Kurdistan - Will it happen?
- Thread starter Goober
- Start date
Only if Article 5 is approved by NATO countries.
Turkeys contribution to this mess has been to allow insurgents easy passage into and out of the region.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/04/w...government-still-seek-autonomy.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON — Senior Kurdish officials served notice on Thursday that Kurdistan would not participate in a new Iraqi government unless Baghdad grants it expanded autonomy and does not insist on reversing their occupation of Kirkuk.
“We are going to give once again a chance to the political process in Baghdad, but we are not going to think that is the only path,” said Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff to Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish autonomous region.
“Parallel to that we are going to build ourselves, and we are heading toward exercising self-determination,” Mr. Hussein added before he went to the White House to see Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Antony Blinken, the deputy national security adviser.
Mr. Hussein’s comments came as Mr. Barzani asked the Kurdish Parliament, in a closed-door speech, to organize a referendum on independence, a move that caused dismay among Sunni and Shiite politicians in Baghdad.
Secretary of State John Kerry has urged the Kurds to play a leading role in forming a unified government in Baghdad and to defer their dreams of independence. Or as Mr. Kerry put it in a meeting with the Kurdish president in Erbil last week, “this moment requires statesmanship.”
Another step in the process. How it turns out, well
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/w...as-kurds-seize-oil-plants.html?ref=world&_r=0
BAGHDAD — The dangerous struggle between the leadership of Iraq and the country’s Kurdish minority intensified Friday, as the Kurds seized two oil production facilities in Kirkuk Province and the prime minister announced that he was appointing a temporary replacement for the foreign minister.
The prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, moved to replace the current foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, with Hussain Shahristani, a Shiite from Mr. Maliki’s bloc. Mr. Maliki was responding to a decision by Mr. Zebari and other Kurdish cabinet members to boycott cabinet meetings in protest of Mr. Maliki’s searing criticism of the Kurds this week.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Mr. Maliki charged that the Kurds were harboring Sunni militant opponents of the central government and were even allowing members of the group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which swept through northern Iraq in June, to organize operations from Kurdistan.
The replacement of Mr. Zebari infuriated the Kurds, but it also appeared to solidify their resolve to move ahead with the constitutional procedure to select a new government, including a president, prime minister and Parliament speaker.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/w...as-kurds-seize-oil-plants.html?ref=world&_r=0
BAGHDAD — The dangerous struggle between the leadership of Iraq and the country’s Kurdish minority intensified Friday, as the Kurds seized two oil production facilities in Kirkuk Province and the prime minister announced that he was appointing a temporary replacement for the foreign minister.
The prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, moved to replace the current foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, with Hussain Shahristani, a Shiite from Mr. Maliki’s bloc. Mr. Maliki was responding to a decision by Mr. Zebari and other Kurdish cabinet members to boycott cabinet meetings in protest of Mr. Maliki’s searing criticism of the Kurds this week.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Mr. Maliki charged that the Kurds were harboring Sunni militant opponents of the central government and were even allowing members of the group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which swept through northern Iraq in June, to organize operations from Kurdistan.
The replacement of Mr. Zebari infuriated the Kurds, but it also appeared to solidify their resolve to move ahead with the constitutional procedure to select a new government, including a president, prime minister and Parliament speaker.
Kurdistan contains both Iraqi and Syrian territory. It appears economically viable because of its control of Iraqi oilfields and friendly relationship with Turkey. The Kurdish defense force called the Peshmerga is disciplined and well armed. The Peshmerga is receiving military assistance from Israel. I don't see why the Kurds can't make a go of it.