Mideast: What is the Current Relationship Between Iraqi Kurdistan and the Central Government?
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Since 2005, Iraq’s post-Ba’ath central government has had a contentious relationship with the Kurdish Autonomous Region, notably when it has come to financial matters and the disputed territories. Recent spats have once again called attention to the volatile relationship between Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government. What is this current relationship like, and are there hopes for more positive relations in the future?
Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Iraq’s relatively new Prime Minister visited Iraqi Kurdistan in early September 2020, visiting Halabja’s Martyrs Monument, a memorial to those who died at the hands of the Ba’ath regime and Saddam Hussein’s’ use of chemical weapons; and while visiting spoke with survivors of the attacks as well as Kurdish farmers and politicians alike. His trip was organized probably in hopes of stoking a better relationship with Kurds living within Iraqi Kurdistan and suspicious of the central government and its aspirations within the autonomous region. Late in the same month, a article came out, warning of “ethnic tensions” that were brewing to the surface within Kurdistan and Iraq’s disputed territories. Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of the Kurdish Regional Government, accused Arabs of evicting Kurds from their home and taking part in a ‘Arabization’ campaign, alluding to the past vicious campaign perpetuated by the Ba’athist regime whereby Kurds, Chaldo-Assyrians, Turkmen, and other groups found themselves forcibly displaced as a hitherto foreign Arab population were made to settle on their land. The area where this is supposedly happening once again is the same area in which Saddam’s Arabization policies were primarily perpetuated, Kirkuk.
Kirkuk, Between the KRG and the Central Government
Kirkuk and other disputed territories are outlined in Iraq’s 2005 Constitution as areas in which a referendum was to take place on the status of their position within Iraq or within the Kurdish Regional Government. This referendum, with its due date in 2007, never took place. Instead Kirkuk has been a site of contention in which both Iraq’s central government and the Kurdish Regional government are vying for control. After the rise of ISIS and ensuing chaos in Northern Iraq, the Kurdish Peshmerga quickly recognized an opportunity vacuum and took control of Kirkuk, eventually being pushed back by Iraqi Security Forces in 2017. Currently, under Kadhimi’s regime, both the KRG and the central government’s Security Forces are continuing to operate within Kirkuk with aims of combatting Islamic State elements still active in the region. It remains to be seen if anything constructive will come out of Kadhimi’s nascent Prime-Ministership when it comes to the disputed territories issue, but until then Kirkuk will remain a source of contention.
Economic Dependence on Baghdad and Corruption
The Kurdish Regional Government’s current economic situation is certainly dismal. In 2015, 90% of the KRG’s revenue came from oil, with significant funds transferred from Baghdad. The KRG’s dependence on the central government for funds is an ongoing issue. This makes the KRG unwittingly reliant on on the central government while the region grapples with a corrupt clientelist government whom through patronage networks and other forms of patrimonialism, continue to present a challenge to a functioning economy in the autonomous region. This is further complicated by a divided ruling class in Kurdistan that continues to be divided by those loyal to the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Barzani family and those loyal to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Talabani family.
Future Relations In the Shadow of the 2017 Referendum
A referendum took place in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2017 that was to decide the fate of the region within Iraq, aimed at solving the Kurdish independence debate. Predictably, Iraq’s central government would not allow Kurdistan an independent state so quickly, and despite clearly favorable decision by Kurdistan’s citizenry, nothing came of the referendum. Since then, and arguably since 2005, the KRG has experienced a sort of fledgling position as it grapples with garnering further autonomy beyond Iraq’s already asymmetric federalist framework in its favor, and its financial dependence on Baghdad.
Much of Kurdistan’s problems with the central government stem back from poor decisions made after 2003 where although Kurdish parties were able to actively participate in democratic consolidation and the drafting of a new constitution, even taking a dominant role, factions within the un-monolithic Kurdish political sphere made it so that the Kurdish region could not put up a unified front against central government influence. Under the Prime-Ministership of Nouri al-Maliki and up until Kadhimi’s appointment, the Kurdish Regional Government has been at odds with Baghdad on issues stemming from still unaddressed issues pertaining to autonomy. The KRG’s tensions with the central government on issues of disputed territories and the Kirkuk question, as well as its precarious economic condition which stems from unclear rules on how Kurdistan can work with foreign oil companies, has made it so that for better relations to emerge between the two, issues on autonomy and Iraq’s federal structure must be addressed.
Spats between the KRG and Baghdad involving the central government suspension of salaries to KRG employees, which in turn prompted by the KRG’s halting of oil revenue transfers to Baghdad, exemplify a crisis in communication between the two parties. Both the KRG and Baghdad may aim to further their own prerogatives and garner leverage so that either greater autonomy or greater centralization prevails. Nonetheless, it remains in the best of interest of both groups to come together and hash out a future arrangement that can elicit at least a contentable compromise. Perhaps Kadhimi will be the Prime Minister that can bring Kurdistan into the fold of Iraqi politics and help prevent further isolation of the KRG. But this is hardly likely considering the current ruling class of Kurdistan and their stake in continuing to unilaterally rule the region.
