the Woodrow Wilson Center. Going back to the oil deal, could you clarify what was agreed to or not agreed to regarding your production beyond 250,000 barrels a day? And I believe you're headed for a million barrels by a year from now. Are you, has Baghdad agreed to allow you to sell the additional oil above the 250,000 barrels on your own? We only discussed with Baghdad, providing Baghdad, providing the government of Iraq, 250,000 barrels from the Kurdish fields, as well as allowing passage of the production from Kirkuk's existing fields. We didn't get into any discussions about Kurdish production beyond the 250,000, but there is a clear understanding that Kurdistan has enormous domestic refining needs. That I'm certain we will be utilizing any excess production to match and meet those refining needs. And by the end of 2015, when we're at a million barrel or 800,000 barrels, depending on, if you're looking at it optimistically or pessimistically or realistically, we hope to have reached a final solution on a sustainable agreement with Iraq on what to do with all of the production that is coming out of the country from the North and the South. Thank you. The Ansgar, a consultant to APEC. Iraq, of course, has two very powerful neighbors that are very deeply involved in what's happening in Iraq. Could you comment on the roles of Iran and Turkey and what's going on? Thank you. Yes, our neighbors. Obviously, both have vested interest in the country, in the shape of the country, in the future of the country. One, to date, has been more involved than the other. There wouldn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out which one that is. But ultimately, both have an eye on the country and want to see the country pan out in a certain way. Now, Iran has been very actively involved politically, economically, and also security-wise, especially in this fight against ISIL. Turkey has been more involved economically and politically in the country. And I think it's the nature of Iraqi politics and regional politics that this constellation of countries and interests and activities coincide, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But that's an issue that Iraq has had to live with all these years, and I think it's an issue that Iraq has to live with and deal with. And that applies to us in Kurdistan going forward. As somebody in the region, do you see the prospect of a unity of goals between the US and Iran in Iraq, providing patterns of cooperation which could manifest more broadly in security? Absolutely, I think that there is a unity of goal right now between Iran and the United States, and that is the eradication, the elimination of ISIL. Now, whether that will actually transpire into any collaboration, cooperation, open work together, that's for Iran and America to try to work that out. But there is certainly a commonality in both a sense that ISIL is a threat to Iraq, it's a threat to Iran, it's a threat to the United States, which creates a potential environment for there to be at best kind of an understanding on how to deal with ISIL collectively or separately. Thank you, good to see you again here in Washington. Tolga Tarnes with you, Riyad. Regarding the political decision that the KRG made on this giving one last chance to Iraq to work, so what was the main reason to give this last chance to Iraq? Why? Because President Barzani, when he was in here in Washington and when he met with the president, he was very clear if there will be no any progress in this trying to find a solution in this disagreements between the two sides, you were ready to go to referendum and maybe an independence declaration, some kind of this development. So what change and if not now, when? If you give this last chance to Iraq and can you elaborate also the meaning of last chance? What is the last chance? I don't think anything has changed. We've always said we will do everything we can to make the country work. We've sometimes had and we continue and we'll continue to have major disagreements on the direction of the country, on the vision of the country going forward. But we've always said we are not going to be the ones that break Iraq apart. But we've always said at the same time that we cannot guarantee that Iraq won't break away from us. And that ultimately requires that collaboration and cooperation. We were very disenfranchised by the former government in Iraq and I think what completely exacerbated us was when the government of Iraq cut the budget of the Kurdistan region. That for us was the nuclear option. That was the worst thing that Iraq could have done to us. And the arguments that this was done because we were exporting oil were not valid because we had not started exporting oil in February. We started exporting oil several months after our budget was cut. But anyway, the budget was cut. It caused major disappointment and anger among the Kurds. It led to the salaries of Iraqi civil servants being cut for several months. And now even now we're playing catch up in paying the salaries of our civil servants. It has a major impact on the economy of the Kurdistan region, of the confidence of the investors in the Kurdistan region. So we can obviously say we were irate with that decision. But then the government changed. There was an election and there's an opportunity to form a new government. This new government has been formed. There are a lot of familiar faces in this new government. And there was obviously a lot of pressure from our friends in the United States, the UK, and others to say, let's try to do this. Let's try to make this work. Let's give it one more chance. And I think it's not a matter of the Kurds giving Iraq one more chance. I think collectively we have come to the termination that Iraq can't keep failing like this. It can't keep not reaching the political deal that it needs to reach because it no longer has the international kind of support and assistance that it used to get in 2003, four, five, six, and seven. It's pretty much left to its own devices. And it's up to Iraq and Iraqis ourselves to make this work and hopefully we can. But there is no guarantee that it can work. Right here in front. Who about? Dan, you have to introduce yourself. Daniel, sir, where I'm from, Johns Hopkins, Syce. Is there an implied territorial settlement in the oil and financial deal? And if not, how do you foresee that being handled? No, there is no implied territorial settlement. We made it quite clear when we went to Baghdad that