APPG Kurdistan

The most common question asked as a regular visitor to Iraqi Kurdistan is whether it or all Kurds can, will or wish to be independent. It reflects the long struggle of the Kurds to maintain their identity in often hostile circumstances but it is looking at the issue the wrong way round.

Complex cases are often framed overseas by a somewhat simplistic folk memory that hasn’t kept up with changing circumstances. For instance, many outside observers used to believe that the answer to the Irish question was unifying the two parts of the island. That may one day be the answer but the first issue that had to be settled was how the people of Northern Ireland could overcome their tragic history as equals. And how the two parts of Ireland could co-operate for mutual benefit. The imposition of a solution that disadvantaged one side could have caused more conflict and bloodshed.

It is highly improbable that the Kurds in connected areas in four well established countries – Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria – could form a new country, given realpolitik and increasingly divergent histories and dialects. This assumes that that they achieve full equality in each of those countries. The process of resolving historical differences in Turkey, where the vast majority of Kurds live, could do that.
Independence for the officially recognised autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan is more feasible. It is already independent in all but name. It has its own army, flag, parliament, President, airports, foreign representatives and foreign envoys in its capital. Iraqi flags flutter in official meetings but it is hard to believe that you are in Iraq.

Breaking with Baghdad is an aspiration – a poem, a dream as many say – of most Iraqi Kurds. This is hardly surprising because the British forcibly incorporated them into Iraq nearly a century ago to help balance relations between the Sunnis and the Shias in the Arab south and to add a very different geographical profile – mountains, cooler climate and rivers.

Throughout the last century, the Iraqi Kurds were derided, neglected and suffered a brutal campaign of genocide. The most notorious example of this was the chemical weapons attack on Halabja in March 1988 in which 5,000 people were killed in an instant. An estimated 182,000 people were murdered in 1987-1988.

The British Parliament last year formally recognised the genocide. Two members of the US Congress have tabled a bipartisan resolution urging the House of Representatives and the government to recognise the genocide. In November 2013, Representatives Chris Van Hollen and Marsha Blackburn introduced resolution (H.RES.422) which also reaffirms friendship between the United States and the Kurdish people in Iraq.

When Iraq was liberated in 2003, the Kurds could have opted to go their own way. Instead, they decided, in the words of their Minister of Natural Resources, Ashti Hawrami to remarry Iraq, although it had been a very abusive partner for decades. The Kurdish leadership made it clear that they would remain in Iraq as long as it was federal and democratic. They played a critical role in enshrining these in the Iraqi constitution, agreed by the Iraqi people in 2005. They helped broker settlements that formed a national unity government led by Prime Minister, Nouri Al Maliki. They are active in the government and Parliament in Baghdad, which is guarded by their efficient troops – the Peshmerga (those who face death).

Yet the question of independence keeps popping up. The reason for the renewed focus is that the Kurds have decided to make the most of their recently uncovered natural resources of oil and gas by building a new pipeline. This can take these plentiful resources to market in Turkey, which requires them to fuel its fast-growing economy and become a new energy hub.

The Kurds are seeking economic independence but are making it abundantly clear that the oil and gas remains the property of the Iraqi people as a whole. They want to transparently measure the flow and seek a new, reliable and robust revenue sharing law that allocates the revenues fairly and proportionately. They are acting within the Iraqi constitution.

There has been much overblown rhetoric about this but it now seems possible that Baghdad and Erbil can come to an agreement about how Iraq as a whole can benefit from the Kurdish success in building their energy sector from scratch in just a few years.

Economic independence can cement the country together but America opposes this. The reason given is that it could be transformed into political independence. The U.S.A. fears that this could upset the apple cart and drive a divided Iraq further into the arms of Iran. The counter-argument is that failure to fully implement federalism could drive the Kurds into independence.

America is respected in Kurdistan, whose leaders followed their advice in seeking better relations with Turkey, but they point out that official American analysis is behind the times. They should, to use an old Irish phrase, catch themselves on and examine how the Kurds are seeking, yes, to defend and promote their interests but are also seeking to build a new Iraq based on partnership and power-sharing as a federal and binational country. Getting the analysis the right way round is the prerequisite for American influence and support securing a decent outcome in Iraq after so many years of dictatorship and suffering.

Gary Kent is the Director in the British Parliament of its all-party group on the Kurdistan Region in Iraq and has visited Iraqi Kurdistan 16 times since 2006, mainly as a guest of the Kurdistan Regional Government and twice to Baghdad as a guest of the Prime Minister and his Islamic Dawa Party. He writes in a personal capacity.

In November I visited for the sixth time the Kurdistan Region of Iraq with the All-Party Parliamentary Group to examine the current issues facing the region. For me the contrast with my first visit was astonishing and heartening. The first few visits it was easy to feel something of a pioneer – few Western faces and a region slowly waking after a long sleep. Today there is the modern airport terminal and several new five star hotels, each with lobbies full of business people, local and Western, discussing developments and deals.

In amongst the business people there are the growing numbers of tourists. Just two years ago we were amazed to meet some tourists from London out in the countryside, now they wouldn’t stand out. The roads throng with new cars, new housing estates proliferate and down town Erbil is buzzing. As with any booming economy the sky line is full of cranes – offices, hotels, homes, roads all under construction.

