Mr. Auday Al-Saoudi is the Prime Secretary for political and economic issues of the Iraq Embassy in Madrid. The main reason which I interviewing him it is because I feel a great interest in the region of the Middle East but specially Iraq. A country that after the harsh dictatorship that all the iraqis lived, they are trying to create a new country, with ambition and capacitie but the current events do not allow it. I learn that Iraq desires to become a country as any other one of the region. They are tired of the continous conflicts and problems that they live each day. They have a great ambition to be one day an strong country and they have very good ideas and plans to realize it.
These last weeks the iraqi forces have committed important and big actions against ISIS. Some examples such as “Iraqi forces kill Syrian ISIS commander of Wilayat al-karma in al-karma district” or “43 ISIS elements killed, injured in aerial bombing western Anbar”, says Interior Ministry Iraqi and “police forces kill suicide bomber who snuck into baghdad with refugees”. Regarding the effectiveness and power wich the Iraq Government has proved, the intervention of the international community it could be unecessary.
Mr. Al-Saoudi said during an interview in her office “the intervention of the international community is necessary because it is not just a national problem, it suposses a threat for all the international community”. In Spain there are 50 foreign yihadist fighters in some important cities -he can not especifie more- and France have suffered the consequences of its brutality 5 months ago. So, the help of any country it is “important not just for us but for the world too”, says the prime secretary. He also affirm that even it woukd be better if the international community could help more. They are helping a lot with intelligence matters, training their army forces, aerial attacks etc. but they need more.
After one leading with this national and international threat, this could be a “good” pretext and situation that maybe will unite the country. Before starting this conflict, Iraq had a part of the population against the government and cases of violence in some regions of the country, but now it seems the population are unite and even more each day passes. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has confirmed the deployment of a convoy with Shia muslim militia and Iraqi forces set out from a base near Ramadi on Saturday who are seeking to retake the capital of the western province of Anbar, an action that proves this possible unification. Concerning this, the Prime Secretary mentioned since the conflict started all the country understood that there is a common enemy, and this unification becomes in more power. That is the reason of some of the victories against ISIS.
“Not only the shia muslim are attacking and making an alliance with the Government but everyone, shias, sunis, civilian people.”, specifies Mr. Al- Saoudi. These last ones help with information and giving to the army some if tjeir establishments to take rest.
According with past wars and conflicts that the middle east and specially Iraq have suffered among all these last decades, the Iraq Goverment should know if they have a plan of short or long duration to combat, win and end this war. The diplomat said that there is a plan to defeat them-he cannot gives more information-. A plan that pretends to end with this terrible episode in the next months. In the last month important victories have taking part to reach this goal. They have retaken Tikrit, Mosul and Ramadi, these three cities are the most important cities after Bagdad. He emphasized that the Government fight “for the freedom of the people, it is the only thing that matters”.
The actual events that are occurring nowadays with the contribution and help of Iran forces against ISIS, as the battle to retake Tikrit sending Shiite militias fighting on their side, have proved the strong relation between those two countries. The start of new conversations between Mr. President Barack Obama and Iran, few weeks ago, concerning the issue of the nuclear program, a new stage in the diplomatic history of Iran-USA, it will suppose interests for Iraq. Mr. Al-Saoudi says that he “supports the conversations” and the main goal of his country is to leave in peace, they desire it. He thinks that this conversations could accelerate that wish. This nuclear program not only will join Iran with the rest of the world, but also the region of the Middle East. He insists that the new vision of Iraq has as objective “a diplomacy policy with every country, but above all with his neighbors such as Iran.”
The Iraq Government has demonstrated that his main objective for the future is to create a completely new country. It must have a projection or a plan to reach this goal. The Prime Secretary affirms that this plan of Iraq for the future consists in three important aspects. The first one is to open all the embassies around the world, those embassies that were open before Sadam’s regime. At the present they now have 68 embassies in the world but this number is going to increase each year pass. The second objective is to have good relations, and to have an important role in the region and the international community. The third point but not less important is to send national companies to other countries, open the country to multinational companies, invest in the oil to increase the production. Nowadays, the production of oil is 3 million barrels a day, the main goal is to reach in 2020 a production of 9 million barrels a day.
Mr. Auday Al-Saoudi assures again that the only purpose of Iraq is “to leave in peace” and create “a formal State”.
