The Kurds’ desire for independence is understandable but that does not mean we should be dogmatic, writes Gary Kent
The British have an historical habit of telling the Kurds they must stay in Iraq. Indeed, we put them there nearly a century ago and our current policy, according to the respected Middle East minister, Alistair Burt, is that the United Kingdom ‘cannot support any move towards independence which has not been agreed with the government of Iraq’.
I understand the nervousness. The violent consequences of disrupting borders, not least in the volatile Middle East on which we rely for resources, and preventing the spread of extremism that catapults jihadists into murderous mayhem on our streets, are serious causes for concern.
Yet recognising Baghdad’s veto on the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan assumes the warden and the inmate are equals. The new report of the foreign affairs select committee (FAC) on Kurdish aspirations and the interests of the UK, which endorses the One Iraq policy, also observes that ‘many Kurds feel imprisoned in a country that they see as not implementing its commitments of equality to them. The foreign and commonwealth office must therefore press for these commitments to be fulfilled.’
Lewis Baston’s account of the 2017 referendum
I dispute the mantra I have often heard from Kurdish leaders that the Kurds were betrayed when the suggested new Kurdish state was abandoned in the 1920s. More united forces won out while the weak and divided Kurds failed to ride the wave of support for self-determination after the Great War.
The Kurds were bundled into Iraq so their demography and geography could better balance the new state, otherwise divided between a Shia majority and a Sunni minority, and with the protective mountains of the north.
The Kurds have helped rebuild Iraq. They did much, when they were persuaded to rejoin Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, to make it work. They used their political expertise to form governments and devise a constitution protecting their rights and others in a federal, pluralistic and democratic Iraq. The Kurds enjoyed about a decade of good relations within Iraq, for the first time in a century.
But old habits endure and an increasingly sectarian Shia government in Baghdad increasingly flouted the constitution – the Kurdish condition for voluntarily staying in Iraq. The coup de grace was the severing all federal budget payments to Kurdistan in 2014.
Independence then acquired real momentum and led to a decisive popular vote for independence in last year’s referendum. The UK and others warned the Kurds of the consequences of the referendum. They seem to have been proved right when Baghdad forcibly seized disputed territories such as Kirkuk which had come under exclusive Kurdistani control when the Iraqi army deserted it as Daesh took Mosul and moved south. And when Baghdad closed Kurdistan’s airports, still shut to world traffic five months later.
The consensus is that the referendum was mistaken. I would probably have endorsed the late offer from the UK, the United States and the United Nations to postpone the referendum in return for supporting dialogue with Baghdad and a possible later referendum.
I now back independence but not dogmatically. If Iraq implemented the constitution the Kurds largely made, they could easily remain in Iraq. But I believe Baghdad intends to keep the Kurds in their place with less autonomy and funding than they deserve without a radical reset of the mentality of the Shia bloc and Iran, which sees an independent Kurdistan as a second Israel.
The referendum may have thus far failed but the clear expression of a popular will to leave remains forever. Given that the Kurdistan region is the only landlocked country in the world surrounded by sharks, secession depends on their weakness, division or goodwill. Or external support.
There are glimmers of hope in the FAC’s report, which endorses the British One Iraq policy but asks tough questions about the involvement of the Shia militias and Iran, and suggests that the UK helps build the capacity of the Kurds to advance reform and diversification. And it urges the foreign office to offer itself alongside international partners in an enhanced role of facilitating dialogue.
Baghdad will be loath to accept this but any external involvement, if backed by some stick, could persuade Baghdad to curb its punitive policies. The FAC recognises that Baghdad’s restrictions ‘are only likely to encourage the Kurds on the path to departure rather than integration’. The big question the FAC ignores is what happens if Baghdad behaves badly. This requires serious thinking about the fire next time as it is not morally or politically right, or in our collective security interests that Kurds are imprisoned in Iraq as second class citizens.
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Gary Kent is secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on the Kurdistan Region, which he has visited 25 times since 2006, and writes in a personal capacity. He tweets at @garykent
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