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A Kurdish Wedge Between Iraq, Turkey | RealClearWorld
By Joost Hiltermann, Crisis Group’s Deputy Program Director for the Middle East and North Africa
The mood in Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk - the three largest cities in Iraqi Kurdistan - is newly buoyant these days, and with good reason. Iraq’s Kurds, who occupy the semiautonomous region run by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), have much to celebrate.
Photo: Jan Sefti/Flickr
Power games in Iraq over ousted Central Bank chief | Al Bawaba
The targeting of Iraq’s well-respected central bank chief appears to be a move by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki to consolidate power and sends a bad message to international investors, experts and diplomats say.
Sinan Al-Shabibi was last week replaced as governor of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) while he was overseas, and arrest warrants have since been issued for him and other bank officials over allegations of currency manipulation.
Photo: U.S. Airforce Staff Sgt. Jessica J. Wilkes/Wikimedia Commons
A soldier rides a donkey in Nineveh, Iraq. 2006. (photo: Peter van Agtmael)
Magnum photographer Peter van Agtmael has received the 2012 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. The annual grant aims to recognize a photographer who has “demonstrated an exemplary commitment to documenting the human condition in the spirit of Smith’s concerned photography and dedicated compassion.”
Read the story and see more photos here.
"Iraqi perceptions of Israel are shaped by Israel’s relentless military occupation, settlement, and conduct in Palestinian land. As long as this continues and Israel, in Arab eyes, makes no serious move toward ending the occupation, and as long as the US continues to largely support the Israeli side in this conflict, yes, Iraq’s relationship with the US will remain very difficult."
—Joost Hiltermann, talking to Robert Tollast, in “Iraq in the Middle Part VII: Joost Hiltermann on Iraq’s Relations with Israel”, Small Wars Journal
By Scott Peterson
“Does Maliki do Iran’s bidding? Sometimes. But he also does America’s bidding, he has good relations with the United States,” says Joost Hiltermann, Mideast and North Africa deputy program director for the International Crisis Group (ICG).
FULL ARTICLE (The Christian Science Monitor)
Photo: Truthout.org/Flickr
"التصالح بين حكومة المالكي والأكراد وإقامة علاقات ودية بينهما أمر غير مرجح، وإن أي اتفاق جديد سيكون مجرد وسيلة مؤقتة لتلبية احتياجاتهم الحالية فقط"
—Joost Hiltermann, Crisis Group’s MENA Deputy Program Director, on developments in Kurdistan’s oil industry and their impact on Kurdistan’s relationship with the Iraqi central government, in “Iraq’s Oil Battle”, Asharq Alawsat
(Source: crisisgroup.org)
Turkish troops kill 18 PKK rebels in major offensive | Reuters
By Seyhmus Cakan
Turkish soldiers have killed 18 Kurdish rebels in two days in an offensive involving over 2,000 troops, as well as by F-16 fighter jets operating on both sides of the Turkey-Iraq border, security sources said on Friday.
The operation against separatist rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) began on Wednesday night in Sirnak, a southeasterly province bordering Iraq and Syria and the site of frequent clashes between rebels and Turkish troops.
The summer has been one of the bloodiest in Turkey since the PKK took up arms against the state in 1984 with the aim of carving out a Kurdish state.
Photo: PKK militant
Credit: James Gordon/Flickr
Making Iran Into Enemy Number One | Huffington Post
By Fariba Amini
Joost Hiltermann, a researcher on the subject of the Iran-Iraq war wrote some years ago, “Today the world faces the prospect a nuclear-armed Iran, which never again will allow itself to be caught so dangerously exposed to superior arms, illegal methods of warfare, and the world’s tolerance of such.”
FULL ARTICLE (Huffington Post)
Photo: Safwat Sayed/Flickr
Can Iraq find its way out of its current political stalemate? An interview with Joost Hiltermann | Ekurd.net
By Joel Wing
The International Crisis Group (IGC) is one of the best sources on Iraq. Its reports contain some of the most in-depth analysis of the situation within that country. Joost Hiltermann is the Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the IGC, and is responsible for much of that coverage. Below is a short interview with Hiltermann about whether Iraq can solve its on going political problems.
Photo: DoD photo by Sgt. Curt/Wikiemedia Commons
Baghdad and Erbil Battle for Iraq | The National Interest
By Joost R. Hiltermann
The August 1 announcement by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that it was ready to resume oil exports through the Iraqi pipeline after a four-month suspension concluded what was rather like a nasty school-yard brawl in the manner such scuffles invariably end: with a bloody nose and some tears. Will a handshake soon follow?
The federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdish government in Erbil long have been at loggerheads over a range of issues that, at their core, concern the nature of Iraq’s federal system and the Kurdish region’s future. They disagree especially over the extent of the region’s powers, including the authority to sign oil contracts; the status of territories claimed by the Kurds as part of Kurdistan; and payment for the Kurds’ regional guard force as well as federal budget allocations more generally. Although the 2005 constitution addresses these questions, its many ambiguities and gaps make it subject to varying interpretations. Both sides have employed these weapons to great effect.
The conflict escalated sharply late last year when ExxonMobil became the first major oil company to sign with the Kurdistan Regional Government, then aggravated the situation by taking exploration blocks located squarely in disputed territories. The Iraqi government threatened to punish the company, which holds significant concessions in the South, but has yet to take any concrete retaliatory steps. Instead, Chevron, Total and Gazprom have now followed in ExxonMobil’s footsteps, with others queuing up.
With the Kurdish region’s growing production potential, the question has been how the oil will get to market in the absence of a federal hydrocarbons law and as long as relations between Baghdad and Erbil remain as deeply frayed as they have been. For now, Baghdad controls the export pipeline, but the KRG hopes that, with Turkey’s consent, it will be able to skirt the Baghdad-controlled pipeline and pump the oil northward once the necessary infrastructure has been built. In the words of the KRG’s mineral-resources minister Ashti Hawrami, “The oil will flow… . When you have one million barrels a day stranded, it will find its way to the market despite the political haggling.”
Earlier this year, an agreement signed by the federal and Kurdish governments in February 2011 broke apart over Erbil’s allegation that Baghdad had failed to compensate fully the three companies with KRG contracts that have put oil into the export pipeline. Baghdad declared itself ready to pay but said it was awaiting expense receipts from the KRG for an audit; Erbil replied it had given Baghdad all it needed. The matter reached an impasse when, on April 1, the KRG pulled the plug on its exports, saying it would resume them only once Baghdad coughed up the money it owed and pledged to make future payments in a timely manner.
FULL ARTICLE (The National Interest)
Photo: The U.S. Army/Flickr
