Op-eds

The phased withdrawal of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas from Turkey into Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region must be followed up with serious moves by Ankara to settle the Kurdish issue. Otherwise, it will create many problems. The peace agreement, which is hoped to settle a three-decade conflict in Turkey, seems to have been made...
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Judging from its agenda, an important oil and gas conference at month’s end in Erbil will focus on the new relationship between Turkey and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). It seems that the aim of the conference is to lay the groundwork for the Kurdistan Region’s emergence as an energy exporter, as it...
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has released a database of diplomatic records from the 1970s by then secretary of state Henry Kissinger, sheds light on how the Kurds are seen from an American perspective. The released cables were not classified and had been available in national archives, but Assange’s main reason for compiling them is...
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Much has been written about the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war, the US-led invasion, the liberation from Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, and the reconstruction and rebuilding of the nation. Most of the debate still centers around a specific event: The war, and its aftermath. The discussion still revolves around the question of whether the...
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By their absence from both the central government in Baghdad and from parliament for weeks, Iraq’s autonomous Kurds have been expressing their extreme displeasure with the Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. But while the boycott of cabinet meetings and other official functions is understandable, the Kurdish absence in parliament creates the impression that the...
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There appears to be very little coordination and cooperation among countries of the Middle East over sharing or managing water resources that cross international boundaries. The people and countries who share the water have very little information about each other and about what is happening to the water that they share with others across...
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