Masrour Barzani, the Prime Minister of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, says they do not want to be a “party to any conflict in the region” and that presently, no party has pressured the Iraqi Kurds to engage in the war, Al Jazeera reports.

Barzani tells Al Jazeera that his people support Baghdad’s restriction of weapons to regular forces only, adding that all his people want is to “protect the Kurdistan region and keep it away from any conflict”.

“The Kurdistan region has been subjected to more than a thousand missile and drone attacks. The attacks on the region came directly from Iran or from within Iraq through some militias,” the prime minister states, adding that the region has no ties with Israel and that foreign policy is the “prerogative of the federal government”.

“There have been no American soldiers at Harir Air Base for 10 years,” he notes.