Where now for Iraqi Kurdistan?
Broadly speaking, there are three main groups in Iraq: the Shia Arabs, the Sunni Arabs and the Iraqi Kurds. We hear a lot about the first two groupings – especially the conflicts between them – but less about the Kurds who have created a near-autonomous territory in the north of the state and fought successfully against ISIS.
I recently visited the House of Commons to speak with a good friend, Gary Kent who is Director of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Kurdistan. He told me about his latest visit to Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a Parliamentary fact-finding delegation in November 2015.
This week, the delegation has published its report of the visit. The report is titled “The Land Between two Anniversaries” – the two events in question being the 25th anniversary of the Kurdish Uprising in March and the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Treaty in May.
Some key quotes from the report are as follows:
“The failure of Iraqi federalism, the obstructive and insouciant approach of leaders in Baghdad, and what increasingly looks like the de facto partition of Iraq are driving moves to the independence of the Kurdistan Region. There may be a referendum of the people of the Kurdistan Region on the principle of independence later this year. We support the right of the people of Iraqi Kurdistan to make that determination before its leaders negotiate with the federal government in Baghdad, and win support for it from its neighbours and the great powers.”
“Iraqi Kurds will probably endorse independence but this is not a prelude to a Greater Kurdistan. Kurdistani leaders are clear there are four separate Kurdistans [the other three being in Turkey, Iraq and Syria], each at a different stage of development. The time for a Greater Kurdistan has been overtaken by history and there is no merit in hankering after the impossible.”
“It is increasingly difficult to believe that Iraq will be put back together given ever sharper differences between its constituent parts. But nor can the Kurdistan Region attain statehood without reforming its unproductive and state dominated economy, whose defects are now more evident thanks to the dramatic reduction in oil prices upon which the economies of the Kurdistan Region and of Iraq have long been far too dependent.”
You can read the full report here.