Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute. Dr. Cagaptay has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkish domestic politics, and Turkish nationalism, publishing in scholarly journals as well as key American and Turkish media outlets. He writes regularly as a columnist for Hürriyet Daily News, Turkey’s oldest and […]
To the south, Iraqi Kurdistan sees an unstable Baghdad struggling to maintain control against a violent insurgency, all the while seeking to exert control over the Kurdish region’s vast oil wealth. It is to the west, though, where Kurds see a brighter future, eyeing the opportunity for independence through a pipeline to Turkey to sell […]
Iraq’s oil minister Abdul Kareem Luaiby anticipates his country’s exports for September to exceed 2.6 million barrels a day, a figure not reached in the last 20 or so years. Part of this increase stems from a deal cut between the central government and the Kurdish autonomous region. The Kurds had stopped exporting oil back […]
The Donkeys’ Party of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region unveiled an aptly wrought statue of its four-legged namesake today. Cast in bronze by famed Kurdish sculptor Zerak Mire, the officious fellow is buttoned up in a suit, collared shirt and tie. The political m’ass’cot stands five feet tall (I believe that’s ‘15 hands’ in ‘Equinese’), and […]
Kurds continue efforts to realize unfulfilled international promises for the creation of a Kurdish state. Geographically straddled among the borders of countries created in the 20th century whose regions collectively form the historic land of Kurdistan, Kurds have and continue to operate political groups and resistance movements with the goal of achieving recognition of their […]
Recent news reports from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region have depicted a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty that cost Iran at least six soldiers from the elite Revolutionary Guards, and the death of senior officer in the Qom brigade. It is the latest chapter in a complex, ongoing conflict between the Islamic Republic and the shadowy […]
On Saturday, Iraq’s new oil minister, Abdul Kareem Luaibi, announced that Iraq will recognize an array of oil deals signed by the Kurds in northern Iraq. Luaibi, who has been at the head of negotiations with the Kurdistan Regional Government also said in his statement that dialog “with our Kurdish brothers will continue in order to reach a resolution […]