Volume 89 Number 868 December 2007

The Kurds as parties to

and victims of conflicts
in Iraq
Inga Rogg and Hans Rimscha
Inga Rogg is Iraq correspondent for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and NZZ am Sonntag.
She graduated in cultural anthropology and Ottoman history and has done extensive
research in the Kurdish region. Hans Rimscha graduated in Islamic studies and
anthropology, worked with humanitarian assistance operations in Iraq in the 1990s
and is the author of various publications on Middle East issues.

Abstract
After decades of fighting and suffering, the Kurds in Iraq have achieved far-reaching
self-rule. Looking at the history of conflicts and alliances between the Kurds and their
counterparts inside Iraq and beyond its borders, the authors find that the region faces
an uncertain future because major issues like the future status of Kirkuk remain
unsolved. A federal and democratic Iraq offers a rare opportunity for a peaceful
settlement of the Kurdish question in Iraq – and for national reconciliation. While
certain groups and currents in Iraq and the wider Arab world have to overcome the
notion that federalism equals partition, the Kurds can only dispel fears about their
drive for independence if they fully reintegrate into Iraq and show greater
commitment to democratic reforms in the Kurdistan Region.

‘‘This is the other Iraq’’, says a promotion TV spot regularly broadcast on Al

Arrabiyeh TV, ‘‘The people of Iraqi Kurdistan invite you to discover their peaceful
region, a place that has practised democracy for over a decade, a place where
universities, markets, cafés and fairgrounds buzz with progress and prosperity and
where people are already sowing the seeds of a brighter future.’’1

A regional government

After decades of internal and regional conflict, the large-scale destruction and
persecution of the Kurdish population, and periods of bitter infighting between

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rival factions, it seems that the Kurds are today more at ease and have more
influence and power than ever before in modern Iraq. The Kurdistan Region,2
consisting of Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniya provinces and adjacent areas, enjoys
far-reaching self-rule under a regional government and a powerful president, the
leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Masud Barzani. The armed units
of the two main Kurdish parties, the peshmerga, are a considerable military force
with an estimated strength of 70,000 to 120,000 men. Barzani’s long-time rival and
current ally, Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),
was elected in 2005 as Iraq’s first post-war president – a post much less
powerful than that of his predecessor, but still a position of more than symbolic
importance. Representatives of the KDP and PUK hold senior government posts
in Baghdad, among others the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that of Deputy
Prime Minister.

… with growing problems

The dominant forces of post-Saddam Iraq have accepted the current status quo of
Kurdish self-rule. The new Iraqi constitution, adopted by a national referendum
on 15 October 2005, recognizes Kurdistan as a federal region with its own
institutions (regional government, parliament, presidency and internal security
forces) in the framework of a to-be-created federal order. For the lowland areas
with a mixed population, such as oil-rich Kirkuk, disputed for decades and
subjected to forced demographic changes, the Kurdish parties have succeeded in
inserting a formula in the constitution (normalization process, a census and
ultimately a referendum) that opens the way to integrating these areas into the
Kurdistan Region.
While the central government of Iraq is still working on finalizing a
hydrocarbon law on the use and sharing out of Iraq’s major source of income, the
Kurdistan Regional Government has itself passed an ‘‘Oil and Gas Law’’ for the
development and exploitation of its own hydrocarbon resources.
From another viewpoint, today’s reality looks less reassuring. The
Kurdistan Alliance, formed by the PUK, the KDP and smaller Kurdish parties
for the 2005 elections, is part of the coalition government in Baghdad, which has
not made any substantial progress on crucial issues such as national reconciliation
and the improvement of security. The ‘‘Kurdish achievements’’ are not at all
consensual: main Sunni Arab, Arab nationalist and Sunni Arab Islamist forces, and
some Shiite Islamist currents such as the Sadr movement, as well as neighbouring
states and mainstream Arab public opinion, perceive federalism as a threat to
Iraq’s unity and are suspicious about the dominant role played by the Kurds
in Baghdad. In addition, the Kurdish parties, leaders and armed units are probably

1 See the website of this promotion campaign: www.theotheriraq.org (last visited 22 November 2007); and
Rajiv Chandrasekaran, ‘‘Kurds cultivating their own bonds with US’’, Washington Post, 23 April 2007.
2 Kurdistan Region (Iqlim Kurdistan) is the official name under the 2005 constitution. Under the Baath
government, it was the Kurdish Autonomous Region (Mantiqat Kurdistan lil-Hukm al-dhati).

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the closest allies of the US-led Coalition forces in Iraq. This makes them vulnerable
to any change of strategy by the United States. Issues considered as
achievements by the Kurds are being questioned in the course of a review of
US strategy on Iraq. Furthermore, the declared intent of the Kurdish parties to
push through the ‘‘constitutional road map’’ for Kirkuk has antagonized Sunni
Arab political forces, Turkmen and Christian communities and neighbouring
Turkey.
The semi-independent development of the Kurdistan Region and the fact
that it attracts students, intellectuals and workers from Kurdish areas of the
adjacent states, but also opposition parties and armed groups such as the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) from Turkey, have been observed with suspicion
by those states. Relations with Ankara have deteriorated, and in October 2007 the
Turkish army massed a large military force on its south-eastern border. While the
two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and PUK, have officially unified under one
regional government, after a bitter internal conflict from 1994 to 1998 and years of
a frosty coexistence of two one-party administrations in Arbil (KDP) and
Sulaimaniya (PUK), issues such as the reunification of the security services remain
unsolved.
Even though the Kurdish leaders have committed themselves to Iraqi
unity under the current conditions, they insist on ‘‘a right to dream’’ of Kurdish
independence.3 Among the Kurdish population this vision is at least very popular,
if not dominant.
Today, the Kurds are united and relatively homogenously represented.
Still, the Kurdish community is religiously and linguistically diverse and the
Kurdish identity has existed alongside, overlapped with or even contradicted other
identities. The main and minor Kurdish parties have different political and
ideological roots and perspectives, represent different interest groups and have at
times even fought against each other. Quite a number of Kurds represent, and are
represented in, political currents other than the Kurdish nationalist one: Mohsen
Abdel Hamid, the former general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic Party, is a Kurd, as
is Ali Baban, an independent Kurd who joined the Sunni block and became
Minister of Planning. Kurdish tribes and individuals have sided for a variety of
reasons with the central government during different periods of conflict. There are
divergent or even conflicting claims concerning the identity of heterodox
minorities such as the Shabak or Yezidis: they are considered to be Kurds
by Kurdish nationalists but were registered as Arabs by the former govern-
ment in Baghdad, while representatives of those communities claim a separate
identity.4

3 Masud Barzani in Amman: ‘‘The dream of a Kurdish state is a legitimate right … and will become
reality’’, al-Hayat, London, 22 March 2007.
4 Martin van Bruinessen, ‘‘Iraq: Kurdish challenges’’, in Walter Poesch (ed.), Looking into Iraq, Institute
for Security Studies, European Union, Paris, 2005, pp. 45–72.

