Defying regional and international pressure, the semi-autonomous region of on Monday. Does this mean that the long-suffering Kurds will get their own homeland? What are the ramifications of this development?
Regional neighbors retaliated with threats to impose sanctions. Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has warned that the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) faces an embargo unless it hands over control of its airports — at Erbil and Sulaymaniya — to the Iraqi government. Turkey has threatened economic, trade, and security counter-measures. If Turkey, the Kurds’ main link to the outside world, cuts the pipeline through which the KRG exports its oil, this would create great hardship — the economy would collapse.
The KRG is also concerned about the neighbors blocking access by closing border crossings into the area. Iran is equally indignant because it does not wish its Kurdistan Democratic Party to be further emboldened.
The U.S., the U.N., and the European Union opposed the referendum, as well. They fear that it will destabilize the region and distract attention from the Islamic State.
The Iraqi Kurds have struggled for autonomy far too long.
Today, the majority of the estimated 30 million-plus Kurds inhabit territory in Northern Iraq, Western Iran, Northeastern Syria, and Southeastern Turkey. This regional splitting of the Kurdish population goes back to April 1920, when in the aftermath of World War I the Allies redrew the territorial boundaries of the Middle East. Ignoring the traditional borders of the region and the cultural and ethnic differences between Kurds and Arabs, they divided the Kurds among these four separate nations. Although the Kurds were promised an independent nation of Kurdistan, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire the newly independent Republic of Turkey rejected this undertaking, thus dashing the Kurds’ hopes. Their several revolts and attempts at self-rule have failed.
After Saddam Hussein took power in Iraq in 1979, he began persecuting the Kurds, leading later to a systematic attempted genocide, using chemical weapons, resulting in the deaths of more than 100,000 Kurds in Northern Iraq. Following the first Gulf War, as another Kurdish revolt against Saddam failed, the U.S., Britain, and France responded to Saddam’s brutal repression by enforcing a no-fly zone over Northern Iraq, effectively giving the Kurds de facto control over the territory.
The 2005 Iraqi constitution provides the Kurds considerable power, leaving most Kurdish legislation since 1992 intact, while it grants the federal government exclusive authority over foreign and national security policy, and fiscal and customs policy. It provides for shared power between the Central Government and regional governments, including oil and gas development, water resources, education, and environmental policy.
Under international law, the traditional criteria for a sovereign state are: defined territory, permanent population, government, and capacity to enter into relations with other states. Undoubtedly, the Kurds in Northern Iraq meet all the requirements for statehood; the only security forces in Northern Iraq are the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Iraqi troops have not entered the territory since 1996. The KRG has its own department of foreign affairs and has been engaging with foreign governments through the creation of consulates from states such as France, Germany, Iran, Russia, and Turkey in the Kurdish capital of Erbil.
After the Iraqi constitution went into effect, the KRG and the Iraqi government negotiated an agreement under which the Kurds were to receive 17.5 percent of Iraq’s budget, but Baghdad stopped payments in 2014 as the Kurds began to export oil on their own. The KRG has seen the current referendum result as a mandate to renegotiate with Iraq for a better deal, but the central government in Iraq calls the unilateral referendum unconstitutional and rejects any overtures for negotiations.
Certainly, this is just about the Iraqi Kurds, but the 30 million-plus Kurds dream of a larger Kurdistan, encompassing the territories in Iran, Turkey, and Syria, as well. They are left with the haunting question: when will they realize the dream of their own homeland?
Ved Nanda (vnanda@law.du.edu) is Evans University Professor and director of the Ved Nanda Center for International and Comparative Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
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