The Netherlands’ newly appointed Ambassador to Iraq Janet Alberda told Kurdistan Chronicle on the sidelines of the MERI Forum in Erbil that, with the October 20 Kurdistan parliamentary elections now complete, Kurdish political parties must promptly form a new government.

“I’m really happy, like many others, that the elections finally took place. It has been a long time coming so I want to compliment all the Kurdish political parties for having organized, set up, and implemented a peaceful election process with enthusiastic voter participation,” she said.

Ambassador Alberda added that the next major challenge is forming a government, urging Kurdish political parties to make this a priority.

“Just like in the Netherlands, sometimes it takes a long time, but you need to step over your own priorities. Hopefully there will be a government soon because I think this is what the people of the Kurdistan Region need: a legitimate government that takes care of all the development challenges and political challenges in the region for this society would like to encourage parties to take that step.”

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Ambassador Alberda also met with Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani on October 30, who extended his congratulations to the Dutch Ambassador on her new role, expressing his best wishes for her success.

They also acknowledged the significant contributions of the Netherlands in the international coalition against ISIS and its support for both Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.

Transactional Relations

During the MERI Forum, Ambassador Alberda also talked about a different transactional relation between the Netherlands and Iraq. “We see a government in Iraq that is actually quite ambitious when it comes to economic reform,” she said. 

She added that Iraq is also ambitious on the international and regional level and will chair the 34th Arab World Summit in 2025 and the G77.

“They really play a very ambitious role that means you have to deal with a different government. In the Netherlands, we also have a new government that has certain priorities and I think with the visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani to the Netherlands in February has already indicated that we now have a broad relationship.”

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She underlined that the relationship is not just about consul issues, agriculture, water management, and security cooperation. “We have a broad agenda that means that we can put things on the table that are important to the Netherlands and one of them is migration.”

“We have a large number of Iraqis still in the Netherlands who need to go back to Iraq and this is part of the discussions that we are having. I think that’s more transactional because we did not really raise it very actively for a few years.”

Dutch Kurdish Community

A large Dutch Kurdish community in the Kurdistan Region plays a role across various sectors, including government and business, and has contributed to trade relations between the Netherlands and the Kurdistan Region.

For example, the Kurdistan-Holland Company, founded in 2009, has transformed Kurdistan’s agribusiness, boosting potato production from 2,000 to 650,000 tons with Dutch expertise.

“I think part of the reason why there’s also a lot of expertise coming from the Netherlands is because we opened our doors to allow a lot of Iraqi Kurds to come to the Netherlands in the 1980s and 1990s,” she explained.

“Many have returned to the Kurdistan Region with valuable knowledge and expertise about government instruments and the dynamics of both the public and private sectors. They have used this knowledge to establish businesses here. There are numerous Dutch Kurds who have started farms, poultry farms, garden shops, and ventures in the dairy sector, contributing significantly to the local economy.”