With/Out a State, Kurds Rising: The Un/Stated Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq

Abstract

Located in northern Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) rules over an autonomous province in Iraq. Constitutionally, ‘Kurdistan Region’ is not independent, but empirically the KRG behaves as if it is a sovereign entity. With an elected parliament, a president, a prime minister, a cabinet, a flag, a national anthem, schools taught in Kurdish, and a booming economy, the ‘Kurdistan’ embodied by the KRG clearly exists empirically while unrecognized internationally. In this paper, I examine the rise of the KRG as an agent in international relations since the first Gulf War in 1991. I argue that foreign policy as a field of conduct and discourse has been central to the KRG's effective agency. In my analysis, I employ and interrelate Robert Jackson's work on ‘quasi-states’, Doug McAdam's argument on ‘political opportunity structures', and Giorgio Agamben's discussion on ‘indistinct zones of politics’ as in Iraq and the Middle East. Ultimately, I contend that while less than a full state in constitutional legal form, the KRG is more than a quasi-state in substance.¹

Keywords:

• Kurds
• KRG
• state
• independence
• foreign policy
• agency

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 See the official site of KRG at: http://cabinet.gov.krd/?l=12

2 For the threat issued by Iran see a speech, Vision of the Islamic Republic Iran, delivered by Major General Yahya Rahim-Safavi on West Azarbayjan Provincial TV on 3 March 2007. Recorded and Translated by World News Connection, compiled and distributed by NTIS.

3 FBIS, ‘Turkey: Egemen Bagis on Iraq, Kurdish State, PKK< Relations with EU, World News Connection, Compiled and Distributed by NTIS. 12 February 2007.

4 See the then the statements by Secretaries of State Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell in (Gibbons, 2002).

5 See the full text of the agreement, ‘Text of the accord signed by KDP and PUK leaders in Washington, DC,’ 17 September 1998 at: http://www.meij.or.jp/text/minorities/ik19980917.htm. See O'Leary (December 2002).

6 For a list of countries, see: http://dfr.gov.krd/p/p.aspx?p=37&l=12&s=020100&r=363

7 Agence France Press, (13 December 2006) ‘Bush. Kurds, Discuss Iraq Strategy.’

8 See, for example, the photo splashed on the front pages of magazines and Newspapers showing the Kurdistan Airlines plane, The Los Angeles Times, 14 July 2006.

9 For a list of airlines, see: http://dfr.gov.krd/p/p.aspx?p=113&l=12&s=030400&r=402

10 In this article, I did not deal with internal KRG politics among political factions or KRG's relations with other Kurdish parties in Syria, Iran and Turkey.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nevzat Soguk

Nevzat Soguk is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and an Adjunct Professor of Global Politics at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.