Word: baghdad
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...medieval scholar named Mahmud Kashgari - from, as his name suggests, the Silk Road outpost of Kashgar - presented a landmark text to the Caliph of Baghdad. It was the first ever compendium of the Turkish language, the babble of tongues spoken by nomadic tribes who roamed between the shores of the Caspian Sea and the wastes of Siberia. Despite the scope of his work, Kashgari was proudest of his hometown, boasting that the Turkic dialect there was the "purest" and "most elegant" of them...
...certainly welcome a new spirit of competition in their political system, it may come at the cost of increasing tension between Kurdish leaders and the Iraqi government. Besides campaigning against corruption, the Change List accuses Kurdish leaders of doing a poor job of standing up for Kurdish interests in Baghdad, such as seeing that the government delivers on its constitutional obligations to return Kirkuk and other disputed areas to Kurdish governance. With Iraq's Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian violence largely in check, the growing Kurdish-Arab discord has become the most worrisome fault line in the country. Massoud Barzani, head...
...families, the Barzanis and Talabanis, which, along with their extensive security forces, have waged at times violent civil war against each other. Since 2003, however, the two have cooperated to form a coalition that dominates the Kurdish parliament (as well as the Kurdish contingent to the national legislature in Baghdad). They have also split the most prestigious titles between them: Massoud Barzani is president of the KRG; Jalal Talabani, the President of Iraq. Together, they have ensured that Iraq's transitional law and subsequent 2005 Constitution enshrined a level of autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan. But their near total control...
...Talabani-Barzani alliance has been accused of hoarding the money directed to Kurdistan from both outside investment and Baghdad; critics have also charged it with nepotism, alleging that key political and administrative positions have been handed over to kinfolk or party stalwarts; opponents also say that the budget process lacks transparency. "It's these ideas," says Rebwar Karim Mahmood, a political-science professor at Suleimaniya University, "that opposition parties and groups are using to campaign in the elections." This month KRG prime minister Nechirvan Barzani (Massoud's nephew) launched a process to improve government openness. Qubad Talabani (Jalal...
...democracy gap with Baghdad," says Quil Lawrence, author of Invisible Nation: How the Kurds' Quest for Statehood Is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East. "After years of counting on American support because of its pro-Western, secular and, most importantly, pro-democratic image, the Kurdish parliament looks like a rubber stamp shared by the two main parties. Arab Iraq had peaceful provincial elections in January in which some entrenched parties lost and stepped down quietly. The Kurds need to show they can do the same." The Kurds, who speak a different language and are a separate ethnic group from their...