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Iraq and the Kurds – a difficult history

‘‘Autonomy for Kurdistan – democracy for Iraq’’

Kurdish tribes rebelling against central rule, as well as urban Kurdish nationalists,
have played a role in Iraq since it emerged from the Ottoman Empire after the
First World War. The Kurdistan Democratic Party, founded in 1945, united these
two elements with a fairly progressive nationalist agenda, following the role model
of other national liberation movements after the Second World War. It became
one of the opposition forces against the British-backed Iraqi monarchy, together
with the National Democratic Party of Kamel al-Chaderchi and the Iraqi
Communist Party, two political forces with a somewhat ‘‘Iraqi’’ agenda, as well as
pan-Arab forces such as the Baath Party and the Nasserists. The KDP’s
programmatic slogan, ‘‘Autonomy for Kurdistan, democracy for Iraq’’, was
coined during that period with the sense of renouncing the idea of an independent
state (which nevertheless remained a long-term strategic goal), thus consenting to
be part of Iraq and allying with other Iraqi groups for a more pluralistic and
democratic order.
To further their cause, Kurdish intellectuals developed the idea of a
‘‘symbiosis’’ between Arab and Kurdish nationalism by drawing a parallel between
the (pan-)Arab nation, of which the Iraqi Arabs are part, and the greater Kurdish
nation (i.e., the Kurds of Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq), to which the Iraqi Kurds
belong; while conscious of belonging to two larger nations, these two peoples share
a common country and state which cannot be claimed entirely for either of those
two nations.5

Military conflicts before the 1975 Algiers Agreement

The overthrow of the monarchy by the free officers led by Abd al-Karim Qasim in
July 1958 was followed by the triumphal return to Baghdad from Soviet exile of
the Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani. A new constitution was drawn up for the now
Republic of Iraq that confirmed the partnership of the Arab and Kurdish peoples,
and other minorities, in one nation-state. The Kurdish movement first allied with,
and later broke away from, Qasim, and it first concluded a ceasefire with, and then
bitterly fought against, the first Baath regime in 1963. During the latter’s reign the
military conflict escalated, with increased attacks on Kurdish civilians, air raids
and forced expulsion of Kurdish citizens. When the Baath Party took power for a
second time in 1968, it avoided a protracted military conflict with the Kurds, and
instead negotiated with Barzani’s KDP. The two sides agreed on 11 March 1970 on
a memorandum that stipulated the creation from all areas with a Kurdish majority
of an autonomous region, compensation for war damage and a reversal of

5 This approach can be found in the statements and writings of the KDP in the 1960s and 1970s, well
documented in Ferhad Ibrahim, Die kurdische Nationalbewegung, Berlin, 1983. The most prominent
proponent of the symbiosis of Kurdish and Arab nationalism has been Jalal Talabani.

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displacement. For Kirkuk, it provided for a census and referendum to decide if

that area would be attached to the Autonomous Region.
The implementation of the 1970 memorandum failed. When the
government unilaterally drew up an autonomy law in 1974 that fell short of
Kurdish expectations, the fighting resumed. Under the specific conditions of
regional conflict and the Cold War (interference of the United States, Iran and
Israel on the one hand, and the USSR on the other) it turned into full-scale war,
with air raids on civilian districts and tens of thousands of civilians fleeing to
remote mountainous areas. The 1975 Algiers Agreement brought the war to an
end and the Kurdish movement, deprived of Iran’s support, was defeated.6 The
Revolutionary Command Council in Baghdad began to implement its version of
autonomy. A legislative and executive council with limited powers took office in
Arbil, while the central government’s security services and the ruling party kept a
tight control over the population. The Autonomous Region was limited to Dohuk,
Arbil and Sulaimaniya provinces, while disputed areas such as Kirkuk and
Khanaqin were subjected to a policy of ‘‘Arabization’’. Along the borders with Iran
and Turkey, villages were destroyed and inhabitants forcibly relocated either to
southern Iraq or to government-controlled settlements in the Autonomous
Region.

The Iran–Iraq War

Talabani’s newly founded PUK and the rival KDP resumed guerrilla activities in
the late 1970s.7 Under the impact of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–8) and the
temporary alliance of the Iraqi Kurdish parties with Teheran, Baghdad embarked
on brutal repression and forcible resettlement campaigns in the rural areas.8 These
intensified after the breakdown of new negotiations between the central
government and the PUK in early 1984, and culminated in the 1988 Anfal
campaign. Massive Iraqi armed and security forces took control of major areas
that had been declared ‘‘forbidden zones’’ in 1987 and arrested all the inhabitants
there, including women and children. At least 50,000, if not 100,000, persons
perished either during the operations – partly conducted with chemical weapons –
or in mass executions, or due to harsh conditions in detention camps.9 The most
extensive acts of destruction took place in Tamim (Kirkuk) province. By the end
of the 1980s, thousands of villages had been destroyed and hundreds of thousands

6 Under the Algiers Agreement, Iraq made concessions to Iran concerning the border demarkation
between the two countries in the Shatt al Arab, while Iran ended its support for the Iraqi Kurds.
7 On the inception and development of the PUK see Andrea Fischer-Tahir, Wir gaben viele Märtyrer:
Widerstand und kollektive Identitätsbildung in Irakisch-Kurdistan, vol. 7, Beiträge zur Kurdologie,
Münster, 2003.
8 For an account of this period see Martin van Bruinessen, ‘‘The Kurds between Iran and Iraq’’, MERIP
Middle East Report, no. 141, July–August 1986, pp. 14–27.
9 ‘‘Anfal’’ means spoils of war, and is the title of the eighth sura of the Qur’an. On the Anfal campaign, see
Medico international, Die Linien eines Völkermordes, Frankfurt, 1990; Human Rights Watch, Iraq’s
Crime of Genocide: The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds, New York, 1993 / New Haven, 1995. Kurdish
sources speak of some 182,000 victims.

