The development objective of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) economic and social impact assessment is to provide the Iraqi Government with an impact analysis of the current crisis at the ...regional level. This will provide a foundation for international efforts to assist the KRG in its efforts to rally humanitarian support. The events which motivate this study include: the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011; and the insurgency of the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) group, which began in June 2014. The violence and atrocities associated with each of these two events caused tens of thousands to flee their homes and many chose the relative safety of Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), as refugees from the Syrian conflict and as internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the ISIS crisis. These events took place in the context of the fiscal crisis, which caused about a 90 percent drop in fiscal transfers from the central government in Baghdad starting in early 2014. This report provides the government with a technical assessment of the impact and stabilization costs associated with the influx of refugees and IDPs. Impact refers to the immediate economic and fiscal effects on the KRG economy and budget, while stabilization cost refers to the additional spending that will be needed to restore the welfare of residents of the KRI. The report is the outcome of a process in which a World Bank team engaged intensively on the ground with regional government institutions and international partners to gather and mobilize data from disparate sources into a structured narrative and integrated technical presentation from which all stakeholders can draw to help them design and implement strategies for coping with the crisis.
Numbering between 25 and 35 million worldwide, the Kurds are among the largest culturally and ethnically distinct people to remain stateless. A People Without a State offers an in-depth survey of an ...identity that has often been ignored in mainstream historiographies of the Middle East and brings to life the historical, social, and political developments in Kurdistani society over the past millennium. Michael Eppel begins with the myths and realities of the origins of the Kurds, describes the effect upon them of medieval Muslim states under Arab, Persian, and Turkish dominance, and recounts the emergence of tribal-feudal dynasties. He explores in detail the subsequent rise of Kurdish emirates, as well as this people’s literary and linguistic developments, particularly the flourishing of poetry. The turning tides of the nineteenth century, including Ottoman reforms and fluctuating Russian influence after the Crimean War, set in motion an early Kurdish nationalism that further expressed a distinct cultural identity. Stateless, but rooted in the region, the Kurds never achieved independence because of geopolitical conditions, tribal rivalries, and obstacles on the way to modernization. A People Without a State captures the developments that nonetheless forged a vast sociopolitical system.
Slope gradient and land use change are known to influence soil quality and the assessment of soil quality is important in determining sustainable land-use and soil-management practices. In this ...study, soil quality indices (SQIs) were developed by quantifying several soil properties to discriminate the effects of slope gradient and land use change on soil quality in 480km2 of agricultural land in Kurdistan Province, Iran. Three soil quality indices (SQIs) were used. Each of the soil quality indices was calculated using two linear and non-linear scoring methods and two soil indicator selection approaches, a Total Data Set (TDS) and a Minimum Data Set (MDS). Nine soil quality indicators: pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC), Organic Carbon (OC), Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC), Total Naturalized Value (TNV), Soil Erodibility (K), Porosity (P), Mean Weight Diameter (MWD), and Bulk Density (BD) and soil loss rate were measured for 110 soil samples (0–30cm depth). Soil quality indices maps were developed using digital soil mapping methods. The >10% slope class had the highest soil loss rate and highest percentage of soils with very low quality (grade V) based on all SQIs. The results showed that soil quality was better estimated using the Weighted Additive Soil Quality Index (SQIw) (r2=0.78) compared to SQIa (the Additive Soil Quality Index) and SQIn (the Nemoro Soil Quality Index). The agreement values of all SQIs for the non-linear scoring method were higher than the linear scoring method. The mean values of all SQIs and the soil loss rate were higher and lower in rangeland than cropland, respectively, but they were not significantly different because of intensive grazing. Slopes with a large gradient and where land use was converted to agriculture were characterized by low values of SQIs, suggesting a recovery of soil quality through changing to sustainable practices and abandoning over grazing in these areas.
•Soil quality was evaluated using three soil quality indices.•Three soil quality indices were calculated using a Total Data Set and a Minimum Data Set approach and two scoring methods.•The SQIw-Linear-MDS index was the best to assess soil quality.•Soil quality indices and soil loss rate were digitally mapped digital soil mapping approach in West Iran.•Effects of Land use change and slope gradient degraded severely soil quality.
This volume deals with the experience and the position of non-tribal Jewish subjects and their relationships with their tribal chieftains (aghas) in urban centers and villages in Kurdistan. It is ...based on new oral sources, diligently collected and carefully analyzed.
This book provides an interpretive and critical analysis of Kurdish identity, nationalism and national movement in Turkey since the 1960s. By raising issues and questions relating to Kurdish ...political identity and highlighting the ideological specificity, diversity and the transformation of Kurdish nationalism, it develops a new empirical dimension to the study of the Kurds in Turkey.
Cengiz Gunes applies an innovative theoretical approach to the analysis of an impressively large volume of primary sources and data drawn from books and magazines published by Kurdish activists, political parties and groups. The analysis focuses on the specific demands articulated by the Kurdish national movement and looks at Kurdish nationalism at a specific level by disaggregating the nationalist discourse, showing variations over time and across different Kurdish nationalist organisations. Situating contemporary Kurdish political identity and its political manifestations within a historical framework, the author examines the historical and structural conditions that gave rise to it and influenced its evolution since the 1960s. The analysis also encompasses an account of the organisational growth and evolution of the Kurdish national movement, including the political parties and groups that were active in the period.
