Barzani’s Visit to “Al-Jolani” on the Anniversary of the Yazidi Genocide

On August 3, the solemn anniversary of the Yazidi genocide, President of the Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani visited Damascus, where he met with Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Jolani).

The timing of this visit carries profound historical and humanitarian symbolism, particularly for Iraqis in general and the Yazidi community in particular.

It brings together the President of the Kurdistan Region—whose administration continues to face longstanding criticism and accusations of withdrawing and failing to protect the Yazidis during the ISIS assault in that dark summer of 2014— with a figure such as al-Jolani, who once served as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s representative and founded the Syrian branch of the organization before breaking away in 2013 and pledging allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Although al-Jolani and al-Baghdadi later split over organizational and ideological differences, the optics of this meeting underscore complex political intersections that, in the eyes of many observers, transcend the blood of the victims and a violent past in which extremism and terrorism became intertwined with shifting regional calculations—often at the expense of marginalized communities and their enduring suffering.

Another striking detail from the official ceremony: the Iraqi national flag was notably absent, while only the flag of the Kurdistan Region was displayed.

This raises an obvious question: In what official capacity was Nechirvan Barzani representing himself during this visit? Was he there as a representative of the Republic of Iraq, or solely as the President of the Kurdistan Region?

The symbolism is difficult to ignore. On a day marking one of the darkest chapters in Iraq’s modern history, the absence of Iraq’s national flag at such a high-level meeting adds another layer of political controversy to an already deeply sensitive visit.