while we have several issues that we have with Iraq and several issues where we need to reach an agreement with the federal government in Iraq, that it was not the time nor the place to discuss all of those agreements. Our intentions were quite clear. We wanted to reach an agreement on exports and a reaching agreement on settling the budget issues. Now we have a bit of breathing space where we can actually have separate teams working with our partners in the federal government to deal with the territory issues and to deal with the disputed territories and Article 140 issues. We can work on, again, finding that elusive hydrocarbons law, the revenue sharing law, the issues of Peshmerga and the integration into the larger defense structure of the Iraqi state, determining what we mean by 17%, what is sovereign expenditures, what or not. These are really complex issues and they're not easy to resolve. We haven't been able to resolve them now for 11 years, but now I think we've got a little bit of the contentious issues out the way. We've started on a trust-building process. We're generating some goodwill on both sides. And I wouldn't say optimistic, but I have to be cautiously optimistic that if we continue along this trajectory with the right kind of attitude that we're seeing now from both sides, that we could actually start to make some real inroads on some of these big issues. That's our question here. I'm El Mudeleli with Wilson Center. It's good to see you in Washington. My question is concerning your emphasis on the importance of having a political process that brings the Sunnis back to the fold. Could you please give us your assessment after the last few months of the government? Is this government doing what needs to be done to bring the Sunnis in? And how much influence Iran has on this process? Thank you. I think what the shock of the war has really preoccupied everybody, both in Kurdistan and Baghdad, and the shock of the financial crisis that has hit both sides as well, has also preoccupied those that are not working on the war and on the security front. But I don't think that I'm hopeful that there is an understanding that we cannot go on as business as usual out of Baghdad and attempts to rule Iraq from Baghdad. We have to get away from that. And to keep Iraq united, we have to decentralize it. This is my opinion. This is the Kurdish opinion. We've been saying this for the last, I don't know, several decades, even before the liberation effort, the way to keep Iraq united is to implement what is written in the constitution, which is execute and implement federalism. Now that can take many forms. It can take many shapes. We have this partial deal with Iraq that we've reached with Baghdad is a form of actually implementing that federal model that we had in mind where we contribute to the national exports. We receive our share of the revenues. This could be built upon and this needs to be built upon to include other communities in the country. Whether it's in the same shape or form as the Kurdistan region, I don't know. But that dialogue has to begin. That dialogue has to be a serious dialogue. And that has to be an understanding that that is the only way forward, that there is such skepticism in Iraq right now that any attempts to try to create a new version of the old government, which again, I wanna say, our impressions were very positive of the current government in Baghdad, but that needs to be built upon not just with us and with others. Iran, of course, plays an important role in this. And I think it's important for Iran to play a positive role in this and to realize that attempts to alienate and sideline Sunni communities in Iraq is not gonna solve Iraq. It's gonna break Iraq. It's gonna make Iraq fail as a state. And that, I think the Iranians are smart enough to realize that and not to push it too far. I was talking to a senior US official who argued that part of the debate in the government is whether the US should find elements of leverage to try to push the prime minister to be more inclusive, to push toward the sort of political solution you're talking about. And others who say, well, he's weak, one has to give him space. And it would be a mistake for the US to find more elements of leverage. How would you help those people do their job better? Are there areas where you think it is helpful for the US to lean in? Are there areas you think the US should just keep its hands out of it because it only makes it more difficult? I think, I mean, it's a brilliant question. I'm not sure how to answer it. But the reality is we went to Baghdad and we struck this deal with Baghdad without having to be coddled by the Americans or by anybody else. There was no third party in the room trying to broker this deal between the Karachi and Baghdad. Now that's not to take away any efforts leading up to that talk by the US ambassador in Iraq, the folks from here. So I'm sure the ambassador has been heavily involved in those discussions. So it's, I think now that there is some progress in the talks between Erbil and Baghdad, the US can play a role to make sure both sides stay true to their part of the deal. And the US does have leverage, of course it has leverage, it always has leverage. Sometimes it doesn't realize that it has leverage or it chooses not to realize that it has leverage, but the United States always has leverage and they can apply that leverage effectively. And I think they should apply that leverage effectively when it comes to the vision for the future of the country, not to impose its vision or how it thinks it should work, but certainly not standing in the way of a vision materializing that may look different from what some policy planners had in mind back in 2003 and 2004. There's a question all the way in the back. Yeah. It's good to see you again, sir. You too. My question has to do- Sir, can you get it for yourself? I'm sorry? My name is Walt Slocum. I'm with the Atlantic Council. My question has to do with the internal economy of Kurdistan. You're heavily dependent, presumably, on oil. How heavily and what are your plans for stimulating the economy, which is not dependent on oil, which as an American, I wouldn't say it's bad news that the price is going down. Well, when your economy is dependent on oil as ours is, and it is bad news for us, so our economy is dependent on oil and it is up until recently been heavily dependent on us receiving our grants from the federal government. So in February, when that was