Can Iraqi Kurds bank on Turkey?
Iraqi Kurdish leaders have been openly talking about independence, but their security situation is precarious, after the fall of Mosul to ISIS militants.
ERBIL, Iraq — “Before Mosul and after Mosul.” Iraqi Kurdish leaders have taken turns repeating this mantra after capturing vast swaths of disputed territories, including their “Jerusalem,” the oil-rich province of Kirkuk.
Their message is clear. After the dramatic fall of Mosul to Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) fighters, Iraq cannot be glued back together again. Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), put it to the BBC like this: “I think it will be very difficult for [the] situation to go back as before. I don’t think it [Iraq] can stay together again.”
Coupled with the Iraqi Kurds’ fresh territorial gains, statements such as these have prompted a flurry of punditry, much of it concluding that the Iraqi Kurds are on the brink of declaring independence.
Fellow Al-Monitor columnist Denise Natali provided an eloquent counterpoint to such assertions in her article “Iraqi Kurds maneuver between Maliki and Mosul.” After a trip to Iraqi Kurdistan where I met with various senior Iraqi Kurdish leaders, I tend to agree with some of Natali’s arguments. Despite the Kurds’ territorial windfalls, there remain serious obstacles to independence. Indeed, it is questionable whether it is a realistic goal in the short term.