Bringing the study of the organisational development and growth of the Kurdish National Movement in Turkey up to date, this book will be an important reference for students and scholars of Middle Eastern politics, social movements, nationalism and conflict.
The Kurds and US Foreign Policy Charountaki, Marianna
2011, 20101018, 2010, 2010-10-06, 2010-10-18, 20110101, Volume:
31
eBook
This book provides a detailed survey and analysis of US–Kurdish relations and their interaction with domestic, regional and global politics. Using the Kurdish issue to explore the nature of the ...engagement between international powers and weaker non-state entities, the author analyses the existence of an interactive US relationship with the Kurds of Iraq.
Drawing on governmental archives and interviews with political figures both in Northern Iraq and the United States, the author places the case study within a broader International Relations context. The conceptual framework centres on the inter-relations between actors (both state and non-state) and structures of material and ideational kinds, while the detailed survey and analysis of US–Kurdish relations, in their interaction with domestic, regional and global politics, forms the empirical core of the study. Stressing the intertwining of domestic and foreign policy as part of the same set of dynamics, the case study explains the emergence of the interactive and institutionalized US relationship with the Kurds of Iraq that has brought about the formation, within an Iraqi framework, of an undeclared US official Kurdish policy in the post-Saddam era.
Filling a gap in the literature on US–Kurdish relations as well as the broader topic of International Relations, this book will be of great interest to those in the areas of International Relations, Middle Eastern and Kurdish Politics.
1. Introduction 2. The Multi-faceted Nature of the Kurdish Issue 3. US Foreign Policy: Structures, Determinants and Pressures 4. US Foreign Policy Towards the Kurds, 1945-1990 5. US Foreign Policy Toward the Kurds, 1991-2003 6. US and the Kurds in the Post-Saddam Era (2003-2009) 7. Conceptual Implications and General Conclusions
Marianna Charountaki completed her PhD in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. Now an independent scholar working in Athens, Greece, her research interests range from International Relations and foreign policy analysis to the international relations of the broader Middle East.
This article highlights the positive relations between the Jewish and the Kurdish nations, maintained mainly by Kurdistani Jews until their displacement to Israel in the mid-20th century. These ...positive relations have been transmitted through their oral traditions, documented by both communities and travelers to Kurdistan, and validated by several scholars who studied the Jews of the region, Kurdistan, and Jewish-Kurdish relations. The dearth of historical documentation of both societies has resulted in a ‘negative myth’ used by the enemies of the Kurds and the Jews to dehumanize them before the 20th century, and therefore delegitimizing their right to statehood in modern times. From the 16th century onward, there is more solid evidence about the Kurdistani Jews and their relations with Kurdish neighbors. There are considerable and certain parallels between the two nations in terms of their oral traditions as well as linguistic and literary practices. The historical ties between the Jews and their neighbors in Kurdistan formed a fruitful ground for the relations between the Jewish people of Israel and the Kurds since 1948. Despite the exodus of almost the entire Kurdistani Jewish population to the State of Israel, Kurdistani Jews have largely retained their identity, culture, and traditions and have effectively influenced Israel’s policy towards the Kurds. The often-secret relations between the Kurdish movement in Iraq and Israel since 1960 played an important role in the global security policy of the Jewish nation in the Middle East, and in effect served to keep Baghdad from becoming involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict on one hand, and allowed the Kurdish liberation movement in Southern/Iraqi Kurdistan to survive on the other. These ties were reinforced by the sense of a common fate and struggle for statehood, persecution and genocides, feeling of solidarity, mutual strategic interests, humanitarian and economic dimensions, in post-1988 Halabja Massacre, the operation of the US led coalition against Iraq in 1991, and 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Since the Arab Spring, the military interventions against the self-proclaimed caliphate, Islamic State (IS), and the referendum for an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq in 2017, this relationship allegedly has extended to include the relationships between Israel and the Kurds in Western/Syrian and Eastern/Iranian Kurdistan as well. Notably, Israel was the only state that publicly supported the creation of an independent Kurdish state. With all the development the Kurdish question has paved in the 21st century, the article concludes that the majority of the Kurds of the 21st century can be described as a ‘pariah people’ in Max Weber’s definition and meditation of the term and Hannah Arendt’s ‘rightless’, who ‘no longer belong to any community’, while describing the different aspects of the political, economic, and cultural calamity of Jews, refugees, and stateless people at the beginning of the 20th century.
Introduction to the economy of southern Kurdistan -- Labor market policy options of the Kurdistan regional government -- Establishment of national health service in the federal region of Kurdistan -- ...The education sector in the federal region of Kurdistan -- Establishment of science parks in the federal region of Kurdistan -- A model for industrial development of the federal region of Kurdistan -- Foreign direct investment flows to the federal region of Kurdistan -- Recent trends in development at the federal region of Kurdistan -- Realities of economic development in the federal region of Kurdistan.