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of Kurds were massed together in government-controlled resettlement camps near

the major cities. Eight years of war left a long-lasting and at times underestimated
impact on all social and political players in Iran and Iraq. The Kurdish parties,
defeated and pushed back to hideouts in the mountains, had to face the disastrous
results of almost a decade of fighting. Except for the chemical weapons attack on
Halabja in March 1988, the systematic destruction and persecution by the Iraqi
government passed almost unnoticed by the international community; only
human rights groups demanded that the government be held accountable. Nor
had the Teheran government come to the rescue of its Iraqi-Kurdish allies when
Baghdad launched its counter-insurgency campaign. Furthermore, that alliance,
according to Kurdish critics and Iraqi opposition observers, had compromised the
ethics and practice of the leaders and fighters. Iraqi government propaganda had
portrayed the Kurdish parties, if not the Kurds as such, as ‘‘traitors’’ and
‘‘collaborators with the enemy’’. During the Anfal campaign, this took on a
connotation of religious excommunication (takfir).10 Such propaganda, and the
fact that the PUK and KDP had sided with Iran, had a considerable impact on the
Iraqi population. A whole generation grew up immersed in the discourse of Iraqi
heroism vs. the ‘‘treason and sabotage’’ of the opposition groups. Kurdistan was
dropped from the official name of the ‘‘Autonomous Region’’, which was
henceforth referred to as ‘‘the beloved North’’ (al-shimal al-habib), while the Anfal
operations were officially commemorated.11
In the mainstream and official Arab media, with the exception of Syria (at
the time allied with Iran and opposed to the Baghdad government), the end of the
war in 1988 was depicted in line with the official Iraqi version. The Anfal
operations or the chemical weapons attack on Halabja were not reported. After
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, during the build-up to the 1991 Gulf War and during
the war itself, there was again a widespread feeling of solidarity with Iraq that in
many cases left little space for differentiation or critical questions as to the internal
situation in Iraq.

The uprising after the 1991 Gulf War and the ‘‘safe haven’’

A few days after the 28 February 1991 ceasefire that ended the war waged by the
US-led Coalition for the liberation of Kuwait, a popular uprising erupted in
southern and northern Iraq. The Gulf War allies stood by inactive when Iraqi
forces and special units loyal to the government in Baghdad brutally crushed the
uprising. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fled to the northern and eastern borders
with Turkey and Iran; an estimated 20,000 lost their lives in the mountains and
minefields. The Gulf War allies created a ‘‘safe haven’’ and the UN Security
Council, in Resolution 688, gave the green light to humanitarian intervention in

10 See e.g. Declaration 3087 of the General Command of the Iraqi Army, al-Thawra, 20 March 1988.
11 E.g. ‘‘Al-Anfal put an end to the collaboration of those who (…) rendered service to the foreigner’’, Al-
Iraq newspaper, Baghdad, 18 March 1993.

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aid of the fleeing Kurds.12 The Kurdish parties gradually took control of Dohuk,
Arbil and Sulaimaniya – and had to cope not only with the current disaster but
also with the consequences of the destruction of villages and forced displacement
of the 1980s.13
One of the first decisions of the emerging Kurdish administration was to
pardon the Kurdish tribal units and individuals that had sided with the
government – even during the Anfal campaign. In 1992, parliamentary elections
were held, and in October the same year the Regional Parliament in Arbil voted for
a ground-breaking resolution: federalism, instead of failed autonomy, as the
solution to the Kurdish question in Iraq. During the first years of de facto self-rule
an inexperienced Kurdish government, weakened by the one-party-rule mentality
of the KDP and PUK, was trying to manage the humanitarian crisis and respond
to the demands of international humanitarian agencies. In 1994 a local quarrel on
land rights quickly escalated into a bitter conflict between the KDP and the PUK.
This rivalry that dates back to the 1960s left its imprint on Iraqi-Kurdish
reality and the wider Iraqi scene for several decades. After a split in the KDP
leadership in 1964, the faction led by Ibrahim Ahmed and Jalal Talabani sided for
a short period with Baghdad against the Barzani-dominated KDP. In the latter half
of the 1970s, the KDP attempted to suppress militarily the efforts of the newly
created PUK to restart partisan activities in the (KDP-dominated) Bahdinan
region. In the early 1980s KDP–PUK rivalry led to the emergence of two
competing fronts of Iraqi opposition groups.14
In the inter-Kurdish civil war that broke out in 1994, each of the two
parties sided with neighbouring countries in order to defeat its adversary. In 1996
the KDP even called for military support from the Iraqi government to expel the
PUK from Arbil. An estimated 3,000 people, both fighters and civilians, lost their
lives and tens of thousands were displaced.
Following the 1996 oil-for-food agreement between the United Nations
and the Iraqi government, the two Kurdish administrations in Arbil and
Sulaimaniya became efficient subcontractors for rehabilitation and infrastructure
projects financed by the United Nations.
In 1998 the KDP and PUK ended their conflict and started to cohabit in a
‘‘cold peace’’ relationship, but did not manage either to reunite their two
administrations or to repatriate the thousands of citizens displaced during the
fighting. In autumn 2002 there were still heavily armed checkpoints in the no-
man’s-land between the two areas of influence. Although on a much smaller scale,
another confrontation emerged, this time between the PUK and a radical Islamist
group called Ansar al-Islam that had established its base in the mountainous area
near Halabja on the border with Iran. It consisted of radical Islamists who had
split off from other Islamist groups in Kurdistan, and of Kurdish and Arab

12 UN Doc. SC/RES 688/1991, 5 April 1991.

13 See Ralf Bäcker and Ronald Ofteringer, ‘‘Republic of Statelessness. Three years of humanitarian
intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan’’, Middle East Report 187/188, March–June 1994, pp. 40–5.
14 See Ahmed Hissou, ‘‘Jeder mit jedem gegen jeden: Die irakische Opposition’’, INAMO, 21 January 1999.

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Afghanistan ‘‘veterans’’. At that time PUK leaders claimed that Ansar al-Islam was
getting support not only from Iran but also from Baghdad.
According to Sami Zubaida, the early years of the republic, when Iraq was
probably not democratic but was at least pluralist, offered a real opportunity to
solve by means of autonomy what he calls the ethnic problem and to allow all Iraqi
communities to integrate into national life via citizenship. Social realities changed
considerably during decades of one-party rule, repression, wars and sanctions. The
Kurds started to look for solutions beyond autonomy, and for international
protection. The opposition was divided and in exile, while government-controlled
Iraq, progressively crippled by the sanctions, lived through a further phase of
social disintegration. ‘‘Within Arab Iraq, the regime systematically undermined
communities’ integration as citizens, pushing Iraqis towards communalism.’’15

The present Iraq war

The build-up to the war…

When in 2002 the Bush administration’s war option vis-à-vis Iraq became more
and more evident, the KDP and PUK leaders were walking a fine line between
general support for regime change, and abstention from open approval for a
military intervention but participation in the bargaining behind the scenes. Much
as the Kurds wished to get rid of Saddam Hussein’s regime, they mistrusted the
Arab nationalist and Islamist opposition groups, which had always opted for a
unitary, centralist state. From a Kurdish perspective, the regime was at least
temporarily contained, and there was a risk that without clear guarantees a new
government would again challenge the existing status quo.
The degree of sensitivity became clear at the opposition conference in
London in December 2002, when the Kurds snubbed a federalism scheme
proposed by Kanaan Makiya. This exiled liberal, an advocate of the recognition of
Kurdish rights, had presented a model close to the German one, based on the
eighteen Iraqi provinces. This was not enough for the Kurds, who envisaged two
federal states in Iraq – one Arab and the other Kurdish, the latter comprising the
northern provinces and the disputed territories. The London meeting was an
antecedent of all the conflicts that flared later during the post-war constitutional
process. The foundation for ethno-sectarian representation was also laid there: the
members of the follow-up committee were carefully chosen by ethnic and religious
affiliation, and only to a lesser extent by political orientation.

