The various pieces of land on the borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey where Kurds are in the majority, may at long last become one long buffer country for the Kurds who have been fighting for their own homeland. However, within the Kurds themselves there are several divisions. Hopefully, they will bury those and get on with the business of consolidating all the autonomous regions they hold ... otherwise expect the turmoil there to get even more exciting.
Dennis J Bernstein writing at ConsortiumNews:
....Iraqi Chaos May Give Kurds a State.
As Iraq unravels amid Sunni-Shiite sectarian warfare, the chances have increased that the relatively peaceful and prosperous Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq may break off and form an independent Kurdish state, a long-treasured dream of the Kurdish people who also inhabit parts of Iran, Turkey and Syria.
Kurdish and Middle East Scholar Edmund Ghareeb believes this possibility could be the major story emerging from the chaos unfolding across Iraq and Syria. Ghareeb spoke with Dennis J Bernstein on Pacifica Radio’s Flashpoints show. A scholar at American University in Washington, he has written extensively about the Kurdish movement.
DB: You said today “The 21st Century is likely to be the Kurdish Century in the Middle East. There is both great opportunity, right now for the Kurds, perhaps the greatest in recent history, and serious threats.”
EG: Well, the Kurds are going to be a major player, whatever happens in Iraq. To a certain extent a great deal will depend on what kind of a stand do the Kurds take in this vicious, fierce fighting that’s taking place between the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant … that’s taking the fighting in Iraq. …
But for the Kurds, I think there are three major forces. Of course, there is the [Iraqi] government, there are the forces of the Islamic State and its allies. And there are the Kurdish forces. The Kurdish have in the last two decades, established their own autonomous region. They have established a secure region, compared to what’s been going on in Iraq. Their economy is thriving. They have their own pesh mergas, … their own military force. And so they have an effective military force in Iraq.
And they have recently taken over the city of Kirkuk, which they had been claiming for quite a while. Kirkuk is a very important city, for a variety of reasons. For instance, [it is] one of the more cosmopolitan cities in Iraq, it used to have, and to a certain extent still does [have] many different ethnic and religious communities. But, what makes Kirkuk very important, one, is that it is the center for the northern fields … Iraqi oil fields. And before the discovery of the oil fields in the south, that was Iraq’s main oil field.
And there are probably, still today, somewhere between 17% and 20% of Iraq’s oil is in that area. The Kurds have claimed this, as their own Jerusalem, in a sense. The Turkoman, another ethnic community, which at one time, used to be protected by Turkey and used to look to the Turkish government for support also claimed Kirkuk as have Arabs.
So as a result of this, you have now the control of this area by the Kurds, as well as the important, the disputed areas, in other parts of Iraq. ...........
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