In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor’s Andrew Parasiliti, Barham Salih, Deputy Secretary-General of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and former prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG), warned, “let’s not repeat the mishaps of the Iraq transition” in planning for a post-Assad Syria.
Salih, who also previously served as the deputy prime minister of Iraq, added that Syria’s communities have a shared interest “to prevent the hijacking of the revolution by extremists and fundamentalists.”