Highlighted remarks
“It’s a pleasure to be with people I’ve known for a long time. The rather small group of people who’ve been interested and involved in the Kurdish issue for decades in the United States, but also particularly with the person who really introduced me to the Kurdish question and to all my Kurdish friends. That is governor Najmaldin Karim who was in the 1980s when nobody cared, literally a one man lobby and it shows how much one individual, the difference one individual can make in a country like ours. So let me step back and pick up on what Brendan said. He cited all the aspects of the Iraqi constitution that were beneficial to the Kurds that have not been implemented. The federal, the upper chamber of parliament, the federal Supreme court he didn’t add, but I will add article 140 on disputed territories.
I have to say I think there’s a reason for this, which is that the Kurds have never been committed to the Iraqi project, probably not since the founding of the state of Iraq, they’re not committed to the Iraqi project today, as we know and September 25th, 2017, they voted 93% to leave Iraq in a binding referendum. Once that has happened the Rubicon was crossed, as Hoshyar Zebarisaid at the time, sooner or later, I think that is going to happen. You simply can’t people keep people forever in a country. They don’t want to be part of, and you’re not likely to be able to change their opinion. But, but we’re now in a very interesting time, we’ve cited all the difficulties, coronavirus, low oil prices, budget issues and yet in my mind, in some ways is the most normal time for Iraqi Kurdistan. And it represents an opportunity. An opportunity to get its own house in order as Brendan described among other things by writing the constitution, but also an opportunity to settle issues with Baghdad.
The oil production in the Kurdistan region
Now you asked about oil. The whole purpose of what Masoud Barzani and the Kurds sought to accomplish in 2005 was for Kurdistan to have production in Kurdish and control it. And the reason for that is that it would have independent Kurdish controlled sources of revenue. Now, they were very much open to the idea of that, of sharing the revenue with Baghdad, but the concept was you do not have meaningful independence if you are, or autonomy, self government, If the check is coming from Baghdad, on the other hand, you have a lot of power if you’re sending the check to Baghdad.
So the provisions of the constitution, article 110, which is the exclusive powers of the federal government does not include petroleum. Article 115 says what is not in article 110, then regional laws superior, but even the oil provisions, which give primacy to Baghdad over oil fields in current production as of 2005 and are silent on new fields. Meaning of course they fall under the rubric of the Kurdistan government, and it’s also incidentally silent on the revenue from the new fields. And so properly read, Kurdistan actually should be having the revenue from its own fields and receiving its proportionate share of the existing fields.What is not included there,and as Brendan appointed to, is export. Because trade comes under the authority of the federal government.
So you could have a debate about that, but also it’s frankly not a very important issue. Whether the oil is sold through Somo or separately, you still get a price and there’s going to be revenue coming in. And if you do move toward independence, those fields are still there. They’re under your control. You can manage your production, you can increase it even before independence. So you have that resource. That was the important point, not the marketing of it. I see this as an opportunity for a compromise in which Iraq would take over the marketing and Kurdistan, and of course, would retain the right to produce. There needs to be an agreement on revenue sharing. And that frankly needs to be independent of the so-called sovereign expenses.
The disputed territories
Frankly article 140, which is in turn article 58 of the transitional administrative law, gave the Kurds a vehicle to resolve this and they didn’t take it. Specifically. The president of Iraq, who at that time was Jalal Talabani or the presidency when it was three of them, had the right to ask the secretary general of the United nations to appoint somebody to resolve it. No action was taken and frankly, no action was taken in a serious way to resolve the issue. And indeed there really hasn’t been a serious action to resolve the issue since 2003. Now is that necessarily a bad thing? Well, the reality in the modern world is that successful independent States tend to be smaller rather than larger. In the 19th century, the idea was you wanted to have as much territory as possible, but in the 20th, late 20th and 21st century States, that consists almost entirely of people who want to be part of that state not including dissident groups tend to be much more successful. And of course, one of the most successful perhaps the most successful countries of the last 50 years is Singapore, which has no territory at all. Is it really necessary to have all this territory for which some part of the population doesn’t want to be part of Iraqi Kurdistan or eventually an independent Kurdistan?
I think this is an opportunity to reach a territorial compromise. There are things you can do that would include representing people from the disputed areas. For example, Even if the territory isn’t included, you might open the door to citizenship. You might have voting rights as some countries like Croatia have voting rights for people who are outside of Croatia, give citizenship to Croats and Bosnia, but don’t make claims on Bosnia territory, but this, the time to resolve it. And you governor Karim have yourself talked about maybe the right answer for Kirkuk is some kind of separate special status for that. And that really is the key issue. But my strong advice is to resolve this issue and to be flexible territorial disputes can go on for decades. Indian-Pakistan had been paralyzed by not having resolved. The issue of Kashmir . China and India are in a dispute over a territory high in the Himalayas where nobody can reasonably live with. It really doesn’t matter very much, but you know, they’re at each other’s heads and they have been since the 1960s. The Palestinians, it used to be when you and I first met in the 1980s, Kurdish leaders would say we never engaged in terrorism. Nobody pays any attention to us. The Palestinians have had a history of terrorism. They’re so central, we’re so far behind, but here we are where Kurdistan which never practiced terrorism is so far ahead.
The existential threat to the Syrian Kurds
There is however an existential threat to Syria Kurdistan. yesterday, or the day before the presidents of Iran, Turkey and Russia had a meeting in which they explicitly in their third point of their declaration described it as illegitimate, the effort at self-determination in Northeast Syria. The problem is going to be between the 3rd of November, the 20th of January assuming Trump loses or for that matter in the unlikely event that he wins. Because he’ll then be unfettered either way. I think what you have to worry about is a guy who’s got to pull down the house on his way out. That will apply to a lot of things, not just to the Syrian Kurds, but clearly he has a relationship and probably a financial interest with Turkey and Erdogan. So I think that we’re facing a very difficult time for the Kurds because of Turkey, but probably the biggest danger is to Syrian Kurdistan, to Rojava and less to Iraqi Kurdistan.