15 Sami Zubaida, ‘‘Communalism and thwarted aspirations of citizenship’’, in Middle East Report 237,
Winter 2005, pp. 8–11.

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… and efforts for a new beginning

During the war the Kurdish leadership maintained a neutral profile, while Kurdish
forces were clandestinely serving the US troops as guides in areas such as Kirkuk,
Mosul and even Baghdad.
One particular battle took place on the border with Iran, where the
combined power of US air strikes and Kurdish ground forces defeated Ansar al-
Islam, a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group promoting a radical interpretation of Islam
and jihad.16 When Turkey refused to allow the use of its territory, US plans to open
a northern front did not materialize and the US army presence in the north
remained limited to some thousand paratroopers. The KDP and PUK took
advantage of the power vacuum in northern Iraq by sending their fighters to
Mosul and Kirkuk, but eventually agreed to withdraw their forces, in order to
foster their battlefield alliance with the United States.
At the political level the Kurdish and the other former opposition leaders
were initially less successful. According to Jalal Talabani, they were invited by
Lieutenant General Jay Garner, the first US administrator after the fall of
Baghdad,17 to form a government to decide how to run the country and what to do
with its assets. The former opposition failed to agree on a joint formula at short
notice,18 and when Paul Bremer suddenly replaced Garner, this opportunity was
lost. Instead, Bremer created the Governing Council, with its members chosen
according to sectarian and ethnic criteria. 19 He dissolved the security apparatus
and the Iraqi army, banned the Baath Party and embarked on a programme of de-
Baathification. Controversial though these decisions were, both within and outside
Iraq, they were not seriously questioned at that time by the former opposition
groups represented in the Governing Council.
In the ensuing process the Kurds emerged as key players in the new Iraq.
The Shiite parties still had to adapt after returning from a long exile, and were
challenged by the emerging movement of the young radical cleric Muqtada Sadr.
The Sunni Arabs who had dominated Iraq’s government since the British mandate
had to grapple with the loss of power. Meanwhile the Kurds managed to retain
high-ranking positions in the ministries and government bodies, the newly
established intelligence and security apparatus, and in particular the army. The
KDP and PUK nonetheless continued to insist jealously that each side must get an
even share. After a while the two parties managed to set partisan interests aside.
United, Talabani and Barzani were able to secure some major gains in the

16 This onslaught on Ansar al-Islam probably contributed to the spread of jihadist cells to other areas of
Iraq and the emergence of resistance groups such as Ansar al-Sunna and the radical militant Tawhid –
later Al Qaeda – organization led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. According to Kurdish officials, even before
the war Zarqawi had already played a role in channelling Arab fighters through Iran to the Ansar al-
Islam mountain bases.
17 Garner was not a newcomer to Iraq. He had already served in the Kurdish north after the 1991 Gulf
War. See ‘‘General reverses his role’’, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 February 2003.
18 Jalal Talabani to Chris Kutschera, Middle East Magazine, May 2005.
19 The Governing Council was composed of thirteen Shiite Arabs, five Sunni Arabs, five Kurds, one
Turkmen and one Christian. See BBC News, ‘‘Iraq moves towards self-rule’’, 13 July 2003.

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negotiations on the ‘‘Transitional Administrative Law’’ (TAL) that entered into

force in March 2004. Kurdish was recognized as one of the two official languages
of Iraq, and it was agreed that ‘‘[t]he system of government shall be republican,
federal, democratic, and pluralistic, and powers shall be shared between the federal
government and the regional governments, governorates, municipalities, and local
administrations.’’20 The Kurdistan Regional Government21 (KRG) in Dohuk, Arbil
and Sulaimaniya was officially recognized, and retained control over its police
forces and internal security – a decision whereby the peshmerga units of the KDP
and PUK officially became part of Iraq’s security forces.22 This full-scale
recognition was later confirmed in the constitution, which came into effect after
the referendum of 15 October 2005.

Building a federal state, dreaming of independence …

In May 2006, after several months of internal quarrelling, the KDP and PUK
finally reunified their two separate administrations under the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG). With its forty-two ministers and ministers of state, the KRG
mirrors the government of Baghdad, including a ‘‘Minister for Natural Resources’’
who de facto acts as the regional oil minister. To render the political achievements
sustainable, it made considerable efforts to attract foreign investors to the
Kurdistan Region and gave particular attention to the region’s oil wealth. In
August 2007 it adopted an oil-and-gas law, and so far twenty production-sharing
agreements with small international oil and gas companies have been signed.
There are plans to raise the output from just a few thousand barrels per day to one
million in about five years.23 This move has been highly controversial. It preceded
a federal oil law by which Baghdad will set general guidelines for the central and
local governments relating to the oil sector and foreign investment; in addition, a
projected revenue-sharing law that will eventually define the local governments’
degree of autonomy vis-à-vis Baghdad has not yet reached parliament. Moreover,
oil experts in Iraq have strongly opposed production-sharing agreements as
concluded by the KRG and preferred by international oil companies. Nationalists
argue that these contracts are tantamount to a sell-out of Iraq’s national wealth,
while Kurdish representatives claim that they are the best means of utilizing these
valuable resources for the good of the people of Iraq.24 Iraq’s Oil Minister Hussein
Shahristani has repeatedly said that all deals signed by the KRG since February

20 Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period (TAL), Ch. 1, Art. 4, available at
http://www.cpa-iraq.org/government/TAL.html (last visited 22 November 2007); the TAL came into
effect on 8 March 2004.
21 See the website of the Kurdish Regional Government, available at www.krg.org (last visited 22
November 2007).
22 TAL, above note 20, Ch. 8, Arts. 53, 54.
23 The Kurdish Regional Government published a final draft oil law, model contract and exploration
blocks on 29 June 2007, available at www.krg.org (last visited 22 November 2007).
24 Nechirvan Barzani, ‘‘Taking the lead on Iraqi oil’’, Wall Street Journal, 6 October 2007.

