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Kurdistan distinguishes itself as 'the
other Iraq'
20.8.2007
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August
20, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region (Iraq), --
The Kurdish flag, not the Iraqi one, flutters over
government buildings here in Kurdistan because the
Iraqi flag was banned last year. Yet when the Iraqi
soccer team won the Asian Cup last month, the Kurds
took to the streets to celebrate with their fellow
Iraqis - some even waving the forbidden flag.
Kurds tout their region as ''the other Iraq,'' the
one part of the country where foreigners are both
welcome and safe. With their autonomous status
enshrined in Iraq's constitution, they function
virtually as an independent nation, with their own
laws, their own government and their own parliament.
While much of the rest of the country is mired in
sectarian violence, the Kurds have achieved almost
everything they could have dreamed of - except for
one key prize, the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which
some have called Kurdistan's Jerusalem.
Now, amid signs that a constitutionally required
referendum on the city's status may not be held on
schedule by the end of the year, the Kurds face a
conundrum:
Should they take a stand and perhaps trigger a civil
war, as Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani
threatened last month? Or should they come to terms
with what appears to be reality: Kirkuk may be
beyond their grasp for now?
The dilemma goes to the core of the Kurds'
schismatic identity as a people with aspirations to
independence who also happen to be citizens of Iraq.
''We are a different nation,'' said Falah Baqir, the
foreign minister in the Kurdish regional Cabinet.
''We are Kurdish and not Arab. But the fact is that
we are a part of this country and we do not want
history to repeat itself,'' he said, referring to
how the Kurds were persecuted during the rule of
Saddam Hussein.
Under the terms of Iraq's new constitution, a vote
is due by December on whether Kirkuk should be
absorbed into Kurdistan. The city was home to
thousands of Kurds until the late 1980s, when they
were driven out by Hussein's government.
Yet already it is August, and the complex process of
organizing the referendum has barely started. The
committee established to implement it has not met
since March, when its chairman resigned, and Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has not appointed a
replacement.
''If you ask me, it is impossible,'' said Ahmed al-Baraq,
the chairman of the Iraq Property Claims Commission
who sits on the committee charged with implementing
the referendum. ''I'm talking about practical
issues, technical issues, not politics.''
The Kurds smell a rat. As the months drag by without
progress, they are fretting that referendum
opponents - including Shiites and Sunnis who believe
Kirkuk is an Arab and Turkmen city - have conspired
to let the deadline slip and perhaps defer
indefinitely the Kurds' dream of annexing the city.
''We feel there is a deliberate delay on this issue,
and I don't think anyone has been courageous enough
to tell us,'' said Safeen Dizayee, a spokesman for
Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party. ''We are
becoming suspicious of this process. You cannot
delay a process you haven't even started. First you
have to start.''
Time is not the only problem. A groundswell of
international opposition has emerged, with the
International Crisis Group, the Iraq Study Group and
the United Nations all warning that holding the
referendum in the ethnically mixed city could
provoke a new round of bloodletting.
An escalation of bombings in areas where the
referendum is due to be held - including the
devastating attack last week in the Yazidi community
of Sinjar - has underscored the dangers: Kurdish
officials say the attacks are an effort by al-Qaida
in Iraq to deter the referendum from going ahead.
In addition, Turkey has massed troops on Kurdistan's
borders, ostensibly to guard against attacks by
Kurdish separatists based in Iraq. But many Kurds
believe the troops are also there as a warning not
to allow a vote that might advance Kurdish
independence by giving Kurdistan control over
Kirkuk's oil. Earlier this year, Turkey warned that
it would not ''stand idly by'' and allow Kirkuk and
its sizable ethnic Turkmen population to be absorbed
into Kurdistan.
The U.S., a strong Kurdish ally, is one of the
architects of the Kirkuk referendum proposal.
Preoccupied with securing Baghdad, Washington has no
wish to see violence erupt in the one part of the
country that is considered safe, and U.S. officials
have fallen silent on the issue. When U.S.
Ambassador Ryan Crocker visited Erbil recently, he
didn't mention the referendum, so Barzani ''reminded
him,'' Dizayee said.
Officially, the Kurds say they will not budge from
their insistence that the referendum be held soon.
After so many warnings that the referendum could
trigger violence, Barzani warned that not having it
also could lead to a ''real civil war.''
