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.”

Regarding developments in Iraq, Salih said that while the effort by opposition parties to seek a vote of no-confidence in Prime Minister Maliki is “over for now,” the “Iraqi political crisis is far from over.” He called threats to cut the Kurdistan Region’s share of the Iraqi budget “economic strangulation" and reminiscent of the tactics of Saddam Hussein. He added that “Iraqi politics has been polarized even more than before” and that while “a solution is possible,” there is such distrust among the parties that “it will be a bumpy road to the next elections.”

The full interview is below.