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2007 were illegal.25 Both sides refer to relevant articles of the constitution, which
are in fact contradictory and leave room for different interpretations. The oil law
of the Kurdistan National Assembly26 has again raised suspicions that the Kurds
are preparing for secession. A similar crisis had occurred in 2006, when Barzani
gave the order to remove the Iraqi flag, until then displayed together with the
Kurdish flag, from public buildings.27
After fifteen years of self-rule, and with decades of conflict and
persecution within living memory, ordinary Kurds hardly consider themselves
Iraqis. A whole generation does not speak Arabic at all. For them, Iraq is a distant
place, and they refer first and foremost to their Kurdishness.
When the first free elections were held in Iraq on 30 January 2005, a grass-
roots initiative organized – with the blessing of the political parties – a referendum
in the Kurdish areas asking voters whether they want the region to remain a part of
Iraq or to become independent.
Almost 2 million people, or about 98 per cent of the participants, voted in
favour of independence. The referendum was unofficial and irregularities were
widespread (even children were allowed to cast ballots), but the results reflect a
sentiment which can be felt in all parts of Iraq where Kurds are in the majority. For
the KDP and PUK, the referendum was welcome insofar as it demonstrated to
their partners in Baghdad what direction things could take if the federalism
scheme fails. A few days after the referendum, Masud Barzani stated that ‘‘an
independent Kurdish state will become true at the right time’’.28 Despite such
public statements, Kurdish decision-makers admit, and are well aware, that an
independent state is not a realistic option.

Deficiencies of governance

Many ordinary Kurds complain about poor electricity, water shortages, wide-
spread corruption and cronyism. Western and local businesspeople have
complained that representatives of the two parties demand substantial shares in
contracts which in turn are handed down to party-affiliated companies. While the
big cities are booming, the rural areas are stagnating, and thousands of Anfal
victims are still living in despair. The Kurdistan Region is receiving 17 per cent of
Iraq’s oil revenue (about US$5 billion in 2007), but has not done much to create
new jobs. Ahead of the 2005 elections, the KDP and PUK had offered thousands of
jobs in their respective governments. This fostered patronage and has created an

25 See, e.g., ‘‘KRG responds to Dr Shahristani’s threats to international oil companies’’, available at http://
www.krg.org/articles/?smap502010100&lngnr512&rnr5223 (last visited 22 November 2007).
26 The Kurdistan Oil and Gas Law was approved by the Kurdistan National Assembly, the Region’s
parliament, on 6 August 2007. The law entered into force on the assent of President Masoud Barzani on
9 August. Available at http://www.krg.org/articles/?lngnr512&rnr5107&smap504030000 (last visited
22 November 2007).
27 Barzani took this decision after the members of the Baker/Hamilton Commission, in their search for a
new US strategy to deal with the crisis in Iraq, visited Baghdad but not Arbil.
28 NTV-MSNBC, ‘‘A Kurdish state inevitable: Barzani’’, 3 February 2005, available at http://
www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/307946.asp (last visited 20 January 2008).

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additional burden for an already not very effective administration. Today, the
public sector employs some 80 per cent of the workforce, but access is regulated by
the patronage system of the two parties.
The relative security in the region controlled by the Kurdish Regional
Government has its price: there are party offices in each neighbourhood, and the
KDP and PUK run women’s and students’ unions along one-party lines that act as
informants on discontent, while non-governmental organizations find it hard to
keep going. Although several independent and semi-independent newspapers and
online news sites have emerged over recent years and provide critical coverage, the
media are still dominated by the two major parties. A Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ) mission to Arbil and Sulaimaniya in October and November
2007 found a growing number of physical attacks on the press, arbitrary
detentions of reporters by security forces and use of the courts to harass
journalists.29
While the state security service (al-amn al-’am, or asayish in Kurdish) has
been dissolved in the rest of Iraq, it is still in place in the Kurdistan Region.
According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, the asayish has detained
hundreds of suspects without trial and often for years, most of whom were
allegedly tortured and ill-treated.30 Almost ten years after the PUK and KDP signed
their peace accord, no major steps have yet been taken to depoliticize the security
apparatus. Each of the two runs its own army units, peshmerga, asayish and police
forces. This led to the odd situation that the Iraqi Ministry of Defence and the
Americans, when they requested Kurdish troops for the Baghdad security plan,
had to deal with the KDP and the PUK, although such units are officially part of
the Iraqi army. The reunification of the Finance Ministry is also still in limbo. The
party coalition in the Regional Government has an overwhelming majority of
more than 80 per cent, but parliament members have complained that they have
little or no influence in the decision-making. Political leaders admit that the
widespread dissatisfaction has to be addressed, in particular as they fear the rise of
the moderate Islamists of the Kurdistan Islamic Union, which is intensively
campaigning against corruption and nepotism. Within the dominant parties,
internal rifts and power struggles have become apparent, and some leaders have
acknowledged that they need to develop the government’s capacities, fight
corruption, loosen their grip on power and pave the way for more civil liberties. 31
Moreover, the currently static but unresolved conflict between the KDP and PUK
still looms. It has been contained through a complicated power-sharing
mechanism that brought Talabani as the first Kurd ever to the presidency in
Baghdad, while Barzani became president of the Kurdistan Region. Any change in

29 ‘‘In Iraqi Kurdistan, CPJ delegation highlights press freedom concerns’’, 5 November 2007, available at
http://www.cpj.org/news/2007/mideast/iraq05nov07na.html (last visited 22 November 2007).
30 ‘‘Caught in the whirlwind: torture and denial of due process by Kurdish security’’, Human Rights Watch,
Vol. 19, New York, July 2007.
31 Within the PUK this has led to a split between Talabani’s faction and the reformist wing around
Nawshirwan Mustafa, deputy secretary-general for many years. Together with Mohammed Tofiq, the
PUK’s chief diplomat for more than twenty years, Mustafa resigned in early 2007.

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this arrangement could have grave consequences both for the reunified Kurdish
government and for the balance of power in the Iraqi capital.

Dealing with the other main groups in Iraq

Kurdish leaders such as Jalal Talabani and Masud Barzani, but also other veterans
such as Mahmud Osman, had been in contact since the 1960s with other
opposition groups, as well as with high-ranking officials and officers of the Baath
government. After the war and during the political process that followed, new
forces emerged; new alliances were struck, fell apart and gave way to new and at
times surprising constellations. Even before the fall of the regime it was clear that
the ‘‘natural allies’’ of the Kurds – non-confessional and secular political groups
such as the Iraqi Communist Party, which used to be represented in all Iraqi
communities, and exile liberal groups – were no longer or never had been dominant
forces on the Iraqi scene. This was confirmed when the Communist Party joined the
electoral bloc of Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, which gained no more than 8
per cent of the votes in the December 2005 parliamentary elections.

