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[Informed Comment] Kurdish General Again Insubordinate, Angles for US to Remain in ...: Large numbers of Kurds will almost certainly be drawn down to Basra Province to work the Rumaila and other fields (and there is more black gold in Maysan and elsewhere not yet exploited). Just as Kurdish nationalism in Turkey was blunted by the way the Kurds were spread around the country as laborers in construction and light industry (and the way they came to vote just like their Turkish neighbors in Istanbul and elsewhere), Kurdish nationalism in Iraq may well be blunted by the enormous labor migration to the south that is likely to occur over the next two decades.

[KurdNet News ekurd.net] Kurdistan Region-Iraq News in brief. August 16, 2010: Erbil: Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani welcomed on Saturday the ceasefire announced by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with the Turkish government, expressing hope the ceasefire would be permanent, according to a residential cabinet press statement. “This issue would not be solved through the military option but has to be solved through peaceful means and dialogue,” Barzani was quoted in the statement received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

[Dubai Business | Kippreport» Middle East Business and Financial News, Features, Analysis and Opinion - Kippreport.com] » Kurdish sales ease DNO's pain as it waits to export - Kippreport.com: A power struggle between the central government in Baghdad and Kurdish authorities in Erbil has kept DNO from exporting oil as planned, but CEO Helge Eide said his company is making a profit in Kurdistan anyway — more so than analysts had forecast for the second quarter.

[KurdNet News ekurd.net] Kurdistan can have more friends than the mountains. By David Romano: Enjoy the cool mountain air, the clear streams and our warm hospitality.” This would be accompanied by the requisite images of happy Arab tourists with equally happy looking Kurdistanis, closing with an image of the Iraqi and Kurdish flags and the message “Brought to you by the Kurdistan Regional Government.” If viewed often enough, these kinds of positive images can stick in people’s minds, gradually softening negative stereotypes of Kurds. At the very least, it could provide an even greater boost Kurdistan’s growing tourism industry.

[Arab News Blog] Arab News Blog » Kurdish General Again Insubordinate, Angles for ...: They have established what is for all intents and purposes an independent state in what had been 3 provinces of Iraq (though by now the provincial boundaries and administrative apparatuses have long since been erased), called Kurdistan. Kurdistan is the Taiwan of the Middle East, a separate and independent nation that cannot be so named without causing a war (or a whole set of wars).

[Dinar Daddy's Tidbits] * Qubad Talabani States Kurds Are Not the Same 2003-Ally of US ...: The most serious demand of the Kurds is probably their claims over the disputed oil-rich regions like Kirkuk, which they see as part of their historical homeland. This is seen as a major source of instability as the US troops prepare leave the country for the Iraqis.

[NewsBlaze.com Current News - Top Stories] U.S. Focuses on Transition From Military to Civilian Led ...: This will gradually wind down as we transfer as many functions as possible of those PRTs that close to the Iraqi authorities - budget execution, project design, working with their communities, some of the human resource elements that we've helped them with. These will be important programs that we pass to them, but we also have enormous rolodexes of who the key people are in each of these places where the 16 PRTs are and where, when we had a total of 27 and some of the EPRTs getting up to a total of 33, we're going to build on those contacts that we have around the country so we can continue our outreach and continue to do something that will do everything possible to make sure that the sacrifices and the investment that we've put into Iraq over the last seven years can be converted into a traditional, civilian-led diplomatic presence that will have a security component.

[The Olympian Online -- Nation & World] Bomber kills 61 Iraqis in recruitment drive - Nation & World - The ...: Kurds want to incorporate lands that the Arabs controlled during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship into the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Arabs are angered by what they consider Kurdish efforts to annex Arab lands along a 300-mile strip from the Syrian border to Diyala province, and especially the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

[Iraq Business News] Turkey Wants to Integrate Iraqi Kurdistan Region Through Economy ...: Recently, Qadir was invited by Turkey along with a number of Kurdish intellectuals and writers with the aim of talking with the Turkish Media to end the hostile statements between both sides. He said Turkey has changed its behavior toward the Kurdistan Region and some high-ranking Turkish officials recognise the Kurdistan Region as a distinct “federal region in Iraq”, also using the term “Kurdistan Region”

[FP Passport] Iraqi general to US military: Stay longer! | FP Passport: And what about the ethno-sectarian tensions that cause violence between Kurd and Arab, and Sunni and Shia? Then the separate political agendas cause fighting (literal street fighting) between the PUK and the KDP, State of Law and Tawafuq (both Shia), and even Iraqi Army vs.

