Kurdish

Peter W. Galbraith

"There is no such place", the Turkish intelligence officer told my son earlier this month. He was going through our luggage at the Turkish end of the Habur bridge that separates Turkey from northern Iraq, and had found a chess set, with the place of origin, "Kurdistan" carved into it. After initially insisting we return the set to Iraq, he loaned Andrew a screwdriver to gouge out the offending word.

Fifty meters away from the Turkish intelligence post, at the other end of the bridge, is a sign that reads "welcome to Kurdistan of Iraq". The operative question is how long the "of Iraq' will be there. The Iraqi flag does not fly at the border crossing or anywhere else in Iraqi Kurdistan (a pre-1991 version of the flag does fly on a few public buildings in the part of Kurdistan controlled by the PUK). The Kurdistan flag, a green-white-red tricolor and with a bright yellow sun, is ubiquitous. The Kurdistan government--not the authorities in Baghdad--controls the Habur crossing. There are no central government offices in Kurdistan and the Kurdistan government does not allow the Iraqi army to send its forces into the region.

And, should there be any doubt about where all this is heading, the people of Kurdistan voted in an advisory referendum on Iraq's election day on whether Kurdistan should remain part of Iraq or be independent. Two million people voted (almost the same number as in the regular ballot) and 97 percent chose independence.