Iraqi Kurds Inspired by Secession of South Sudan

by AK Group

"There is a lot of inspiration from southern Sudan," said Barham Salih, Iraqi Kurdish leader on the first day South Sudan has borned, on his twitter account

On the day the newest African nation was born, Barham Salih, an Iraqi Kurdish leader, used his iPad to tweet his feelings to the world: "Watching history in (the) making as South Sudan goes independent," he wrote."Moral of [the] story: Right to self-determination cannot be denied by genocide."

With the emergence of a new nation in Africa, and uprisings against autocracies across the Arab world, Kurds in Iraq's semi-autonomous north are speaking in louder voices about the possibility of increasing autonomy if, as some Kurds fear, Iraq's central government becomes more authoritarian.

"There is a lot of inspiration from southern Sudan," said Salih, prime minister of the regional Kurdish government in northern Iraq. "But more important is the deep concern that most of us feel about the direction of the politics of Baghdad as it goes towards centralization and authoritarianism."

South Sudan's independence came exactly six months after southerners voted almost unanimously to split with their former civil war enemies in the north. For decades, until a peace agreement was signed in 2005, southern rebels fought successive wars with the north, leaving the region in ruins, millions of people dead and a legacy of mutual mistrust

Iraq's central government and the Kurdish region, three of Iraq's 18 provinces, have unresolved issues over borders and oil rights. Northern Iraq has 45 billion barrels of crude reserves. Kurds are an ethnic group with a population of about 30 million, largely Muslim, living in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. After the first Gulf War in 1991, Western powers provided a safe haven for Iraq's Kurds, allowing them to use their natural resources to start building a modern state. Notions of Kurdish nationalism were reinforced by the 2003 invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein as much of Iraq tumbled into sectarian warfare that threatened its survival as a single state.

"For the first time in their modern history, the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, at least, are cautiously ascending," said author Michael Gunter, who has written on the evolution of Kurds in the two countries. From the streets of Syria's Qamishli, where Kurdish protesters call for freedom, to the Citadel in Arbil, where a Kurdish flag waves over Iraq's biggest boomtown, many Kurds see a promising future for pan-Kurdish nationalism. Exiled Syrian activists living in Iraqi Kurdistan are using social media tools such as Facebook, and collect donated money to support protesters at home.

"If this regime falls, it would be better for the Kurds. They will be free to work in their own regions," said Mahmoud Ya'aqub, 34, who administers Facebook groups in Erbil.

AK Group

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2289/iraqi-kurds-secession-of-south-sudan;http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=iraqi-kurds-inspired-by-secession-of-south-sudan-2011-07-20

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