[Arab News Blog] Arab News Blog » 59 Dead, 120 Wounded in Iraqi Suicide Bombing ...: In regard to the latest American proposal, Jamal Batikh of the secular, now largely Sunni Arab Iraqiya list headed by former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi, described the suggestions brought to Baghdad on behalf of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and said that his party was preparing a response that would “forcefully reject” power sharing of the sort suggested.

[Israpundit] Israpundit » Blog Archive » US M.E policy needs a reset: Now Turkey openly supports Iran and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas.  It also has buried the hatchet with Syria with whom it was on the brink of war a few years ago. Turkey has also shown its Iranian bona fides by coming out strongly against its former ally, Israel, and backed the terrorist flotilla in its attempt to break the blockade of Gaza.  Obama’s response has been to stand by Turkey and not Israel.

[Solomonia] Solomonia: Israel-Kurd magazine 'a cultural bridge': "I do not know what Kurds think of this magazine nor do I know how many people will buy and read it, but I am convinced that better relation between the Kurdish region and Israel is the last concern of the Kurdish citizen. "What worries the citizen is not the absence of Kurdish - Israel relations, but the lack of public understanding of Arabs and Persians and Turks (of the Kurd's) aspirations to acquire national identity, so as to free him, like everybody, to develop culture and language, freely and without repression or oppression."

[Pajamas Media] Pajamas Media » Is Turkey Using Chemical Weapons Against the Kurds?: I wonder if the civilized countries who are NATO members (i.e. all of them except Erdoganistan) will have the guts to kick this gang of arab-wannabes out of the alliance if these allegations turn out to be proven true through an investigation.

[Iraqi Dinar News] * Enorrste Chat - Part 3: GET Team - 8/16/10 | Iraqi Dinar News: [willie] Iraqi Government: We will go out of the seventh item and look for an alternative to protect our money Arbil, The Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, said Iraq will come out of the wrath of the seventh item soon, warning that the Iraqi government is looking for an alternative to the United Nations for the protection of the fund for support of Iraq., Noting that Iraq had taken several measures paid for the first time to be the report of the United Nations Secretary-positive. The Nuri Shaways in a television interview with Al-Iraqiya semi-government, on Saturday evening, said “the government was holding activities to find a replacement for the Protection of the Development Fund for Iraq’s assets which is subject under the auspices of the United Nations and convert it entirely to the supervision of the Iraqi side, while maintaining a mechanism to protect this money.”

[Iraq Business News] Oil Supply Surge, Price Drop in Iraqi Auction | Iraq Business News: Other risks include the absence of a comprehensive law justifying the legal framework for the auctions, resolution of the Kurdish-Arab struggle for Kirkuk and oil and gas resources in Kurdistan, and Iraq’s outstanding debt with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Nations.

[Philippines Island] Philippines Island » Blog Archive » Middle East - Summary of ...: Although they share many attributes, the Arabic Iraqi and the Persian Iranian do not see them through the veil of Islamic sectarian lines, secular versus traditional religious law and territorial disputes. The dispute came to blows eventually over three islands in the Persian Gulf, who were granted from the British to the United Arab Emirates, seized by Iran, which caused retaliation in the name of Arabic defense by Iraq.

[Up Front Blog] Web Chat: The Status of Iraq - Up Front Blog - Brookings Institution: 12:46 Ken Pollack: Certainly President Obama did not pull all the troops out immediately (within 16 months) as he said on the campaign trail, and he certainly has shown a much greater interest in leaving Iraq responsibly and leaving behind a stable state than he suggested when he was a candidate. This is obviously more along the lines of the Bush administration's approach than what he claimed on the campaign trail (and I applaud any leader who can look at what is best for the country and put that ahead of what he/she may have said while running for office).

Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Kurds, Iran Reviews