cut, you think 95% of our revenue stream came from Baghdad. When that was cut, I mean that economic shock on our system for many would have been unbearable. Thankfully, we had the outlet, we had the ability to speed up our own production and to exercise our right to export out of Kurdistan, which alleviated some of that stress but didn't actually fill the gap completely. But it is now very clear to us that we cannot be solely dependent on oil to function. It's a good insurance policy to have, but it can't be our only insurance policy. So we are looking to diversify our revenue streams. We are actually right now debating a debt law in the Kurdistan region, which would allow us as the Kurdistan region to incur debt that would have no recourse to the federal government. We don't want to make anyone in Baghdad nervous. Any debt that we would incur would be obviously our responsibility and our guarantee. But that would help us kind of relieve some pressure, whether it's through issuing bonds or other forms of debt raising that could help finance certain strategic projects or to help fill our deficit gap. We also could do and should be doing a much better job at collecting other forms of revenues. Electricity bills, water bills, taxes and other fees that we have been pretty lax at over the years. I mean, I was shocked recently when I learned that the Department for Electricity of a province in Kurdistan is actually owes the Ministry of Electricity money. It hasn't paid its electricity bills. So this is the government owing itself money, which is sometimes it can be shocking. But so there are things that we can do to diversify our own revenue streams and revenue incomes. But the reality is until we start heavily investing in having much better agriculture and agro industries, other kinds of industries, putting in place more robust kind of taxation and collection services, we are going to be regrettably, for better or for worse, heavily dependent on oil and oil exports. We are increasing our electricity output and we have the potential to become a net exporter of electricity given the vast gas resources and reserves that we have in Kurdistan. That has been on our agenda. We have been working towards that. But again, it has to be more coordinated and more holistic approach that we apply. This is the last question we're hearing from. We're hearing from, yeah. Thank you. My name is Hirsh Hussain. Actually, I'm a graduate student at Alderman University and I'm Kurdish from the same city which Kuwait is. My question is, Kuwait, I want a realistic answer, you know, specific. Why we cannot get separated from Iraq? Why we cannot build our own country? For example, when somebody asks me where I'm from, when I say I'm from Kurdistan, he says, where's Kurdistan? And this question takes 20 minutes to answer. Why cannot directly say I'm from Kurdistan? K-U-R-D-I-S-D-A. Thank you. That's a good question. It's a question we get asked every day. It's a question sometimes we... And your staff says you have three minutes to answer. No, look, we could become independent. In fact, we have every grounds to become independent. If you go to any sort of international lawyer, if you have grounds of genocide, genocide has been carried out against us. You talk about the diversity of our economy, of our society and the makeup of our society. We are ethnically diverse, our language is diverse, our culture is different from the rest of the countries. There are many aspects that make us as Kurds give us the groundwork to be independent but we have to also realize that we are not a neighbor to Luxembourg and Austria and Switzerland and other countries where this would just be a normal, emotionless decision. And that's, I think, that one of the difficulties we have as the leadership in Kurdistan is to balance our emotions and our feelings and what we think is right, what historical injustices that we feel as a people we have incurred, to balance that with rational life and the protection of our own citizens and putting a system in place that could sustain any efforts to become independent. So in case we break off today, declare independence without agreeing with either Turkey or Iran, that would be problematic for us. I do see Kurdistan becoming independent one day but I see Kurdistan becoming independent and having the best relationship with Iraq, not having a hostile relationship with Iraq because Kurdistan's sustainability as an independent country and it will happen in our lifetime and I will say I do see that but I don't necessarily see that in a hostile conflicting kind of way. I see that as part of a natural progression of politics and of economy and of sound rational decision making but right now to do it in the midst of a war and to do it in the midst of a crisis that caused conflict with Iraq and probably caused concern in Turkey and who knows what it would do with Iran would be irresponsible in the sense that it'll put the lives and the security and the prosperity of Kurdistan at a potential risk. We've gone through a lot and our fathers and our grandfathers and those that are older than us have witnessed horrible atrocious things because of their Kurdish identity. We are now at a point, we thought we were at a point where we had peace, calm, stability. Unfortunately we're back at war. Unfortunately we have refugees again, IDPs again in Kurdistan living in tents. These are things that we thought we had gone past. We thought we had finished with. I never thought I'd see the day where I'd see Kurds living in tents again but unfortunately we do have a million and a half people from Iraq including Kurds, including other communities that are today living in tents and we're approaching winter. So we have to be responsible. We can't be emotional. We can't make these decisions based on knee-jerk emotional reaction. It has to be thought through. It has to be strategic. It has to be done in collaboration and coordination with those that we live amongst and with those that we live with and those that we live next door to. So I understand your passion. You're not the only one that says I'm from Kurdistan when they're asked a question. But thank you. We are out of time. We have covered a tremendous amount of ground in just under an hour. So you'll have to promise me that you'll come back and we'll cover even more ground. You don't need to twist my arm to get me back to Washington. Excellent. We look forward to seeing you. It's great to be here. Thank you. Thank you very much.