Their Time Has Come

"What is happening is that this region is moving from a development boom to a production boom. That is a transition that needs to take place."
"It is a transitional state coming out of a conflict situation, but there is pre-Mosul and post-Mosul and there is no going back now."
John Downe, British managing partner, Azure Serviced Offices

"Every day there is the surprise of more good news."
"I think that relations with Turkey are perfect now. It was never like this before. Thousands of Turkish companies have investments here. Because of these economic ties, they are interested in keeping good relations."
Hiwa Hiwa Arif Haziz, general manager, Mapcom, Kurdish environmental and mapping services company

The time has come for Kurdistan to be recognized not merely as an autonomous region of Iraq, but as a fully functioning and independent, sovereign country. Those portions of Iran, Syria and Turkey which host majority Kurdish populations which have long languished at the mercy of their Arab and Turk overseers and anguished over the fact that they represent the largest ethnic group on the planet without a country of their own, will take heart. Borders are being redrawn to reflect the reality of ethnic heritage.

Turkey, which has long fought an unequal and brutal war of attrition with its own Kurdish population has fairly recently signed a truce with Kurdish fighters in Turkey. And latterly, the Turkish government has seen economic benefit in trading with Kurdistan, even with its concerns over Turkish Kurds' homeland demands in the background. An oil pipeline transiting Turkey from Kurdistan has enabled the sale of Kurdish oil for the first time to Israel.

Iraq, or rather what's left of it for the time being, may hope that the Kurdish autonomous government would prefer to remain within the embrace of Iraq, but that doesn't appear realistic. Now that the Kurdish Peshmerga have moved in to Kirkuk and taken full possession of the oilfields they will no longer turn over the proceeds to any central government but their own.  The Economist Intelligence Unit, behind the Economist magazine, writes of a new future for Iraq's six million Kurds.

Here's the blatant irony; Kurdistan was rated higher than Iraq in six categories probed by the EIU; standing alongside China, Thailand, Brazil and Argentina with its economic future prospects, while Iraq was mired in the ranks of Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan. "People come in and out all the time and feel safe", assured John Downe whose company has contracts in Erbil with Asian, European and North American companies in the business of energy extraction.

International energy corporations like Exxon, Chevron, Total, Gulf Keystone, Marathon and Gazprom have invested up to $20-billion over the last several years helping fuel an annual growth rate of about 8 percent. Canada opened a trade office at a luxury hotel in Erbil in February, and two Calgary-based companies, Talisman Energy and WesternZagros Resources have significant interests in two Kurdish oilfields.

Thaier Al-Sudani/REUTERS     Members of the Kurdish security forces stand with their weapons during clashes with Sunni militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the outskirts of Kirkuk June 14, 2014

There are no visa requirements for Westerners to the Kurdish part of Iraq, while a dozen airlines, including Lufthansa, Emirates Airlines and Turkish Airlines have direct flights in and out. No longer can Baghdad consider itself the guardian of Kurdistan's energy resources. Its army chose to desert its posts around the oilfields at Kirkuk, itself a majority-Kurdish city located just outside the Kurdish autonomous zone.

The Peshmerga swiftly filled the gap in defences. To the victor go the spoils.