Twelve high-ranking decision makers from Kirkuk, Iraq visited Germany on a study tour organised by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF). During their six-day visit, the Iraqi guests studied the political structure, administration and public service delivery in the German province of Brandenburg: from the local to the provincial to the federal level.
The delegation met German decision-makers on all levels of government and administration. Not surprisingly, the Arabic guests were particularly interested in the experience of the East German politicians they met, inter alia, in the state parliament of Brandenburg. „After the socialist East Germany broke down twenty years ago, people here had to learn how to fill a democratic, federal system with life – not unlike the people of Iraq today “, said Falko Walde, FNF’s Project Coordinator Iraq who accompanied the delegation to Germany. This was especially true, Mr. Walde went on to say, for Kirkuk, one of Iraq’s foremost conflict areas.
Dr. Rolf Berndt, Executive Chairman of FNF’s Board of Directors, during a reception at FNF Head Office in Potsdam, briefed the participants on FNF’s history and mission as well as current focal issues of the foundation’s work in the Middle East and world-wide.
In the German Federal Foreign Office, the delegation discussed German-Iraqi relations with Mr. Markus Potzel, Head of the Middle East division at the Ministry. The guests expressed appreciation of the German support of development projects and their interest in increased German economic activity in Iraq.
The study tour took place in the framework of FNF’s current Iraq project which aims at supporting effective governance and administration in Kirkuk province. Kirkuk is considered an embodiment of many of Iraq’s deep-rooted problems: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and other groups have deep roots in Kirkuk, and the status of the oil-rich province is contested to this day. Apart from this highly-politicised matter, Kirkuk’s citizens suffer from significant deficits in the every-day governance and delivery of public services of Kirkuk – problems targeted by FNF’s project.
