Ilna: the measurement of Iran and KR’s economic cooperation, problems between them, and the crisis of ISIS effectiveness on economic cooperation is the news subject about which Ilna reporter talked to Nazem Dabbagh, the representative of KRG of Iraq in Iran. With regards to the position of economic of KRG after ISIS’s attack Dabbagh said it caused many problems to KR. The Region, presently, has got an 1150km border with ISIS. This has caused to decrease the economic relations. Breaking off the Region’s budget by Iraq central government, besides war expenditure, has caused KRG not been able to start rebuild industrial and development projects. Even the presence of tourists in KR has decreased and continued up to now. Unfortunately financial crisis has caused that more than 250 companies have gone bankrupt which has increased the unemployment in the Region. In such situations Iranian companies have got into problems too.

Concerning possible fields of KRG and Iran’s cooperation in the space of post-sanctions Dabbagh said: according both security, policy and economic there are conditions to be available to cooperate in these fields. But the termination of Iran’s sanctions is not an event to occur in a few weeks, so we should wait for the agreements to be performed.

In a response to a question relating left tendencies of Kurdish parties in the past, Dabbagh replied: presently I don’t want to say on the behalf of parties like Patriotic Union. However, generally speaking, economic and social thoughts dominating Kurdistan are more willing to Democrat Socialist. In Kurdistan we basically believe in private sector as well as economic freedoms. For this has caused our country to grow. We no longer look for a Socialistic or Marxist system. Marxist’s period has gone over. This theory even did not benefit to Soviet. We also use Liberalist doctrines in the field of economy. We have unilaterally opened the Kurdistan Region’s border to our neighbors, especially Iran. Presently if one wants to enter the Region for economy activities and investment, he does not need passport. About the level of the KR and Iran’s economic cooperation Dabbagh added: it was good in the past but not now. However we expect to take pace forward improvement, as well. He said: the level amounted to 6 billion dollars and we have planned to grow this to 10 billion dollars. Before ISIS around 5 billion dollars of that was met. Of course the transfer of money was effective.