Ahmed Kurda | Special To Ekurd.net

Kurdsunited Investigative Team



We at the Kurdsunited Investigative Team always take a cold-eyed and skeptical look at what makes the news nowadays in Kurdistan.

Sadly, we see that the pursuit of reliable, professional journalism in Iraqi Kurdistan takes second place to the politically motivated scheduling of news items by the major news broadcasters. The news on these channels doesn’t just create itself, it is part of a deliberate process of selection and editing.

Even those channels with high production values that claim to be independent of party influence display a political slant in their reporting of news items.

At least the party mouthpieces such as KTV, Kurdsat, and KNN are clear about their role as propaganda machines. But what about the other channels, such as Rudaw, NRT, and the newcomer Kurdistan24 TV (K24)? Are they really any more reliable?

NETWORK CONNECTIONS

We know about Rudaw’s connections to Nechirvan Barzani, and NRT’s connections to Barham Salih and Gorran. We view their broadcasts with those connections in mind. But what about the newcomer K24 TV channel, which is created and controlled by the eldest son of acting president Massoud Barzani and which is clearly being manipulated to further the Barzani sons’ business interests and hit political rivals?

The Kurdish MP Soran Omar said a while back that his investigation revealed the cost of creating of the K24 channel to be in excess of $79 million. Does the public in Kurdistan not have a right to know where the President’s son got all that money to invest?

We believe in freedom of expression, and a vibrant media scene is a vital component of democracy. However, the decision to launch K24 was clearly not rooted in such worthy ideals. More likely, K24 was created by the president’s son to elevate himself to succeed his father and to counter Nechirvan Barzani’s Rudaw propaganda machine.

THE BUSINESS OF BROADCASTING

We note that K24 is also being used to promote certain business interests and to cover up for wrongdoing by the president’s sons in the oil sector.

For example, consider one recent K24 report which was headlined “Iraq’s Damaged Oil Field Needs $5 Million to Restart”, which appeared on K24’s website.

The Ain Zalah oil field lies outside the official Kurdistan Region near Iraq’s border with Syria, but it has been under the control of peshmerga since it was liberated from ISIS control. By a strange coincidence, we wrote recently about this very same oil field in an article for Ekurd.

In our article we described an oil smuggling operation involving Barzani’s son, who was receiving oil from fields in Syria controlled by the YPG, falsely labeling it as though it came from Ain Zalah field, and then selling it on. The cross-border oil trade angered Turkey and because of Mansour Barzani’s selfishness, Turkey shut down the main pipeline carrying KRG crude to Ceyhan, causing needless financial damage to the KRG.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

In response to our eKurd article, K24 drafted in a local Kurdish oil man, a former employee of the Baghdad-run North Oil Company, who is based near Ain Zalah. He emphasised to K24 that Ain Zalah does not produce any oil, inferring that because it doesn’t produce oil it would make no sense to label Barzani’s smuggled oil as coming from Ain Zalah, as we reported.

But our investigations have revealed that this illegal oil trade from Syria continued for around 2 years and raised some $200 million in revenue for Masoud Barzani’s son. Where did that revenue go?

Did it go to the KRG to help pay salaries? Did it go to the brave peshmerga who were securing the area against ISIS? Or did it go into the pockets of the president’s sons?

Why didn’t K24 ask their local oil expert about the 10-15,000 barrels per day being produced in the nearby Sufaya field, also under the control of the president’s son? Where is the money going from this field?

These are the questions that K24 should be asking if it were a credible outlet, instead of trying to discredit its owner’s political rivals and cover up for his own corruption.

Ahmed Kurda is the founder of the Kurdsunited Investigation Team, a group of well-connected and patriotic young Kurds based in Sulimani, Amedi, Amsterdam and the UK. We do not align ourselves with any party in Kurdistan. Only the truth matters.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

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