Alliance with the Shiite bloc

In the declaration issued by the Iraqi opposition meeting in London in December

2002, there was already reference to the majority status of the Shiite population –
for which the Islamist Shiite parties in exile claimed representation. The Kurds
bought into this, and supported the Shiite groups’ demand for the office of prime
minister. Soon after, they found themselves estranged in inter-Shiite rivalries.
Kurdish leaders had not expected the movement of Muqtada Sadr to sustain and
gain influence. The PUK had strong links with the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) – both had been allies of Tehran during the Iran–Iraq
War – and therefore supported the candidacy of the Council’s Adel Abdelmehdi as
prime minister. This was a strategic alliance of mutual interest, as the Supreme
Council supported Kurdish self-rule within a federal framework to rally support
for its quest to create a Shiite ‘‘super region’’ in southern and southern-central
Iraq as part of the federalism scheme.
As the SCIRI – renamed in 2007 the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq
(ISCI) – failed to muster a majority for its candidate within the Shiite alliance, the
Kurds at first unwillingly accepted Ibrahim Jaafari from the Da’wa Party. When
Jaafari lost Washington’s backing and did not fulfil their expectations regarding
Kirkuk, the Kurds withdrew their support, effectively participating in behind-the-
scene manoeuvring that prevented him from gaining a second term and instead
propelled Nuri al-Maliki, another senior Da’wa official, into office. The Sadr
movement, for its part, differs from the older Shiite Islamist parties like SCIRI/
ISCI and Da’wa not only in its sharp anti-occupation rhetoric, but also in its Arab
nationalist discourse in which Kurdish demands and federalism are viewed with
suspicion.

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I. Rogg and H. Rimscha – The Kurds as parties to and victims of conflicts in Iraq

Striking a balance with Arab nationalism

Arab nationalism, particularly its Baath version, was on the one hand the main
addressee, and on the other hand the main adversary, of the Kurdish movement in
Iraq in its search for recognition. From the various periods of negotiations the
current Kurdish leadership and the Baath government establishment knew each
other well. Even at government level diverse standpoints were adopted, ranging
from a certain degree of acceptance and pragmatism to extreme hatred and
destructive intent, as represented by Ali Hassan al-Majid, the architect of the Anfal
campaign. Some former foes became allies, such as Wafiq al-Samara’i, former head
of military intelligence in Baghdad, who was a member of the negotiating team
that met with Kurdish leaders after the failed uprising in March 1991. Al-Samara’i
defected in 1995, went into exile and later became security advisor to President
Talabani.
After the fall of the Baath government and the start of the occupation by
the US-led Coalition, the ‘‘resistance’’ or ‘‘Sunni insurgency’’ came into being. The
insurgent groups, even those that attracted a number of members and officers
from the former armed and security forces, almost exclusively adopted (different
brands of) extremist Islamism as their ideology.32 At least some of these groups, or
parts of them, systematically targeted civilians by means of suicide attacks and car
and truck bombs, and depicted those taking part in the political process as
‘‘traitors’’ and ‘‘collaborators’’. Furthermore, the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda
practised the ‘‘excommunication’’ (takfir) of entire communities, be they Shiites,
Kurds or Yezidis. One of the most violent attacks targeted the headquarters of the
KDP and PUK in Arbil in February 2004 and left scores of victims, among them
high-ranking officials of the two parties.
Conversely, a number of Arab nationalist and moderate Sunni Islamist
groups – either pre-2003 opposition groups such as the Iraqi Islamic Party or
more recent ones, such as the Congress of the People of Iraq led by Adnan al-
Dulaimi, who officially also heads the Tawafuq (Concordence) Front – were
participating in the political process or at least manoeuvring on the sidelines.
Depending on the current state of the political process, relations between the
Kurdish parties and those representing the Sunni community were tense at times
and less so at others. One particularly critical moment came during the
constitutional process, which according to Sunni Arab critics was hijacked by a
coalition between the Kurdish and the Shiite blocs.
The Association of Muslim Scholars (ASM),33 an important public voice
in support of the insurgency, has adopted an aggressive anti-occupation discourse
that resonates extensively in the wider Arab world. The mainstream ASM has
refused any kind of national dialogue with the forces represented in the

32 For more details see International Crisis Group, ‘‘In their own words: reading the Iraqi insurgency’’,
Middle East Report 50, 16 February 2006.
33 See Roel Meijer, ‘‘The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq’’, Middle East Report 237, Winter 2005,
available at http://www.merip.org/mer/mer237/meijer.html (last visited 22 November 2007).

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government, pending the departure of the foreign troops. Although there is no

breakthrough in terms of national reconciliation between those involved in the
political process and the insurgents, at least some progress has been made. The
Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi of the Iraqi Islamic Party has announced a
‘‘National Contract’’ of 25 principles, in which he explicitly recognized the special
status of the Kurdistan Region. He further called for a ‘‘reasonable and agreed-
upon amount of federalism or decentralization in the administration of the
provinces’’.34

All eyes on Kirkuk

For the Kurdish movement the lowland areas of Kirkuk, Khanaqin and Tuz
Khurmatu, as well as the northern and eastern parts of Ninive (Mosul) province,
Sinjar and Sheikhan, are historically parts of Kurdistan. The population there is
mixed and the history of those areas is, as usual, complex, so that the Kurdish
claims stand against those of local Arabs, Arab nationalists and representatives of
the Turkmen and Assyrian communities.35 Kirkuk has been at the heart of the
conflict between the Kurds and the central government. The Baath Party in
particular, during its long rule from 1968 to 2003, embarked on a systematic policy
of deportation, resettlement, modification of administrative boundaries and
discrimination and persecution vis-à-vis not only the Kurdish but also the
Turkmen and Assyrian populations. As the former second in command of the
PUK put it, Kirkuk has a highly symbolic value too, since all struggles and
negotiations with Baghdad eventually failed because the government did not even
accept a compromise.36

The delayed referendum

After the fall of the regime, the KDP and the PUK not only took de facto control of
the city and other disputed areas but also used all their weight and bargaining
power to press for a ‘‘Kurdistani’’ solution. These efforts resulted in Article 58 of
the Transitional Administration Law,37 which was eventually included in Article
140 of the 2005 constitution and foresees specific measures to reverse the former

34 The Islamic Party’s 25-point project to ‘‘unify the vision’’ of Iraqi leaders, called ‘‘The Iraqi National
Contract’’ and made public on 25 September 2007. See Reuters, ‘‘Iraq: Sunni party drafts new political
principles’’, Reuters, 26 September 2007; ‘‘National pact launched by Islamic party’’, Voices of Iraq, 26
September 2007.
35 For the history of the various communities, and the diverging claims, see Bruinessen, above note 4, and
the related reports of the International Crisis Group, in particular ‘‘Iraq and the Kurds: Resolving the
Kirkuk crisis’’, Middle East Report 64, 19 April 2007, available at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/
index.cfm?l51&id54782 (last visited 22 November 2007).
36 Nawshirwan Mustafa, ‘‘Again 140’’, Rozhname, 9 October 2007 (in Kurdish). According to the author,
Saddam Hussein had offered the Kurds full recognition of their government in the 1990s if they would
give up their claim to Kirkuk.
37 See above note 20.

