Kurdistan Region
The Kurdistan Region is a semi-autonomous federal region of the Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurdish-majority governorates of Arab-majority Iraq: Erbil Governorate, Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Duhok Governorate, and Halabja Governorate. It is located in northern Iraq, which shares borders with Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, and Syria to the west.
It does not govern all of Iraqi Kurdistan and lays claim to the disputed territories of northern Iraq; these territories have a predominantly non-Arab population and were subject to the Ba'athist Arabization campaigns throughout the late 20th century. Though the KRI's autonomy was realized in 1992, one year after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War, these northern territories remain contested between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Government of Iraq to the present day. The Kurdistan Region Parliament is based in Erbil, the capital of KRI.
Throughout the 20th century, Iraqi Kurds oscillated between fighting for autonomy and for full independence. Under the Ba'athist regime, the Kurds experienced Arabization and genocidal campaigns at the hands of the federal government in Baghdad. However, when the United States, the United Kingdom, and France established the Iraqi no-fly zones, which restricted the federal government's power in the country's northern and southern areas following the Gulf War, the Kurds were given a chance to experiment with self-governance and the autonomous region was established. The Iraqi government only recognized the Kurdistan Region as a 'federal region' in 2005, after the American-led 2003 invasion of Iraq overthrew Saddam Hussein. In September 2017, the KRI passed a non-binding independence referendum, inviting mixed reactions internationally. The KRI largely escaped the privations that afflicted other parts of Iraq in the last years of Saddam Hussein's rule as well as the chaos that followed his ousting during the Iraq War, and built a parliamentary democracy with a growing economy. In 2014, when the Syria-based Islamic State invaded the north of the county, the Iraqi Armed Forces retreated from most of the disputed territories. The KRI's Peshmerga then entered and took control of them for the duration of the War in Iraq. In October 2017, following the defeat of the Islamic State, the Iraqi Armed Forces attacked the Peshmerga and reasserted control over the disputed territories.
History
Early struggle for independence (1923–1975)
Before Iraq became an independent state in 1923, the Iraqi Kurds had already begun their independence struggle from the British Mandatory Iraq with the Mahmud Barzanji revolts, which were subsequently crushed by the United Kingdom after a bombing campaign against Kurdish civilians by the Royal Air Force. Nonetheless, the Kurdish struggle persisted and the Barzani tribe had by the early 1920s gained momentum for the Kurdish nationalist cause and would become pivotal in the Kurdish-Iraqi wars throughout the 20th century. In 1943, the Barzani chief Mustafa Barzani began raiding Iraqi police stations in Kurdistan, which led the Baghdad government to deploy 30,000 troops to the region. The Iraqi Kurdish leadership fled to Iran in 1945. There, Mustafa Barzani founded the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Iran and the Soviet Union began assisting the Kurdish rebels with arms. Israel began assisting the Kurdish rebels in the early 1960s.From 1961 to 1970, the Kurds fought the Iraqi government in the First Iraqi–Kurdish War, which resulted in the Iraqi–Kurdish Autonomy Agreement. But simultaneously with its promise of Kurdish autonomy, the Iraqi government began ethnic cleansing Kurdish-populated areas, to reduce the size of the autonomous entity which a census would determine. This mistrust provoked the Second Iraqi–Kurdish War between 1974 and 1975, which resulted in a serious defeat for the Iraqi Kurds and forced all of the rebels to flee once more to Iran.
Insurgency and first elections (1975–1992)
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was founded in 1975 by Jalal Talabani while the Kurdistan Democratic Party was slowly recovering from their defeat. The PUK was more popular among left-wing Sorani speakers, while the KDP was more popular among right-wing Kurmanji speakers. The PUK leadership adhered to the Qadiri sect while the KDP leadership adhered to the Naqshbandi. The Kurdish insurgency became entangled in the Iran–Iraq War from 1980 onwards. During the first years of the war in the early 1980s, the Iraqi government tried to accommodate the Kurds in order to focus on the war against Iran. In 1983, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan agreed to cooperate with Baghdad, but the Kurdistan Democratic Party remained opposed. In 1983, Saddam Hussein signed an autonomy agreement with Jalal Talabani of the PUK, though Saddam later reneged on the agreement.By 1985, the PUK and KDP had joined forces, and Iraqi Kurdistan saw widespread guerrilla warfare up to the end of the war. On 15 March 1988, PUK forces captured the town of Halabja near the Iranian border and inflicted heavy losses among Iraqi soldiers. The Iraqis retaliated the following day by chemically bombing the town, killing about 5,000 civilians. This led the Americans and the Europeans to implement the Iraqi no-fly zones in March 1991 to protect the Kurds, thereby facilitating Kurdish autonomy amid the vacuum and the first Kurdish elections were consequently held in May 1992, wherein the Kurdistan Democratic Party secured 45.3% of the vote and a majority of seats.
