Ashti Hawrami

Looking back, the whole of 2014 was a huge success as we only had two ships in difficulty one in the U.S. and one in Morocco ... We managed to finish the year (2014) with only one month of salaries behind, that was a pretty extraordinary achievement as we had ISIS attacking our soil, over a million of Syrian refugees and displaced Iraqis. All of that burden came and we hadn’t seen a cent from Baghdad.

We had a remarkable change in relations with Turkey. It has been very strategic and they have been incredibly supportive, eCONOMIC INDEPENDENCE.

If you ask any Kurd, they will always tell you that their main dream is independence, but at the government level, the main policy focus has been economic independence. We are aspiring to solve our own problems and we have enough resources to do it.