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Analysis: All's Not Quiet on Iraq's Northern Front

Council on Foreign Relations

April 23, 2007
Prepared by: Lionel Beehner

Kurdistan has been called, in something of a stretch, the Switzerland of Iraq. Peaceful and picturesque, the region has been spared from the sectarian violence (TIME) that has afflicted the rest of the country.

But Lebanon also drew comparisons to Switzerland before it descended into chaos in the 1970s. Similarly, Iraqi Kurdistan risks becoming embroiled in conflict (AP). A wave of Iraqi Arab refugees has flooded its borders. An uneasy truce between the two dominant Kurdish political parties holds despite tensions. And recent cross-border incursions from Iran and Turkey portend dark days ahead (Jamestown Foundation).

At issue is the unresolved status of the region’s 20 million Kurds, the bulk of whose population is scattered (WashPost) around the juncture of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. None of these countries wants their Kurdish minorities to obtain outright independence, although Iraq has offered them language rights and limited autonomy. As this new Backgrounder explains, tensions between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan have risen in recent months over a series of boilerplate statements made by top officials on both sides. Turkey objects to the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan being used as a safe haven for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a rebel group that has long been embroiled in a battle to wrest Kurdish independence from Ankara.

Another hot-button issue is the unsettled status of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city in northern Iraq. A number of ethnic groups—Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen—claim Kirkuk as their own. The city was Arabized under Saddam, but a recent influx of Kurds has the regional Kurdish authorities hoping to incorporate it into their enclave.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.