Iraq: The Kurdish Dilemma
30 minutes, 2005
Ref: 456

The Iraqi Kurds will have to reach an accord with the country’s Sunni and Shia communities if Iraq is to draw up a Constitution and form a stable government. The Kurds account for roughly 20% of Iraq’s population and they are one of the least-known groups making up the country's ethnic and religious patchwork. Kurdistan has been virtually run as an independent State since the Gulf War in 1991, even though it is not internationally recognized. Saddam Hussein stayed in power after the war in 1991, but the US created a safe haven in the Kurdish north patrolled off limits to the dictator’s army. This allowed the Kurds to establish their own institutions and to tap some of the region's vast oil wealth - an experience unique in Kurdistan's troubled history. The economic boom could be seen on the streets as the Kurdish authorities opened up to foreign investment.

With the exception of the city of Kirkuk, Kurdistan is a very different kind of Iraq. It is relatively safe and the Americans and their allies are made welcome here. Marines spend their furlough in Kurdistan and Arab tourists come here for the region's rivers and mountains and, above all, its tranquility.

But the outlook is far from rosy. The Kurds want to get back their ancestral lands - something that would tear up the ethnic map of the country left by Saddam Hussein. The deposed dictator's arabizing policies forced thousands of Kurds to live in refugee camps. Now they want to return to their homes and oust the Arab colonists who took them.

The city of Kirkuk and the area around it lie in one of the disputed areas. It is a rich prize, possessing some 6% of the world's known oil reserves. That is why the Kurds want to establish it as the capital of Kurdistan, but it is currently torn apart by ethnic violence and terrorism.