Word: arabism
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...Take a walk, however, in any one of this city's safe and prosperous neighborhoods and you'll quickly see that the other Iraq isn't so far away. Some 150,000 displaced Iraqi Arabs have taken refuge in Kurdistan from the conflict in the central and southern parts of the country. Kurdish officials require Arab Iraqis trying to enter Kurdistan to have a Kurdish resident vouch for their character. As a result, the Arab refugee population is largely middle class, with a glut of doctors, lawyers and other professionals. But as the number of newcomers swells, tensions are rising...
...Kurdistan's tenuous relationship with Arab Iraq is even more evident some 75 km south, in Kirkuk. The city is less than a two-hour drive from Erbil, but the road trip into the other Iraq is a spooky one. To the left, there's a chain of forts left over from the Iran-Iraq war, crumbling masonry monsters that look like they were built according to World War I specifications. The Hamreen mountains to the right are practically deserted save for a series of sentry posts silhouetted along the ridgeline. And waiting straight ahead at the gates of Kirkuk...
...officials and Kurdish leaders know that unilateral moves by Kurds-to take Kirkuk on their own or to drop out of the Iraqi government-could not only provoke the ire of Iraq's Arab majority but also impel intervention by neighbors of Iraq such as Turkey, Iran and Syria that have restive Kurdish minorities of their own. Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the Kurdish government's office of foreign relations, told me that declaring independence would be "political suicide." Just four years since the fall of Saddam, most Kurds may be willing to remain a part of Iraq...
Iraqi wins Arab Idol...
...Rice's meeting with Arab intelligence chiefs, the Iran-Hamas links emerged as "Topic A," U.S. diplomats said. The Iranians are also a major bankroller of the Palestinian militants, and U.S. State and Treasury officials are urging Gulf officials and bankers to stanch the flows of funds from Iran to Hamas and Hizballah, the Lebanese Shi'a militia. The main conduits from Tehran to the two militia groups are thought to be Iranian bank branches in the Gulf and Islamic charity organizations, according to a U.S. official...