The Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Ms. Dilman Yasin and Ms. Wan Rashid, Kurdish-American activists from the Kurdish diaspora in Nashville, as its guests this month. Dilman was born in Kuremay, a village outside of Duhok City, and came to America with her family at the age of five. She is currently a Performance Manager in the Nashville Mayor's office and the Director of Community Outreach for Kurdish Professionals, a non-profit organization assisting Kurds. She obtained a...

The Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Ms. Ashti Waissi as its guest this month. Ms. Waissi is Legislative Assistant at the Canadian Parliament and a former staff assistant to the Co-Founder of the Parliamentary Friends of the Kurds Group, Mr. Tom Kmiec, MP for Calgary Shepard. She has a dual degree in Political Science and Sociology.   Ms. Waissi's family is from Iranian Kurdistan, but she was born in a refugee camp in Iraq. She tells us her experience living in the camp and...

The Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Congressman Jim Langevin as its guest this month. Congressman Langevin has been Representing Rhode Island's 2nd Congressional District since 2001. He is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and the Committee on Homeland Security. He shares his history of service in Congress and the potentially devastating experience that inspired him to run for office. He also expresses his views on the US-Kurdistan relationship as well as...

The Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Mr. Sarhang Hamasaeed as our guest in the first episode of Season Three. Mr. Hamasaeed is the director of Middle East Programs at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, DC. He is also a regular lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute on ISIS and challenges to governance in Iraq. The USIP is an American nonpartisan, independent institute founded by Congress and is tasked with promoting conflict resolution and...

This is a special podcast message from the Kurdistan Regional Government Representation in the United States. Several members of Congress introduced a bipartisan resolution, Concurrent Resolution 32, to the House of Representatives Commemorating the 30th anniversary of Operation Provide Comfort and Kurdish-American partnership. The resolution was also introduced to the US Senate by Senator Van Hollen and Senator Marco Rubio. As of today, 25 members of the House have co-sponsored the...

The Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have General James Jones as our guest in this special edition. General Jones was the 32nd Commandant of the US Marine Corps, the Supreme Allied Commander for the European Command, and National Security Advisor to President Barrack Obama. He was also one of the original commanders of Operation Provide Comfort, the military-humanitarian operation that saved countless lives in Kurdistan in 1991. General Jones shares with us his experience and...

The Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Ms. Karen Young as its guest this month. Ms. Young is a senior fellow and founding director of the Program on Economics and Energy at the Washington DC-based think tank, the Middle East Institute. Previously, she was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, focusing on the political economy of the Middle East and the Gulf Cooperation Council. She shares her experience about her recent visit to the Kurdistan Region to...

The Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Senator Chris Van Hollen as its guest in this special bonus edition. Senator Van Hollen, who has a long record of public service in the US Congress, has co-sponsored S.Con.Res.16 with Senator Marco Rubio. The bipartisan resolution commemorates the anniversary of Operation Provide Comfort, the humanitarian-military mission that averted catastrophe after hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled Saddam Hussein's forces in 1991. The US, Britain, and...

This month, the Kurdistan in America podcast is going north to Canada and is pleased to have the Honorable Tom Kmiec MP as its guest. Mr. Kmiec is serving his third term as a Member of the Canadian Parliament for Calgary Shepard. He is also the co-founder of the Canadian Parliamentary Friends of the Kurds. Mr. Kmiec shares his insights on Canada's involvement in the Kurdistan Region and potential areas to expand bilateral relations. He also sheds light on his impressive knowledge of the...

This month, the Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Dr. Matthew Zais as its guest. Matt is the former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of International Affairs at the US Department of Energy. Currently, he serves as the Vice President of Government Relations at HKN Energy, which has invested in Kurdistan’s oil sector. Matt also served as Iraq Director at the Trump White House National Security Council for two years and the US military for over two decades as a...

This month, the Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Colonel David Williams as its guest. Colonel Williams is the former Director of the Counter-ISIS Coalition's Kurdistan Coordination Center, part of the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve. He was stationed in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, for one year.  He shares with us his experience working alongside the Kurdish security forces and his involvement in the Peshmerga unification efforts, including...

This month, the Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to host Mr. Rob Waller as our guest. Mr. Waller was the US Consul General in Erbil for one year from July 2020 and has just completed his assignment in Kurdistan. He has previously served as a career member of the Senior Foreign Service of the United States in several capacities, including the Director of the Office of Iraq Affairs and as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq and Iran at the State Department.  Mr. Waller...