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regime’s policy of Arabization, especially in Kirkuk.38 Like the 11 March 1970

memorandum, Article 140 of the constitution provides for a referendum – with
the option of integrating Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region if it turns out to be an
area with a Kurdish majority. While Kurdish leaders adamantly repeat that Kirkuk
has been a ‘‘Kurdish city’’ throughout history, Turkmen representatives call
Kirkuk the ‘‘original homeland’’ of Iraq’s Turkmen minority. Although the local
Arab and Turkmen communities in the Kirkuk area acknowledge that Kirkuk’s
Kurds suffered most under the previous regime, they insist that the region is
neither Arab nor Kurdish, and therefore should not become part of the Kurdistan
Region. The Turkmen and Arab communities largely boycotted both the national
and the provincial elections in December 2005. This was one reason for their
marginalization not only in the decision-making process, but also in the local
administration. The governor, the head of the provincial council, the chief of the
local army division and the heads of the different police departments are all Kurds
from either the PUK or the KDP.39 In the opinion of the other communities, they
are abusing their power.40 On the other hand, armed insurgent groups of former-
regime loyalist and radical Islamist leanings have carried out a series of car-bomb
and suicide attacks in the Kirkuk region, targeting residential areas, marketplaces,
security forces and Kurdish party installations and taking a high toll of civilian
casualties.
Tension mounted further when the Kurds started to push for the
referendum to be held before the end of 2007. The atmosphere cooled down when
the Maliki government recently agreed to pay compensation to Arab citizens who
had been displaced by the Baath government and took concrete steps to return
them to their home regions. By the end of 2007, about 20,000 Arabs had signed up
for resettlement in their places of origin. The Arab bloc ended its boycott and
returned to the provincial council after reaching an agreement with the Kurds that
gives them high-ranking positions in the local government and provides for an
even distribution of government jobs among Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.41 In
addition, the Kurds agreed to postpone the referendum for at least six months.
And probably even more importantly, the Kurdish parties gave up their
opposition to a UN involvement in this thorny issue, consenting to a process
whereby the implementation of Article 140 would be facilitated with the technical
assistance of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).42 With its oil wealth
and its mixed population, the new elite often call Kirkuk an ‘‘Iraq in miniature’’.
Whether the city will become a symbol of success for the ‘‘New Iraq’’ – or a symbol

38 For details of Article 140 and its implications, see Middle East Report 64, above note 35.
39 ‘‘Verhärtung der ethnisch-politischen Fronten in Kirkuk’’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 20 February 2007.
40 ‘‘Kurdish officials sanction abductions in Kirkuk’’, Washington Post, 15 June 2005.
41 ‘‘Bewegung im politischen Seilziehen um Kirkuk’’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 10 December 2007. In an
interview on 29 October 2007 with Sharq al-Awsat, Jalal Talabani said that he envisages a bi-communal
status for Kirkuk, like the Belgian capital Brussels.
42 UNAMI, ‘‘Implementation of Article 140: Deadline of 31 December 2007’’, press release UNAMI/57/
2007, 15 December 2007; available at http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/EGUA-79YPQH?
OpenDocument (last visited 22 November 2007).

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of failure – depends on the political leaders’ ability to find a practicable formula

allowing all communities to coexist in peace.

Uneasy relations with Turkey and Iran

The 2003 US-led war on Iraq turned the regional balance of power upside down
and deeply affected the attitudes and politics of the neighbouring states and the
wider Arab world, although probably not with the ‘‘domino effect’’ intended by
the war’s architects. One of the elements of change was the fact that the Kurds and
the Shiite majority, marginalized for decades, have become the dominant factions
in Iraq.

Suspicious relations with Ankara

The relationship between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds has never been easy, but it
has developed considerably since 1991. Ankara helped to ensure the protection of
the Kurds in 1991 by allowing the allied forces to use its Incirlik air base to protect
the ‘‘safe haven’’. The KDP and the PUK were permitted to open liaison offices in
Ankara. At the same time, Turkey remained wary of the Iraqi Kurds, suspecting
them of being inclined towards independence and showing too much tolerance for
the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Since 1991 the Turkish military has
intervened repeatedly in the Kurdish region, at times with tens of thousands of
troops.43 After an offensive in 1997 in which KDP fighters supported the Turkish
army, the latter established three permanent bases in Dohuk governorate that are
currently manned by some 1,500 soldiers. Over time, Turkey has built up and
maintained relations with the Kurdish region. Turkish companies are heavily
involved in construction and trade, as well as in the oil sector. Thousands of
workers, mainly from impoverished south-eastern Turkey, have found jobs there.
A ceasefire announced by the PKK in 1999 and the easing of cultural restrictions
against the Kurds in Turkey were further conducive to a change of atmosphere.
Since 2003, when Turkey’s parliament refused the US army access to
Turkish territory, Ankara has effectively lost some of its influence on
developments in Iraq. With US troops present in Iraq, the Kurds have become
more confident in their relationship with their strong northern neighbour.
However, Ankara’s red lines are clear: an inclusion of Kirkuk in the Kurdistan
Region, perceived as a decisive step towards independence, would not be tolerated.
In summer 2007, events took yet another turn. When the PKK staged several
attacks against Turkish army units north of the border, Ankara’s army threatened
to intervene in Iraq.
Kurdish leaders in Arbil saw this as a political manoeuvre of the secularist
Turkish army against the moderate Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip

43 Ankara legitimated its action with a ‘‘hot-pursuit agreement’’ signed with Baghdad in the early 1980s,
under which it had sent troops into Iraqi Kurdistan as early as 1983.

