Word: kurdistan
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According to its Prime Minister, Turkey may launch an attack on Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq, despite likely U.S. opposition. After a bomb killed six people in the capital of Ankara on May 22, many Turkish officials are calling for retaliation against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which they blame for the attack. The PKK, which has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984 and is based in the mountains of north Iraq, has denied responsibility for the bomb...
...Needless to say, the importance of oil revenue hasn't been lost on Iraq's other ethnic groups. This week a Norwegian company will announce it will start pumping oil in Iraq's Kurdistan; never mind that there is no legal framework yet to do so. The Kurds know as well as anyone that without oil they will starve...
...companies in Iraq's vast Western Desert before large-scale production begins. These days, Iraq produces about 2 million barrels of oil a day, down from about 3 million before the war. It's lethally dangerous for oil workers, and virtually no international company dares operate outside Kurdistan. For all its promise, the Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province is where insurgents have waged a vicious fight against American and Iraqi forces. Until now it has seen almost no energy production at all. Decades of war and sanctions have left oil wells in serious disrepair, and Iraqi officials say they will...
...drop out of the Iraqi government--would not only provoke the ire of Iraq's Arab majority but also risk intervention by Iraq's neighbors, such as Turkey, Iran and Syria, which all have restive Kurdish minorities of their own. Turkey, for instance, would likely shut the borders with Kurdistan and stop all flights coming in from over its airspace. Of all the problems that would follow, the most ironic could be that a newly independent oil-rich Kurdistan, without any refineries or pipelines, would run out of gas. Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the Kurdish government's office...
...even that worst-case scenario might not be enough to dissuade the popular clamor inside Kurdistan for more assertive action. Just four years since the fall of Saddam, most Kurds may be willing to remain a part of Iraq for now, but few want their destinies to remain tied to a poor, failing state beset by sectarian carnage. Over time, the push for a free and independent Kurdistan may become irresistible. In a bid to manage expectations, the Kurdish leadership is putting out a new party line, echoed in mosques and newspaper editorials: "Be grateful." But as Americans have learned...