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AMMAN: As Kurds and Shias in Iraq push for a
federal constitution, fears are rising in the Arab
world that the urge to create separate states could
spread in countries with religious and ethnic
minorities, analysts said.
When minority groups feel oppressed or deem that
their rights are restricted by the centralised
states in which they live, they are drawn to notions
of autonomy or federalism so that they can better
exercise their rights, Arab experts said.
Therefore, the Arab world is keeping a close eye on
the outcome of demands for a federalist Iraq as it
creates its first constitution since the fall of
military dictator Saddam Hussein, said Nabil Abdel-Fattah,
an analyst from Cairo’s Al Ahram Centre for
Political and Strategic Studies.
“The result of the fight — between Sunnis who are
against federalism in Iraq and Kurds who are for it
— will have a decisive influence on how other
countries’ crises play out, from west of Asia to the
Middle East and Iran,” he told AFP.
“Federalism was not one of the concepts in the Arab
political dictionary, until now,” he said.
The United Arab Emirates is presently the only
federal state in the Persian Gulf region. Its system
was installed by late ruler Sheikh Zayed.
Sudan has applied a mild form of federalism for
several years, whose unfulfilled objective was to
suppress demands by ethnic groups in the south and
in the western Darfur and Kordofan regions.
The trend toward federalism, if it catches on, could
incite minorities — from Berbers in north Africa to
various ethnic and religious groups in Lebanon to
the sizeable Kurdish populations in Syria, Turkey
and Iran — to seek their own states, said Hassan al-Barari,
a researcher at Amman’s Centre for Strategic
Studies.
“In developing countries, federalism amounts to a
step toward splitting up,” Barari said.
“Ethnic groups in Arab countries are hiding behind
federalism or liberalism, but what they are in fact
seeking is the dismantling of the united state, such
as the Kurds, who want to see an end to the Iraqi
state drawn up in 1921,” he said.
Kurds were denied a nation of their own when the
British drew up the contemporary map of the Middle
East more than eighty years ago, and tens of
millions were absorbed into Iraq, Iran, Turkey and
Syria, where they lived as oft-oppressed minorities
for decades.
In Iraq, thousands of Kurds were killed under
Saddam’s brutal and fascist regime and tens of
thousands forced from their homes.
“Based on their experiences under the centralised
Iraqi state, Kurds are striving toward splitting up
Iraq. They are currently in an ideal situation. They
have a historic opportunity to get out of Iraq by
leaning on their good relations with the United
States, Israel and the West,” Barari said.
According to Barari, Iraq’s neighbours Syria, Turkey
and Iran, which all have sizeable Kurdish
populations, “won’t be able to prevent the birth of
a Kurdish State on the ruins of Iraq, which will be
recognised by the United Nations and the
international community.”
“The biggest loser in this matter would be Turkey,
where 16 million Kurds live,” said Barari, adding
that “Iran would be equally concerned because it has
Kurdish, Arab and other minorities.”
However, Kurdish leaders have repeatedly vowed in
recent months that they do not intend to split off
from Iraq, as long as their rights are recognised
and they are able to maintain the degree of autonomy
they have enjoyed for more than a decade.
Kurdish negotiators have also indicated they would
be flexible on demands for autonomy if it were to
prove a major stumbling point in the process.
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