The complicated relationship between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan has been thrown into stark relief in recent weeks. On 30 October, Adel Murad, a founding member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), publicly voiced his support for the involvement of Iran, rather than Turkey or Saudi Arabia, in Iraqi affairs. The PUK is one of the largest political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan and its leader, Jalal Talabani, is the president of all Iraq, although he has been receiving treatment in Germany for a stroke he suffered in December 2012. But on the news that Tehran had hanged two Kurdish activists on 25 October, protests were held in Iraqi Kurdistan, including outside the Iranian consulate in Erbil, opposing the Iranian government and supporting the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish political movement engaged in a long-running armed struggle against Tehran. One of the two Kurds hanged, Habibollah Golparipour, was referred to by PJAK as a senior leader. In response to the hangings, PJAK issued a statement claiming that it had taken revenge by killing ten Iranian revolutionary guards. A third Kurdish activist was subsequently hanged in Iran on 4 November.[...] After 2003, with the United States, Irans sworn enemy, embroiled in a bloody insurgency in Iraq, Tehran leveraged its popularity among the resurgent Iraqi Shia majority. Irans influence in Iraq was illustrated by the juxtaposition of American president George W Bushs fleeting, unannounced, and heavily secured visits to US airbases in Iraq, and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejads open-top motorcade from Baghdad airport, along a road once lined with snipers and car bombs and called by western media the most dangerous road in Iraq or the Highway of Death, to a red carpet reception in Baghdad by the Iraqi president – none other than the PUKs Talabani, a fluent Farsi speaker. Sharpening the contrast, American and British officials had been banned from using the same airport road and typically travelled by helicopter to Baghdads well-defended Green Zone.[...] Since 2003, following the fall of their opponents in Baghdad and with newfound autonomy and increasing security and stability, the Iraqi Kurds have gradually, but discernibly, strengthened relations with Iran. The affair did not start auspiciously. Unsettled by the participation of the peshmerga in the US-led invasion of Iraq, and worried that PJAK would find a safe harbour in Iraqi Kurdistan from which to redouble its campaign against Tehran, Iran angered the Iraqi Kurds by flouting territorial sovereignty and shelling peshmerga positions in Iraq. As recently as 2010, two weeks of Iranian air strikes and shelling sought to cripple PJAK bases in the region, and Kurdish media reported Iranian ground incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan. Since then, Iran has grown more confident of its regional influence and, concurrently, less belligerent. In August 2010, the last US combat brigade withdrew from Iraq. After the 2010 Iraqi elections, Iran played a role in brokering the agreement in Tehran that formed a Shia-led (and broadly pro-Iranian) coalition in Baghdad, with Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia, appointed as prime minister. Those negotiations also involved the Kurds, with Talabani returning as president of Iraq, meeting a key Kurdish demand. Political relations between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan continued to strengthen: in August 2013, the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, visited Tehran for Rouhanis inauguration. An earlier visit in 2011 by the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, to meet with Ahmadinejad, his then-counterpart, was heralded by energy industry analyst John Daly as proof of the changing regional dynamics, in which Iran was successfully subverting Americas influence over Iraqi affairs. And instead of throwing its weight about militarily, Iranian influence on daily life in Iraqi Kurdistan is now softer, but no less persuasive. Trade between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan is making far greater inroads than military operations ever did. Last year saw a visit to Iraqi Kurdistan by the Iranian vice president for international affairs and a delegation of more than 100 Iranian companies as part of the Iranian-Kurdistan Region Economic Forum. This July, the Iranian first vice president welcomed the Iraqi Kurdistan minister of housing and development, amid announcements that a new bilateral trade agreement had been signed and that trade between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan was expected to surpass $4 billion in 2013. In 2000, before the war, the officially reported volume of trade was only $100 million.[...] Although currently smaller than the Turkish connection, the economic relationship between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan is blossoming, and it is by no means a one-way street. Over the years, there have been well-documented allegations of sanctions-busting oil smuggling from Iraqi Kurdistan to Iran, in defiance of Baghdad and the international community.[...] Iran has fostered good relations with the KDP and the PUK, both of which are increasingly striving to hedge Iraqi Kurdistans economic growth with inbound investment from a basket of neighbouring countries. Politically, Iran has achieved a government in Baghdad with ties to Tehran through its negotiations with the Iraqi Kurds, in return for which the Kurds have held onto the presidency of Iraq.[...] But the recent hangings in Iran reminded Iraqi Kurds of something they seemed to have forgotten: when it comes to the Kurds inside Iran, especially PJAK, no amount of friendship with Iraqi Kurdistan will temper Tehrans fury.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 21:14:29 +0000
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