But the Kurds recognize that they have much to lose
from provoking a fight that would jeopardize the
substantial though fragile gains they have achieved
since the fall of Hussein. They have worked hard to
ensure constitutional guarantees for their
autonomous status, to lure foreign investment and to
keep at bay the violence that has engulfed most of
the rest of Iraq.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Leslie Gelb,
president emeritus of the Council on Foreign
Relations, have devised a plan to secure Iraq by
partitioning it into three, creating separate Shiite
and Sunni regions modeled on the success of the
Kurdish enclave and assuring that the three regions
share Iraq's oil wealth equitably.
Yet even as Iraq's Kurds have moved to secure their
autonomy, they have become active participants in
the effort to forge a new democracy at the center,
albeit one that protects their interests.
Some of Kurdistan's best leaders have been
dispatched to Baghdad to serve in the Iraqi
government. Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, is a
Kurd, as are the army chief of staff and the Iraqi
foreign minister. Kurdish peshmerga forces are
helping secure threatened oil pipelines and divided
Baghdad neighborhoods.
One possible step if the referendum does not
proceed, Dizayee said, would be for Kurds to
withdraw from the government.
That would not amount to a declaration of
independence, but it is a substantial threat. Al-Maliki's
government depends on the Kurdish parliamentary bloc
for its survival. With rifts growing among Shiite
lawmakers and with the recent Sunni withdrawal from
the Cabinet, a Kurdish pullout would almost
certainly herald the collapse of the Baghdad
government.
Kurds would be ready to carry out the threat,
according to Nouri Talabani, an independent
legislator in Kurdistan's regional parliament. He
notes that Kurds won autonomy after the 1991 Kurdish
uprising against Hussein that saw Kurdistan become a
UN-protected haven. They agreed to ''rejoin'' Iraq
after the U.S. invasion on condition that the new
constitution was implemented, including the Kirkuk
referendum, he said.
If Baghdad strays from the constitution, ''then in
all honesty we say that we don't want to be part of
this state,'' he said.
Kurds have become dependent on Baghdad in ways they
can't ignore, making it hard for them to contemplate
substantive changes to the status quo.
Despite Turkey's suspicions, ''nobody in their right
minds believes the Kurds are going to claim
independence,'' said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East
director of the Brussels-based International Crisis
Group. ''They are very dependent on Iraq for their
revenues and they depend on Turkey for their trade
and fuel.''
While new shopping malls, hotels and luxury housing
developments are transforming the skyline of Erbil,
the Kurdish capital, badly needed improvements to
sewage plants, water, oil and electricity plants
have not materialized. The annexation of Kirkuk,
with its 10 billion barrels of proven oil reserves,
might help secure Kurdistan's financial
independence, but it also would alarm regional
powers such as Turkey and Iran, experts said.
Phebe Marr, a Washington-based Iraq expert, said
Kurdistan cannot afford to offend its neighbors
because it cannot defend its borders.
''Realism is settling in,'' Marr said. ''They happen
to be sitting in an area with a border around it
called Iraq. Syria, Iran and Turkey are not going to
let them declare independence.''
With that in mind, Kurds are also anxiously watching
the debate in Washington over whether to withdraw
U.S. forces from Iraq, which would leave Kurds even
more vulnerable. They are hoping that another option
- redeploying U.S. troops to Kurdistan - becomes
reality. But so far no such plans have been formally
proposed, Kurdish officials say.
With so many uncertainties ahead, Kurds say they
recognize that they need to remain a part of Iraq,
and to that end they are putting all their efforts
for now into trying to salvage al-Maliki's
government, most recently by renewing their alliance
with his bloc in parliament.
''Let Turkey come here and (look) into our hearts to
see if we have a plan for independence. They will
find that we have no such plan,'' said Gen. Aziz
Weysi, commander of the Kurdish peshmerga's border
forces.
Despite the Kurds' disavowals, however, the
possibility of future independence is never far from
the discourse.
''A country has to be pragmatic and take into
account the real-politic of Iraq,'' said Dizayee,
the KDP official. ''We know a lot of challenges are
facing us. Can you imagine what challenges would
face us when we do declare independence, if and when
that happens?''
Though the Kurds appear to believe that Kirkuk would
help guarantee their future, Hiltermann believes it
would have the opposite effect, by creating new
enemies and perhaps intensifying the threat from Al
Qaeda in Iraq and other terrorist groups in their
relatively safe enclave.
''More than Kirkuk, the Kurds need security,'' he
said. ''One way or another they can't get Kirkuk and
they need to wise up to that.''
MCT
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