|
Iraqi Arabs flock to Kurdistan
24.8.2008
|
|
|
August 24, 2008
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region "Iraq", —
Iraqis can finally get away from it all.
After five years of war and sectarian bloodshed,
they have been able to travel to the green, tranquil
mountains of northern Iraq's Kurdistan region by the
thousands this summer, leaving behind the heat, dust
and daily killings in their country's heartland.
Organized bus tours to autonomous Kurdistan are made
possible by improved security in recent months,
though roads remain treacherous and visitors are
stopped at a string of roadblocks before reaching
their vacation getaways.
More than 23,000 Iraqis headed to Kurdistan this
summer,www.ekurd.net
up from 3,700 last year,
tourism officials say. A week in a modest hotel,
with bus fare, costs about US$160 per person, or
one-third an average monthly salary.
Still, it's been a good season for Kurdish hotel and
souvenir shop owners.
And the budding tourist trade is helping to soften
some of the hard feelings between Iraq's Kurdish
minority and Arab majority.
The two share a bloody history, particularly Saddam
Hussein's brutal repression of the Kurds and
establishment of their U.S.-protected self-ruled
region in 1991.
Since the fall of Saddam in 2003, Kurds have held
key positions in the national government, including
the presidency. The Kurdish region has also absorbed
thousands of displaced Arab families and workers,
Kurdish officials say.
Now, with large numbers of Iraqi Arabs trekking
north for vacation, more and more ordinary people
are getting to know each other in a peaceful
setting.
"I have no resentment against Arabs who come to
Kurdistan as workers or tourists," said Hama Rashid,
47, who translates political books into Arabic,
Turkish and Persian and as a young man fought
Saddam's soldiers as a member of the Kurdish
Peshmerga forces.
"We want Kurdistan to be the touristic destination
for Arabs who will pump money into our economy,"
Rashid said.
Mazin Zidan, visiting Sulaimaniyah from chaotic
Baghdad, about 160 miles (260 kilometers) away,www.ekurd.net
said he was impressed by
the orderly traffic and friendly police in
Kurdistan. "All my bad impressions about the Kurds
have been wiped out," said Zidan, 28, strolling in
the city's Freedom Park, once site of an Iraqi army
base where Kurds were imprisoned.
Zidan said he was reluctant at first to make the
trip, unsure of how he would be received.
There are tensions between the Kurds and the central
government, particularly over the fate of Kirkuk, an
ethnically mixed city just south of Kurdistan
claimed by the Kurds.
Nevertheless, the Iraqi government and the
authorities in Kurdistan, comprising three of Iraq's
18 provinces, have encouraged the bus convoys. The
Iraqi and Kurdish tourism ministers met in March and
licensed 38 travel agents to arrange the Kurdistan
tours, said Abdul-Zahra Talakani, spokesman for the
ministry in Baghdad.
For the Kurds, it's mainly business. For the central
government, it may also be politics.
"Kurdistan is part of Iraq, and we encourage Iraqis
living in the south and center to visit the Kurdish
region," Tourism Minister Kahtan Abbas said in an
interview.
Talakani's small office, stuffed with clunky
computers and files stacked against a wall, has a
lone tourism poster on the wall — showing a lush
landscape in the Kurdish city of Irbil, referred to
by its Kurdish name, Hawler.
Iraq's Kurdistan, about the size of Switzerland and
home to nearly 3.8 million people, is perhaps the
only destination for Iraqis thirsting for a little
normalcy.
Arab countries, trying to keep out Iraq's troubles,
grant few visas, while Europe and the U.S. are too
expensive for most. Iran is more welcoming, but
largely attracts Shiite pilgrims.
During Saddam's rule, Iraqis were even more boxed
in, with most barred from travel abroad.
In Saddam's days, even Kurdistan was largely off
limits. The Kurds separated from the rest of Iraq
after rising up against Saddam in 1991, aided by a
U.S.-British no-fly zone that helped keep the
dictator at bay.
After his 2003 ouster, Kurds eased border controls,
leading to a first surge of Arab tourism that year,
but closed the gates again in February 2004 when
suicide bombers killed 109 people in an attack on
Kurdish party offices.
Arab visitors are still carefully screened.
Kurdish troops board buses carrying Iraqi Arabs at
checkpoints, and compare names with lists sent ahead
by the travel agents, travelers say.
"We have very tight security. We don't want
Sulaimaniyah to be like Fallujah," said Mohammed
Ihsan,www.ekurd.net
Kurdish minister of
extra-regional affairs, referring to what was once
Iraq's most violent city. "But the visitors are
welcomed everywhere in Kurdistan."
The Kurdish Tourism Ministry says it hopes to double
the number of Arab visitors next year.
The influx has been good for Sulaimaniyah.
Shamal Hama Ali, who owns the 25-room Mawlai hotel
in the city, said more than half his guests are
Arabs. Souvenir shop owner Saman Karim said his Arab
customers favor items not easily available at home,
such as crystal glasses and copies of classic
paintings.
The visitors fill local restaurants, take their
children to amusement parks or head out to small
mountain resorts.
The Kurds and the central government also try to
attract foreigners.
Several foreign airlines fly to Irbil and
Sulaimaniyah, and the Kurdish government's web site
boasts that not a single foreigner has been killed
or kidnapped in its territory since 2003. Iranian
pilgrims make up the bulk of the visitors to the
rest of Iraq.
But tourism remains a high-risk business, and the
Kurds could close their borders if sectarian
violence flares again.
"Tourism is like a flower," said Talakani, the
ministry spokesman. "It needs a good environment to
flourish."
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
AP
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 