April 25, 2007
For decades, the title of "powder keg" — a place
where a small spark could touch off a regional war —
has belonged to Bosnia. These days, that honor more
properly belongs to the Kurdish region of Iraq.
While most attention is fixated on the worst Iraq
violence — bombs in Baghdad, trouble in Diyala -
disturbing developments in the Kurdish north are
threatening to create a new front in the Iraq war.
On the surface, there would seem little to worry
about. The Kurdish provinces are a model for what
the rest of Iraq should look like: relatively
peaceful and democratic, a thriving economy,
passionately pro-American. The Kurds proudly tout
themselves in a new American advertising campaign as
"the other Iraq."
But the region's growing autonomy is fanning
ambitions of independence, which invites a whole new
set of problems.. |
Iraqi
President : Jalal Talabani, a Kurd |
|
Kurdish independence would encourage already-restive
Kurds in neighboring countries — notably the 14
million in southeastern Turkey, but also in Iran and
Syria — to separate and join with a new Kurdistan,
and for those countries to try to intervene. If that
happened, almost any outcome would work potently
against U.S. interests.
Turkey is a NATO ally and a Muslim-dominated
democracy that is an important bulwark against
Islamic radicalism. Iran and Syria are hostile
nations whose help we want in stabilizing Iraq. But
already, Turkey's top general is calling for
military action against Kurdish separatists in Iraq,
and a particularly dangerous flash point is arriving
quickly: a decision on the fate of the oil-rich city
of Kirkuk.
The Kurds claim Kirkuk as a symbol of their land and
history. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd,
even calls it "our Jerusalem." But it has a tangled
makeup. Saddam Hussein settled tens of thousands of
Arabs there to dilute the Kurds' claim. In another
twist, Turkey regards Kirkuk as a special
protectorate because it has a large number of ethnic
Turks.
The Iraq constitution calls for a referendum on
Kirkuk by mid-November, and Kurdish leaders are
pushing for it to go ahead. But it should instead be
postponed until progress can be made on the more
urgent issues in the south.
A higher priority in Iraq's parliament ought to be
the informal benchmarks President Bush has set for
progress — including oil revenue sharing. Without
that, there is no basis for sustaining any semblance
of national unity, much less ending sectarian
violence that is at the heart of the Iraqi conflict.
The United States has been putting pressure on the
Kurds and Turkey to cool things down. It has been
pushing more Iraqi integration: Kurdish units of the
Iraqi army, for example, are helping in the Baghdad
crackdown.
Iraq's Kurdish north feels independent, much as the
American South once did. Different flags fly and a
different atmosphere prevails. But for the sake of
Kurds, other Iraqis and the troubled U.S. mission in
Iraq, the need is for unity, not separation.
usatoday com
**
Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region and
it is not under the full control of Kurdistan
Regional Government administration, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
about 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
The Iraqi Constitution mandates that a referendum on
control of Kirkuk must be held by the end of this
year to decide whether the oil-rich Kurdish province
should be annexed to the safe semiautonomous
Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
** The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to some 20 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan ( Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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