ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Where is Kurdistan, and who are the Kurds? Most of the world still doesn’t have a good idea. To remedy this problem, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq recently hosted dozens of promising businessmen, politicians, scientists, and journalists from across the world for the annual Young Leader’s Forum. Participants spent five days on a whirlwind tour of the region, meeting the most senior officials along the way.
“We wanted to come to Kurdistan because an exciting destination attracts quality participants,” said Dr. Beate Lindemann, Vice-Chairman of Global Bridges e.V., the organization that runs the forum. “We asked for somewhere exciting, and everybody told us you have to go to Erbil. I was apprehensive about going to Iraq, but after scouting it out it we decided it was the perfect location for us.”
If many participants arrived with little knowledge about the region, by the last days they were presenting their findings on the formation of a future Kurdistan. Some insights were more workable than others. One participant optimistically suggested that a future Kurdish state might find its way into the European Union. Dr. Johannes Vogel, a German corporate lawyer, admitted he was “leaving with more questions than answers;” Kurdistan’s byzantine politics are difficult to navigate in only a few days.
After what one young leader called a “series of strikingly similar, perhaps coordinated,” speeches by KRG ministers, the group arrived at their final event, a reception at the German consulate general, looking for some straight talk about the major hurdles the region faces. Qubad Talabani, nominated for deputy prime minister in the next KRG cabinet, faced a tough audience demanding concrete answers about female genital mutilation, oil, and independence.
Ozcan Mutlu, a German Green Party parliamentarian, was blunt with the young politician. “In the last days we’ve had a lot of optimistic perspectives… From my point of view, I got the idea that the destiny of the Kurdish people depends on Turkey, with the oil pipeline and Ceyhan. Baghdad sued Turkey because they let Kurdish oil go through the pipeline. You may not get the money from Turkey because of this issue. My question is: If there’s no money coming from oil and gas, and Baghdad is suing any country who is dealing with you, is that picture still an optimistic picture? If you don’t pay your civil servants, how are you going to continue?”
Talabani’s detailed response merits publication in full:
It’s a challenge. When you’re Kurdish, and as a people you’ve been through what we have, when you look at the darkest days, it’s our optimism that gets us through these challenges and creates a stubbornness. We can be very stubborn, and when we set our mind to something we will continue at it until we get it.
We live in a flexible neighborhood, and there are many opportunities to do different deals. We haven’t closed the negotiating door with Baghdad and we have a strategic relationship with Turkey. Turkey is a country that does not necessarily make gut-instinct decisions -- especially not with something as strategic as oil transfers with Kurdistan -- without Baghdad’s blessing. It’s not a decision that Turkey made lightly or quickly. We pressured them for many years. There were way too many lawyers on all sides of these discussions, so every angle and legality of what we’re doing today with Turkey has been covered. We’re very comfortable. Iraq can waste its resources in a legal action against Turkey, but it’s a futile effort. There’s nothing in the constitution or legislation that prohibits Kurdistan sending the oil to Turkey or selling its oil to the international market.
We’re disappointed that Iraq has taken this course of action, but we’re confident we’re doing the right thing. We are a resilient and patriotic people. The last time there was a financial crisis when we couldn’t pay salaries Kurdish companies came to the rescue. They gave loans to the government. In the early 90s people went without salaries for almost a year. We are patriotic, proud, and stubborn and will overcome these challenges.
The one thing that is absolutely clear is the days of a centralized Iraq are over. Finished. There is no way that in these next generations, anyone is going to be able to unite this country… Federalism is the only way forward, whether that is a two-state, five-state, or 18-state federation. It could be an asymmetric federation, where Kurdistan has its own unique identity, and the rest of the country has a different form of federation.
Sunnis are saying, “enough with Baghdad, I have my own resources, I have my own border with a neighboring country, I want what Kurdistan has.” You have Basra, who is feeding the whole country, but living in poverty, saying “there’s something wrong with this equation.” They come to Erbil and think that they should be much wealthier, have bigger buildings, and wealthier people. The concept of federalism is thankfully no longer just a Kurdish concept.
Iraq’s future is unclear. My own personal opinion: I am not confident that if things continue along this trajectory, there will be a country called Iraq in a few years.
So long as people try to impose a political system that is opposite of what the society looks like -- the US tried to impose a unitary state on a decentralized country -- it won’t work. Look at the last elections: Sunnis vote Sunni, Shiites vote Shiite. This is not a bad thing. Some in the US were longing for the day when Sunni would vote Shiite, that Kurd would vote Arab. They’re longing for this Iraq that never really existed, except for by force. It’s not the end of the world; let’s design a system that reflects that reality.
Another participant asked whether Kurdistan will hold a referendum for independence. Talabani’s reply:
We certainly have the grounds to hold a referendum. When Iraq cut the budget, which they were threatening to do for several years, cutting the salaries of Iraqi government employees -- don’t forget Kurdish government employees are ultimately part of the Iraqi government. That sent a very dangerous precedent. It was done with the stroke of a pen by the (Iraqi) prime minister, without a cabinet meeting or parliamentary legislation… the prime minister just decided one day to cut the salaries and payments to over a million people.
That was a wake-up call to us. So long as that mentality exists, we need our own economic independence. We cannot rely on the goodwill of Baghdad any longer, because frankly, they don’t seem to have any left for us. So we are well within our rights to hold a referendum, but we know that we are not on an island, we live in an interesting neighborhood and such a step would need to be coordinated with one or more of our neighbors.
As far as I’m concerned we haven’t had that discussion with anybody, but we’ve had it internally. It’s also something we might put to Baghdad: It looks like you don’t want us to be part of your country. If you don’t want us, why the media fight? Let’s sit down. Maybe we’ll have a civilized Western divorce: you take the kids on weekdays, I’ll take the weekends; you take the house I’ll take the summer home. Or we do it the Middle Eastern way, which is usually unpleasant.
Kurdistan’s independence would not bring the end of the world. Life will go on. When Kosovo became independent, the US administration was very much against it. They made many public statements speaking out against it. Suddenly Kosovo declared independence and now it’s the United States that’s going around to countries asking them to recognize them. There may be hope for Kurdistan just yet.
