IRAQI KURDISTAN REGION

By Iraqi Kurdistan Region, we mean the southern part of Kurdistan attached to Iraq according to an agreement between Britain. And Turkey and hence the area referred to as the; northern part of
Iraq.

The area of Iraqi Kurdistan is about 80.000 sq. km, and thus it forms 18% of the total area of Iraq, (about 435.000 sq. km). The Kurdish population in Iraq is more than 6 million, about 2/3 inhabiting the three governorates of Arbil, Sulaimanya, Dohuk, in parts of both Kirkuk and Nineva governorates. This area which constitutes more than half of the total area of Iraqi Kurdistan are now under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government. The remaining population inhabits the area under the control of Iraqi governmet.

These people are part of a nation whose population exceeds 30 million living within a geographic location in the Middle East that exceeds 500.000 sq. km. Divided among more than four countries; Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran, the Kurds are deprived of the simplestfnational, cultural, and native rights.

The Kurds, particularly those, who live in the part attached to Iraq, are constantly subjected to the worst kinds of suppression and hence they have been in continuous rebellion in defense of their national legitimate rights. The beginning; 0f this century witnessed the movement of Sheik Abdul-Salam Barzani, in the twenties and thirties of this century witnessed the revolts of Sheikh Mahmood Al-Hafeed, and of Sheikh Ahmad Barzani following which the struggle was pursued by Mustafa Barzani in the forties, who found Kurdistan Democratic Party and led September Revolution in 1961 which lasted until 1975. This Revolution was the greatest Kurdish revolution and the most conclusive in the history of the Kurds, which ended as a result of the treasonous Algeria’s agreement between Iraq and Iran. Nevertheless the Kurdish revolt flared up again in 1976 in the mountains and valleys of Kurdistan defying deportation campaigns, Arabization and terrorism, and for years, especially in the eighties, the Kurdish people were subjected to brutal military campaigns and genocidal operations by chemical and biological weapons and the ill-famed Anfal operations. More than 4500 village and town were looted and burned by the bloody hands of the regime of Saddam Hussein, and to date the fate of more than 180 000 Kurdistani citizens remains unknown.

Consequent to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and the outbreak of the Second Gulf War, a popular uprising in the Iraqi Kurdistan flared up in March 1991. The Kurdistan Front comprising a coalition of eight parties; Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Iraqi Communist party (ICP), Kurdistan Democratic Popular Party (KDPP), Kurdistan Toilers Party (KTP), Kurdistan Social Party (KSP), Kurdish Social Party (KSP) and Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), controlled a wide area of the region and established its authority in it, but the Iraqi government restored the authority again over a large part of the liberated areas due to the permissive attitude of the coalition forces, and thus pushing millions to seek refuge in the neighboring countries of Iran and Turkey, escaping the operations of suppression and revenge. After the Iraqi government troops

See Picture on Halabja, 1988

were stopped by the resistance shown by the peshmarga of Kurdistan, and when the region was declared a safe haven, the people returned to their homes and the KF returned to exercise its authority in the area. Upon invitation by the central government in Baghdad, KF entered negotiations at the end of spring 1991, but the regime did not respond to the rights of the Kurdish people. Later, the central government of Iraq withdrew its official administration from the region in order to create an administrative and legislative vacuum hoping to disrupt the administrative situation in the region and paralyze service institutions, an act that urged KF to adopt the decision of holding general elections and organize the governmental administrations and service institutions that could fill in the vacuum created by the withdrawal of Iraqi governmental administration.

Thus, general elections were held on June 19th 1992, and the Iraqi Kurdistan National Assembly came into being, in accordance with an " ad hoc enacted law, and Consequent to this the Kurdish regional government was formed and judiciary was reorganized in the region.