The Yazidi community has been extremely consistent over the last close to three and a half years since the genocide about what they want. They're very unified in this. They want a self-governed, local administration within the Sinjar region that would provide the Yazidis from that area the opportunity to govern their affairs with a non-partisan security force, a local security force. One of the problems for the Sinjar region is that security forces that have controlled it in the past have always been party militias or aligned with particular political groups. The peshmerga, who withdrew from Sinjar and allowed the genocide to happen, were not a national Kurdish defence force committed to defending all of Kurdistan equally. They were beholden to a particular party, which is one reason why the trust of the Yazidis is so broken with the Kurdistan Region. I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Akhavan about the need to restore security in Shingal, into Sinjar, and to bring the Yazidis from the camps back home. The time is ripe to do that now.
The Kurdish government doesn't have any legitimacy for the Yazidi community, so to me, a truth commission based in Dohuk is a little bit questionable. I also think the emphasis should be first on restoring the normalcy of Yazidi life—they've been stuck in the camps for over three years. Help bring them home; help them create the kind of local government they need in Sinjar, where they'll be safe; then work on reconciliation. It is hard to go to someone who has wronged you and work on reconciliation while you're still suffering in the conditions of the camps and so forth.
Now, the international community has been very slow to respond to this request from the Yazidi community. The fact that the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the peshmerga have left leaves two contenders in the Sinjar area now, PKK-sponsored militias and the Yazidi militias that are under the umbrella of the Shiite militias that Dr. Akhavan mentioned. These groups that are there now need to be transitioned into a less-politicized local force that will be run by the Yazidis, and they need the sponsorship of the international community to help facilitate that process.