Nascent autonomy, war and political turmoil (1992–2009)
The two parties agreed to form the first Kurdish cabinet led by PUK politician Fuad Masum as Prime Minister in July 1992 and the main focus of the new cabinet was to mitigate the effect of the American-led sanctions on Iraq and to prevent internal Kurdish skirmishes. Nonetheless, the cabinet broke down due to plagues of embattlement and technocracy which disenfranchised the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and a new more partisan cabinet was formed and led by PUK politician Kosrat Rasul Ali in April 1993. The KDP-PUK relations quickly deteriorated and the first clashes in the civil war took place in May 1994 when PUK captured the towns of Shaqlawa and Chamchamal from KDP, which in turn pushed PUK out of Salahaddin. In September 1998, the United States mediated a ceasefire and the two warring parties signed the Washington Agreement deal, where in it was stipulated that the two parties would agree on revenue-sharing, power-sharing and security arrangements.The anarchy in Kurdistan during the war created an opportunity for the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which created bases in the northern mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region, which still operates in the Region in the 2010s with frequent calls for withdrawal.
In advance of the Iraq war in 2003, the two parties united in the negotiations with the Arab opposition to Saddam Hussein and succeeded in harvesting political, economic, and security gains and the Arab opposition agreed to recognize Kurdish autonomy in the case that Saddam Hussein was removed from power. America and Kurdistan also jointly rooted out the Islamist Ansar al-Islam group in Halabja area as Kurdistan hosted thousands of soldiers. The Kurdish autonomy which had existed since 1992 was formally recognized by the new Iraqi government in 2005 in the new Iraqi constitution and the KDP- and PUK-administered areas reunified in 2006, making the Kurdistan Region into one single administration. This reunification prompted Kurdish leaders and the Kurdish President Masoud Barzani to focus on bringing the Kurdish areas outside of the Kurdistan Region into the region and building healthy institutions.
In 2009, Kurdistan saw the birth of a new major party, the Gorran Movement, which was founded because of tensions in PUK and would subsequently weaken the party profoundly. The second most important political PUK figure, Nawshirwan Mustafa, was the founder of Gorran, who took advantage of sentiments among many PUK politicians critical of the cooperation with the KDP. Gorran would subsequently win 25 seats in the 2009 parliamentary elections to the detriment of the Kurdistan List. In the aftermath of the elections, Gorran failed at its attempts to persuade the Kurdistan Islamic Group and Kurdistan Islamic Union to leave the Kurdistan List, provoking both KDP and PUK. Gorran also attempted to create goodwill with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which only aggravated the situation in Kurdistan, and the KDP and PUK chose to boycott Gorran from politics.
Conflict with the Islamic State and Iraq (2014–)
In the period leading up to the Islamic State invasion of Iraq in June 2014, the Iraqi-Kurdish relations were in a decline that the war against the Islamic State only worsened. When Iraqi forces withdrew from the Syrian-Iraqi border and away from the disputed areas, the Kurdistan Region consequently had a 1,000 km front with the Islamic State, which put the region into an economic stalemate. However, Kurdistan did not compromise on their stance regarding financial independence from Baghdad. Due to the Iraqi withdrawal, Kurdish Peshmerga took control of most disputed areas, including Kirkuk, Khanaqin, Jalawla, Bashiqa, Sinjar and Makhmur. The strategically important Mosul Dam was also captured by Kurdish forces. However, the control was only temporary as, following the 2017 Kurdistan Region independence referendum, the 2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict and decisive Battle of Kirkuk resulted in the central government regaining most of the disputed areas in October 2017.As of 2019, the Kurdistan Region and the Federal Government in Baghdad are negotiating joint control over the disputed areas as their relations have become more cordial in the aftermath of the Islamic State's defeat.
Geography
The Kurdistan region of Iraq is an autonomous region in northern Iraq. It borders Iran in the east, Turkey in the north, and Syria in the west. The region encompasses most of Iraqi Kurdistan, which is the southern part of the greater geographical region of Kurdistan. The region lies between latitudes 34° and 38°N, and longitudes 41° and 47°E. Most of the northern and northeastern parts of the region are mountainous, especially those bordering Turkey and Iran. The region has several high mountains and mountain ranges. Other areas of the region are hills and plains, which make up the central and most southern parts of the region.Most of the precipitation there falls as rain or snow between November and April, annual precipitation ranges from about 375 to 724 mm. From ancient times this has made cultivation of winter crops and the raising of livestock possible.
Around 1,368,388 hectares of the land is rainfed arable agricultural land and 328,428 hectares is Irrigated arable agricultural land.