As President Joe Biden is set to welcome Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’a Al-Sudani to the White House on April 15, the family of graduate student Elizabeth Tsurkov has called on the Biden administration to designate Iraq as a state sponsor of terror for allegedly failing to work for her release from captivity. Tsurkov was kidnapped in Iraq in March 2023 by Iran-backed Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah.
In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, Emma Tsurkov detailed her family’s advocacy to bring Elizabeth home.
“We believe countries that sponsor terror organizations are responsible for the terror acts that are committed by terrorist organizations they support,” she said.
“[The Iraqi prime minister] is going to shake Biden’s hand with one hand and the other one holds the keys to my sister’s shackles.”
Emma Tsurkov said that her frustrations stem from the Iraqi government’s failure to use their ties to her sister’s kidnappers to free her. Kataib Hezbollah is a part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a group of militias in Iraq originally organized to fight ISIS. The militia has officially been a part of the country’s security apparatus since 2016. Since 2009, it has been classified as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State.
“My sister’s kidnappers are walking around Baghdad proud and free,” she said. “They know there is no accountability for what they’re doing. If there was accountability, the Iraqi government would just demand that they give her back.”
Emma Tsurkov pointed to several recent attacks by the militia, including a drone attack on a small U.S. outpost in Jordan in February that killed three U.S. Army soldiers, as proof of their terror. She said she hopes that the designation of Iraq as a state sponsor of terror would prompt accountability and motivate the Iraqi government to take action to negotiate Elizabeth Tsurkov’s freedom.
Because of her sister’s continued captivity, Emma Tsurkov shared that she had hoped that the White House would make Biden’s meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’a Al-Sudani conditional on her sister’s release, calling the current circumstances of the meeting “mind boggling.”
Short of making the meeting conditional on her sister’s release, Emma Tsurkov said she “would expect [her sister’s release] to be a demand brought up on the agenda” of the meeting between the two leaders.
The White House website shared that the meeting’s purpose is to “coordinate on common priorities and reinforce the strong bilateral partnership between the United States and Iraq.” In July, the Iraqi prime minister’s office announced that it had launched a formal investigation into Elizabeth Tsurkov’s disappearance, but Emma Tsurkov claimed her family has not received any findings.
The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) recently published a letter to the prime minister of Iraq regarding Elizabeth Tsurkov’s ongoing detention. In the letter, they call on the prime minister to release the findings of the government’s investigation, any information they have regarding her disappearance, and the steps they have taken in response to her kidnapping. Additionally, BRISMES asked that Iraq “redouble [their] efforts to ensure her immediate release from captivity.”
Emma Tsurkov told the ‘Prince’ that she is hoping the University will take a similar action, especially ahead of the meeting between Biden and the Iraqi prime minister. “I hope that this is just a work in progress,” she said of a potential letter from Princeton.
The University declined to comment on the status of this request.
According to reporting from the Washington Post, Tsurkov was kidnapped in Karrada, an upper-class neighborhood of Baghdad. Emma Tsurkov alleges there are police cameras on every corner. “The Iraqi Government is basically saying that they’re somehow too incompetent to be able to find any information or find my sister in over a year since the kidnapping, but somehow [the United States is] supposed to be sending them military assistance,” she said.
Emma Tsurkov shared that she was able to get in touch with low-level bureaucrats within the Iraqi government, but they told her they knew nothing more than what was being reported in the media.
In the United States, Emma Tsurkov has been working with the State Department and members of Congress to work towards her sister’s freedom. She said she has been informed that the U.S. government has raised the issue of her sister’s case with the Iraqi government, but said this is “clearly not sufficient for motivating the Iraqi government to actually do something about it.”
Tsurkov’s case caught the attention of Congress last fall when Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) wrote to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in September to “urge the Administration to use our close and abiding relationship with Iraq to raise Elizabeth’s abduction and call for her release at every opportunity and level.”
Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Reps. Jake Ellzey (R-Texas), French Hill (R-Ark.), Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) have also criticized the administration for hosting the Iraqi leader.
News of Elizabeth Tsurkov’s kidnapping became public in July when Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that she was being held by Kataib Hezbollah.
Tsurkov, who specializes in the Middle East, including Iraq, Syria, and Israel-Palestine, was conducting research which the University confirmed in October was “related to her approved Ph.D. dissertation topic.”
A video circulated online and broadcast on Iraqi television networks in November appeared to show Tsurkov for the first time since she was abducted. In the video, Tsurkov spoke Hebrew — likely under duress — for more than four minutes, asking her family and friends to work towards her release. She said that Kataib Hezbollah told her no efforts had been made for her release.
“At this point, my main focus is just doing everything I can to bring her back, because she doesn’t have time,” Emma Tsurkov stated.
Bridget O’Neill is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’
Please direct any corrections requests to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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