Resources > Articles and Commentary

Iraqi Kurds ramp up calls for independence

Alia Soliman

Zaid Al-Ali, senior advisor on constitution building at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, told Ahram Online that Kurdish calls for independence have not changed significantly since 2003.

“Under current circumstances no serious attempt will be made to achieve independence today, there are many reasons for that including that all regional powers would be opposed to Kurdish independence,” Al-Ali explained.

Kurdish independence from Iraq is considered a dilemma for regional powers as the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan will certainly encourage the three other Kurdish regions distributed in Turkey, Iran and Syria to seek not only independence but unification as well as a unified single country called “Kurdistan.”

Kurdistan would then rise as a regional power creating a new order in the Middle East — one unpredictable for existing powers.

Meet the Author

Zaid Al-Ali has been practicing law since 1999, specializing in international commercial arbitration and comparative constitutional law.

Author Zaid Al-Ali and his wife Rouba Beydoun during a dust storm in Iraq in 2010.

He has law degrees from Harvard Law School, the Université de Paris I (Sorbonne), and King’s College London. From 2005 to 2010, he was a legal adviser to the United Nations focusing on constitutional, parliamentary, and judicial reform in Iraq. Since the beginning of 2011, he has been working on constitutional reform throughout the Arab region, in particular in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. He has published widely on Iraq and on constitutional law.

Keep updated

If you’d like to receive occasional email updates please fill in the fields below.