TITLE:
Future Options of the Kurds.1 Part I: The Current Situation
AUTHORS:
Ferdinand Hennerbichler
KEYWORDS:
Kurds, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Gulf States, Egypt, Russia, UN, USA, EU, NATO, Future Options
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Anthropology,
Vol.8 No.3,
August
30,
2018
ABSTRACT: The Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum on
September, 25, 2017, initiated by Masoud Barzani, former elected President of
the Kurdistan Region Iraq (KRI) (in office: June 13, 2005 to August 19, 2015)
was not intended as the basis for a declaration of an independent Kurdish state
in Northern Iraq in the foreseeable future. It was, rather, aimed at strengthening
his own domestic political position as well as that of other leading
politicians of the Barzani family and of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Iraq,
currently leading the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). The referendum
aggravated the persisting constitutional crisis in Iraq since 2005 over as-yet
unresolved crucial questions, above all regarding the status of Kirkuk and
other “disputed territories”.
The Iraqi Kurds lost to a great extent their influence over Kirkuk and about
40% of other “disputed territories”
they were controlling before. On the regional domestic front, it polarized
antagonisms among rivalling Kurdish parties, threatened to split the KRI again
into two separate administrations and also deepened the ongoing severe economic
KRG crisis. In geostrategic terms, it enabled the Islamic Republic of Iran to
further extend its influence on Iraq and beyond effectively towards the eastern
Mediterranean via pro-Iranian Shia-proxy-militias and, last but not least, it
also intensified various crises in the Middle East and Eurasia2.