 The talk on the streets of Irbil is of a pending Turkish strike |
Irbil is Iraq's Kurdish Capital and it is booming.
Irbil is Iraq's boomtown. Relatively peaceful, and with large sums of international money helping to drive economic growth, over the past few years this city in Kurdish northern Iraq has thrived. Things have got so good that President of the Regional Government Massoud Barzani recently boasted he would turn Irbil into a "new Dubai". Staying in Irbil often feels like the first stop on the long journey towards Central Asia and, although it is in the heart of the Middle East, the city has its own distinct identity. Kurds form the vast majority of its population, business is conducted largely in Kurdish and in the markets it is Kurdish music that blares from the loudspeakers. Key city All the talk in Irbil's souqs at the moment is of the threat of Turkish military operations in northern Iraq. One man, wearing the traditional clothes of the peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting forces, summed up the local sentiment. "Turkey wants to attack Kurdistan and I don't agree with this", he said. "I denounce them and if they do it we will fight them." Irbil is a critically important city for the political ambitions of the Kurds, who have a degree of autonomy here that they don't enjoy anywhere else in the Middle East. The two main factions, the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) and the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party), have stopped fighting and their leaders have negotiated a political accommodation. While Massoud Barzani, the head of the KDP, is the president of the Kurdish regional government, Jalal Talabani, the head of the PUK, is the president of the Iraqi government. In other words, the Kurds of northern Iraq have fared well in recent years, unlike citizens in most other parts of the country. 'Take the fight to Turkey' There is a real sense here, though, that the threat of Turkish military operations against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) could destabilise this semi-autonomous region.  Iraqi Kurds have controlled a fertile mountainous area since 1991 |
The PKK, the target of Turkey's wrath, was formed in southern Turkey and most of its operations have been carried out there. But while people here may be united in their anger towards the Turkish threat, they are also frustrated with their fellow Kurds in the PKK. "I think it is wrong", one man said. "The PKK should go back into Turkey and struggle. There is a new government in this area. We are in the beginning. "If they want to go to Turkey they should go there to fight for their rights". The sense you get from many people here is that the PKK is in part responsible for bringing trouble onto Irbil's doorstep. The PKK may say that it is fighting for Kurdish rights, but many of the Kurds in Northern Iraq say they would like the PKK to take that fight elsewhere.
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