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ERBIL,Kurdistan
(Iraq) - A two-year dispute has left Iraqi Kurds
still unable to make phone calls from one part of
their region to another, casting doubts on their
claim to serve as a model for a new democratic Iraq.
Younan Hozaya says that if he wants to get a message
to Iraqi Kurdistan's second-largest city,
Sulaimaniyah, he calls colleagues in Washington and
asks them to pass it along.
"We're part of Iraq, but Iraq might as well be
another country," said the Irbil-based energy
minister for one of two political parties that have
controlled Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991.
The dispute began in October 2003, when the
Coalition Provisional Authority authorized three
consortiums to set up mobile phone networks. It gave
the license for the north to Asia Cell, a company
based in Sulaimaniyah.
Two years later, its network stretches westward
across Arab-speaking northern Iraq as far as the
Syrian border. But in the Kurdish provinces of Irbil
and Dohuk, Asia Cell phones still are useless.
Twice, the company has set up transmission towers in
Irbil, and twice, the local authorities have closed
them down -- the second time last month.
"Asia Cell does not have a proper license from our
ministry," said Irbil's Deputy Communications
Minister Rashad Hama Amin.
Few thinks it's as simple as that. Since long before
the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein,
telecommunications in this half of Iraqi Kurdistan
have been run by Irbil-based Korek Telecom Ltd.
The monopoly is highly lucrative. With 400,000
subscribers paying $100 a year, Korek is thought to
have annual revenues of about $40 million.
Asia Cell's earnings, meanwhile, have increased
tenfold since 2003 to $100 million. For months,
Korek was demanding up to 25 percent of Asia Cell's
future profits in exchange for allowing competition
to start, according to sources involved in
negotiations between the two companies. But, one
Asia Cell official said, "If the only problem here
was money, we could have reached an agreement."
He sees the dispute as the latest manifestation of a
bitter rivalry between the region's two parties, the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
The rivalry exploded into civil war from 1993 to
1998, splitting Iraqi Kurdistan into two
party-controlled zones.
Party officials say the fighting is a thing of past.
Today's catchword is reconciliation, symbolized by
the Kurdistan federal parliament, which reopened
this year for the first time in a decade.
But many Kurds see the telephone dispute as evidence
that the war of guns has been replaced by a war of
bank balances.
The chairman of Korek is Sirwan Mustafa, a nephew of
KDP leader Massoud Barzani. And although Asia Cell
insists that it is politically independent, rumors
abound in Sulaimaniyah that its original financing
came from PUK leader Jalal Talabani.
"The disagreement is primarily about money," said
Assos Herdi, editor of Iraqi Kurdistan's only
independent newspaper. "But money equals politics
here, because here there is no state to control
finances -- only the parties."
Kurds have long tolerated nepotism and official
corruption, with many relying on the two parties for
their jobs. But there is growing anger that the
benefits of a postwar economic boom have not reached
the general public.
In September, the impoverished eastern town of Kalar
was the scene of unprecedented street protests over
a lack of water, electricity and gasoline. About 20
marchers were wounded when Kurdish security forces
opened fire.
The politicians "tell us they have got us what we
were asking for, a Kurdish ethnic federation,"said
Irbil-based communications expert Nawzad Ismail.
"It's a strange federation where half the people are
uncontactable by phone."
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