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Erdogan, but also as a response to Kurdish demands for implementation of the

constitutional road map in Kirkuk. Inflammatory rhetoric on both sides added
fuel to the fire. Turkish media outlets called Barzani a ‘‘tribal chief’’, while
representatives of the KDP made indirect threats of an uprising in the mainly
Kurdish south-east of Turkey in response to a possible Turkish military attack.
Tensions reached an unprecedented level in October 2007, when Turkey sent tens
of thousands of soldiers to the border and ultimately demanded that both the Iraqi
authorities and the United States take concrete measures against the PKK. Barzani
urged a diplomatic solution and direct talks, but as Ankara had never recognized
the Kurdistan Regional Government, it insisted on dealing with Baghdad only. For
the KDP leader the PKK was a mere pretext for Ankara to challenge the prosperity
and freedom enjoyed by the Iraqi Kurds. He warned that an incursion would mean
war. Both the Bush administration and Barzani’s regional government had to give
in to Turkish pressure, at least for the time being. Washington agreed with Ankara
to deliver intelligence on PKK movements at the border, and the KDP and PUK
enforced restrictions on the PKK’s supply lines. When Turkey bombed suspected
PKK positions across the border in December 2007, the response from
Washington, Baghdad and Arbil to this violation of Iraq’s sovereignty was muted.
However, given the internal constellation in Turkey – with the tensions between
the army and the government – and Ankara’s red lines for Kirkuk, the issue is far
from being resolved.

Cautious relations with Teheran

Although Iran faces a similar Kurdish insurgency, led by the PJAK (Parti Jiyani
Azadi Kurdistan, Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan), an offshoot of the PKK,
Teheran did not side with Ankara in the autumn 2007 crisis but instead urged
Ankara to find a peaceful solution. Iran’s Foreign Minister and his Syrian
counterpart both pledged help to defuse the crisis.44 Again in contrast to Ankara,
the government in Teheran has recognized the Kurdistan Regional Government
and in November 2007 even opened consulates in Arbil and Sulaimaniya. There
are several reasons for this difference of attitude and approach.
Iraqi Kurdish parties have had links with Iran for several decades,
extending from the support of the Shah for Mustafa Barzani, the father of today’s
KDP leader, to the war alliance between the PUK, the KDP and Teheran in the
1980s. During the KDP–PUK conflict in the 1990s, Iran alternately backed
the KDP, the PUK and radical Islamists. Teheran has been a main supporter of the
Shia-dominated government in Baghdad – often at odds with the Americans, who
have accused Iran of providing weapons and training to Shiite militias. The
Iranians in turn have regularly demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of US
troops. When US troops captured seven Iranians in Arbil and Sulaimaniya in
2007, Kurdish leaders in Arbil and Baghdad supported Teheran’s version that the

44 ‘‘Syria and Iran pledge help to defuse Turkey-Iraqi crisis’’, Agence France-Presse, 29 October 2007.

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Iranians were diplomats, not members of the elite Quds Force, as the US military
claimed.45
The relationship between the Kurdistan Regional Government and
Teheran remains difficult. Like Turkey, Iran has regularly shelled border areas
where the PKK and PJAK have their main bases, and neither country wants a
Kurdish state to emerge on its doorstep. Still, Iran shows more flexibility than
Turkey on issues such as Kirkuk. Teheran recently demanded the delay in holding
the referendum, but not its cancellation. As the Shia-dominated government in
Baghdad depends heavily on its Kurdish supporters, Iran keeps a cautious eye on
its neighbours in the Kurdistan Region.

Conclusions: federalism and democracy, or independence?

From the early days of the Iraqi republic until today’s ‘‘American Iraq’’, the Kurds
have consistently had to deal with three main issues: the relationship with Arab
Iraq and the wider Arab world, and particularly the political currents upholding
broader identities (pan-Arabism and Islamism); relations with Turkey and to a
lesser extent Iran; and issues of democracy and governance.
Iraq’s identity, its diversity and its relations with its neighbours have been
crucial issues and a source of divergence between political and ideological currents
throughout modern Iraq’s history. But after decades of covert and overt ethnic and
sectarian discrimination, they have become the foundation both of the ethno-
sectarian power-sharing and of the conflicts in post-2003 Iraq.
The Kurdish leadership has sought to prevent a repetition of past
atrocities like the Anfal campaign by means of constitutional guarantees for a
federal system designed to safeguard the de facto status of their region and its
existing structure and balance of power.
In Iraq and in the wider Arab world, federalism has often been equated
with sectarianism and partition. Yet other voices, such as Iraqi researcher Faleh
Jabbar, have argued in favour of a federal solution to the Kurdish demands and a
kind of ‘‘administrative federalism’’ to overcome past negligence, but against a
Shiite ‘‘super region’’ in the south.46
There is a need to overcome the worn-out patterns of suspicion and the
rhetoric of ‘‘unity’’, and to acknowledge the failure of past approaches.
The Kurds can and do have a role to play in overcoming sectarianism and
preparing the ground for national reconciliation. There are already signs of a
reshaping of the political landscape in Iraq and the emergence of alliances across
ethno-sectarian lines, as shown by the above-mentioned 25-point memorandum
of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) and the December 2007 memorandum of

45 Two of the five Iranians detained on 11 January were released on 9 November 2007. Neue Zürcher
Zeitung, 10 November 2007.
46 Faleh Abdul-Jabar, interview with Youssef Hijazi, 2006, available at www.Qantara.de (last visited 22
December 2007).

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understanding between the IIP, the PUK and the KDP. These definitely give cause
for hope.
If Iraq’s main groups agree on a concrete model preserving Kurdish rights
within a federal framework and on a ‘‘road map’’ for Kirkuk, the Kurds will
eventually have to make an all-important decision: do they want to reintegrate
into Iraq and be reconciled with the other groups in a democratic and
constitutional framework, or do they want their region to become independent?
The two major parties are sending conflicting signals: on the one hand, flexibility,
as shown by postponing the Kirkuk referendum; on the other, the Kurdistan
Regional Government’s unilateral implementation of oil and gas laws and
contracts. Given the ‘‘virtual independence’’ of the Region for more than fifteen
years past, these deals are seen as a major step towards making independence a
reality, and have thus again increased suspicion inside and outside Iraq.
Real opportunities for a peaceful settlement of the Kurdish question have
been rare – this is definitively a new one, and it should not be forfeited. Any
serious move towards Kurdish independence would trigger armed conflict on
several fronts and would mean hardship and renewed suffering for all sides. It is in
everyone’s interest, including that of the Kurds, to make the most of the present
opportunity. A failure would be risky not only for Iraq, but also for the crucial
relationship with Turkey and Iran. The Kurdistan Region could become the scene
of another round of conflict, in particular if the tensions between the United States
and Iran were to turn into open confrontation.
To prevent the recurrence of past frictions and conflict, the KDP and the
PUK need to settle their rivalries and to overcome their respective one-party
structures.
Many Kurds do not see their region as the shining example of democracy
that is being proclaimed in KRG-sponsored TV spots. Only genuine reform of the
administration and the security services can address the growing dissatisfaction.
Good governance in Arbil would also have its impact in Baghdad, and would help
considerably in writing this new chapter of Iraq’s history.

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