This month, the Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to host Ms. Nadine Maenza as our guest. Ms. Maenza currently serves as the Chair of the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad.  Ms. Maenza discusses USCIRF's key recommendations on Iraq, the Iraq chapter of USCIRF's...

This month, the Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Colonel Myles Caggins as its guest. Colonel Caggins currently serves as the Director of the Public Affairs for the U.S. Army’s III Corps at Fort Hood, Texas, and was the former Spokesperson for the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve: The international military intervention against ISIS.  He shares with us his upbringing, lifelong professional experience in the U.S. Army, including his views of and encounters...

This month, the Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Dr. David Pollack as its guest. Dr. Pollack is the Bernstein Fellow and Director of the Fikra Forum at The Washington Institute. He sheds light on his experience working as a regional expert on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff during Operation Provide Comfort, his visit to Baghdad at the height of the conflict in December 2006, and his first visit to the Kurdistan Region. Additionally, Dr. Pollack shares his insight...

This month, the Kurdistan in America podcast is honored to have Sherri Kraham Talabany as its guest. When Mrs. Kraham Talabany first heard about Kurdistan as an American university student, little did she realize that her life would be inexorably tied to the people of that land. Ms. Kraham went on to work for the US government, which included working on Kurdistan and Iraq, and she married Quabad Talabani, who is today the KRG's, Deputy Prime Minister. She now lives in Kurdistan, where she...

This episode features a discussion with David Tafuri, the President of the United States Kurdistan Business Council (USKBC), an advisor to the Kurdistan Regional Government Representation in the United States, and a political commentator on Fox News. Mr. Tafuri sheds light on the mission of the USKBC and the organization’s activities in the Kurdistan Region, his experience working for UNHCR in Turkey and later for the US Embassy in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. He also offers his take on the KRG’s...

This episode of the Kurdistan in America features a discussion with two distinguished guests from the American University of Kurdistan (AUK): Dr. Honar Issa, the Secretary of the Board of Trustees, and Dr. Randall Rhodes, the President of the American University of Kurdistan. As a pioneer at the university, Dr. Honar discusses the university's mission and vision, its challenges during the establishment phase, the current state of the education system in Kurdistan, and offers reform...

In this episode of the Kurdistan in America Podcast, Delovan Barwari, from the KRG Representation in the United States, speaks to Sophia Schultz from ARCH International and Katherine Vecchi and Julie Fether, two recent graduates of Johns Hopkins University.

The Kurdistan In America podcast welcomes Kathy Keary from the Mines Advisory Group, known as MAG, which has been working in Kurdistan Region in Iraq since 1992. Ms. Keary says that Kurdistan Region alone would be in the top five most contaminated countries in the world affected by landmines and unexploded ordnance, while Iraq as a whole is in the top three. Find out in this interview what MAG is doing to empower local communities in Kurdistan, Sinjar, and across Iraq to clear their farms,...

Listen to Ambassador Brownback assess the progress that has been made in promoting religious freedom around the world, why he sees Kurdistan as a model of coexistence, and what faith means to him personally.

In this episode of the Kurdistan in America podcast, we interview Yadgar Merani, the founder and CEO of Lezzoo, an on-demand delivery service that has expanded to delivering groceries, cleaning and other services. Listen to Yadgar tell the story of the Kurdistan Region’s most exciting start-up, the only start-up in Kurdistan and Iraq to be supported by YCombinator, and his hopes for youth entrepreneurs in Kurdistan and Iraq.

This episode features an interview with Dr. Shahla Gli, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute. Dr. Shahla obtained her masters and Ph.D. in International Affairs at Tufts University. The discussion is about the US-Iraq Strategic Dialogue, Erbil-Baghdad Relations, the fate of Sinjar and Nineveh Plains.

This episode features an interview with Steve Lutes Steve is the Vice President of Middle East Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is the Executive Director of the U.S.-Egypt Business Council, the U.S.-Iraq Business Initiative, the U.S.-GCC...

This episode features an interview with Robert Ford, the former US Ambassador to Algeria and Syria, and former deputy Ambassador to Iraq from 2008 to 2010. Ambassador Ford discusses his experience in Iraq and shares his views about developments in the...