Description
The 2003 Iraqi war has heightened Kurdish nationalism not only in Iraqi Kurdistan, but also in Turkey, Iran, and Syria. Having enjoyed 13 years of self-government in the safe haven zone, which was created and protected by the United States, the Iraqi Kurds have embarked on an ambitious campaign to consolidate their political and economic gains.
The Kurds first sought safeguards from both the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), led by the United States, and from the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), and now the Interim Iraqi Government with a view to preventing the recurrence of past atrocities committed against them by successive Arab governments in Baghdad. The Kurdish campaign has faced stiff opposition from their neighbors to their demand for the creation of a federal, democratic, and secular system of government in Iraq. While the Arab opposition inside Iraq is fearful that the introduction of such a system might lead to the disintegration of the country, the neighboring countries claim that granting the Kurds greater freedom in Iraq will incite their own Kurdish populations to demand the same. This book presents a balanced analysis of the pros and cons regarding the Kurdish demands.

Contributors:David McDowall, Carole A. O’Leary, Mohammed M.A. Ahmed, Michael Gunter, Hamit Bozarslan, Gulistan Gurbey, Hakan Yavuz, Robert Olson, Nader Entessar, Farideh Koohi-Kamali, Lokman I. Meho, Farah W. Kawtharani, David Fisher.

Table of Contents
Ch. 1 Political prospects of the Kurds in the Middle East
Ch. 2 Are the Kurds a source of instability in the Middle East?
Ch. 3 The political fallout of ethnic cleansing in Iraqi Kurdistan
Ch. 4 Kurdish prospects in post-Saddam Iraq
Ch. 5 Turkey and Kurdistan-Iraq relations : the consolidation of Iraqi Kurdish nationalism : 2003-2004 Ch. 6 The Kurdish issue in Turkey following the 2003 Iraqi War
Ch. 7 Implications of Turkey’s constitutional reforms for the Kurds
Ch. 8 Turkey’s Kurdish-centered Iraqi policy
Ch. 9 The impact of the Iraq War on the future of the Kurds in Iran
Ch. 10 Obstacles hindering the Kurdish question in Iran
Ch. 11 Durable solution for the internally displaced Iraqi Kurds : legal and practical considerations
Ch. 12 The Kurdish community in Lebanon and their future prospects
Index.

About the Authors

Mohammed M.A. Ahmed

Dr. Mohammed M. A. Ahmed is the President and founder of the Ahmed Foundation for Kurdish Studies, which is a non-profit and non-partisan organization. He has organized numerous conferences on Kurdish topics and published, as editor, in cooperation with Professor Michael Gunter, the following books: The Kurdish Question and International Law; Kurdish Exodus: From Internal Displacement to Diaspora; The Kurdish Question and the 2003 Iraqi War; and The Evolution of Kurdish Nationalism. Dr. Ahmed was Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Baghdad in the 1960s and joined the United Nations as an Economic and Social Affairs Officer in early 1969. He spent 24 years working for the UN in different capacities, first as a resident expert in Jordan, Syria, Bahrain and Sri Lanka and then as Senior Social Affairs officer at the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia in Beirut. He moved to the UN headquarters in New York in 1980. The last post he held at the UN was Chief of the Policy and Development Planning Branch of the Department of Development Support Services, which provides technical and advisory services to member governments on social and economic development issues.

Michael M. Gunter

Dr. Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee. During the sum-mer, he teaches at The International University in Vienna, Austria. He is the author of five critically praised scholarly books on the Kurdish question, the most recent being Kurdish Historical Dictionary, 2004; The Kurdish Predicament in Iraq: A Political Analysis, 1999; and The Kurds and the Future of Turkey, 1997. He has also published over 75 scholarly articles on the Kurds and other subjects in such leading peri-odicals as the Middle East Journal, Middle East Quarterly, Orient, and American Journal of International Law, among others. He is a former Senior Fulbright Lecturer in International Relations in Turkey.

 

 

F
E
E
D

B
A
C
K