Unlike many post conflict countries Iraq doesn’t have to rely on international aid to help rebuild its economy. Oil and gas are plentiful and the development of fields throughout the country will provide a strong source of revenue for decades to come. However the politics of this are difficult as the Government in Baghdad seeks to control all of the country’s oil exports. The Kurdistan Regional Government is supposed to receive 17% of all Iraq’s oil revenues, but this has been a contentious issue with frequent delays in payment to the region.

We visited the Taq Taq oil field run by the Taq Taq Operations Company and Turkish British oil company Genel. The oil is known as the “champagne” of Kurdistan as it is very light and to date all the operational wells flow naturally. Of the 500 employees on site around 400 are local people with only 100 being expats. Employees are hired from local villages and trained by the company for their roles, ensuring that the financial benefits are shared with local communities.

It is expected that there will be 18 wells producing around 200,000 barrels a day. The Kurdistan Region has a target of 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2015, and 2 million barrels by 2019. Already this one oil field produces around a sixth of Turkey’s daily oil needs and a new oil pipeline to Turkey will be in operation shortly. Turning on the tap for this pipeline might be seen as a Kurdish act of defiance by the Government in Baghdad, nonetheless there was a confidence in the region that oil would begin flowing sometime in December.

Unlike the rest of Iraq, the Kurdistan region has gone years without terrorist attacks but at the end of September Al Qaeda did make it through security. The Interior Minister told us that during the election period the sheer numbers of people moving around had made it possible for the terrorists to reach Erbil. Their target was the regional Government’s security forces headquarters; however they didn’t make it through the outer gates. Guards suspected an attack and began shooting at the terrorists – six Kurds died with one guard sacrificing himself by embracing a suicide bomber to stop him getting any further and killing more people.

Despite this tragic single incident the economy continues to grow helping the region’s stability enormously, including importantly its relationship with Turkey. In the recent past relations between the Kurds and Turkey were so bad that around 200,000 Turkish troops were on the border, now 200,000 people from Turkey work in the region.

When our group met the President of the region, Massoud Barzani, he did not hide his pessimism about the Iraqi political situation following elections, due early next year. He does not think much will change, and described the country as being divided between Kurds, Sunni and Shia with little enthusiasm for building bridges between communities. He was also very pessimistic about the situation in Syria. The perception in Kurdistan is that the response by the Syrian regime to the international community in relation to chemical weapons leaves them to pursue their war on the people unhindered.

During our visit we met representatives of five Syrian Kurdish groups who are part of the Syrian opposition coalition. They were keen to stress that there is an organised opposition in Syria, and that this is different to the Al Qaeda terrorist groups who are exploiting the situation. Ideally they would like each of the groups represented in the Geneva 2 talks, currently there is a limit of one Kurdish representative. They understood that the West will not supply arms, but were keen to stress the opposition of the majority of Kurdish groups to the Syrian regime.

The immediate impact in the region of the conflict in Syria has been a massive influx of refugees. Kurdistan is very welcoming to them as many of the local population have experienced being refugees themselves. Much of the support to the refugees is being funded by the Kurdish Regional Government and not international aid agencies and governments. As in other countries in the Middle East around half of the refugees are not living in camps but in urban areas.

Our visit to the Domiz refugee camp showed an effective system trying to support families who have been uprooted from homes with no prospect of an early return. 75,000 people live, work and go to school there. The services are not sufficient but there is evidence of significant support from the Kurdish Regional Government, the local Governorate and international agencies.

The Kurdistan region is not without its own political tensions. Following the recent local elections discussions are still underway about forming a regional government. We met several newly elected MPs who are keen to take up their roles but are waiting for the discussions to arrive at a conclusion. This is still a relatively new democracy, finding its way. On the positive side there is huge potential – increasing trade and a thriving economy. Yet it continues to exist in a difficult neighbourhood trying to keep its citizens safe with a deadly war on its borders and increasing terrorist attacks in the rest of Iraq.

A complex diplomatic dance between three old foes at the heart of the Middle East that involves many billions and very high political stakes began to emerge this week at an historic event in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq.

The event was the third annual Kurdistan-Iraq oil and gas conference in a place which had no energy industry just a decade ago and which is now seen as the last frontier of onshore oil production in the world.

The prestigious conference was attended by nearly a thousand senior energy executives, including from nearly 60 foreign companies in the region, and by senior diplomats. But all eyes were on the energy ministers for Turkey and Kurdistan, Taner Yildiz and Ashti Hawrami respectively.

The first remarkable point is that Yildiz was at the conference. Last year, the aviation authorities in Baghdad pointedly banned him flying into Erbil in a crude and counterproductive display of sovereignty. This year, the minister first flew to Baghdad to meet ministers before visiting the conference in Erbil.

The evidently good personal chemistry between Yildiz and Hawrami is testimony to a long sought-for and radical reshaping of relations between Turkey and Kurdistan. Just a few years back they were near to armed conflict with strong fears that success for Iraqi Kurdistan would encourage separatist Kurds in Turkey.

However, the development of a brand new energy sector with about five per cent of the world’s oil and a century of gas has irreversibly changed the equation. Turkey is seeking to become a world economic giant but has few energy resources itself and needs reliable supplies from its neighbour. Turkey becoming a new hub for secure and diverse energy supplies will also benefit Europe and the UK.

In the past year, Kurdistan has been trucking oil to Turkey. The road to the border is jammed with lorries and tankers and Turkey is the principal trading partner of the Iraqi Kurds.
But trucking is not a sustainable export route and in the last year a new pipeline has been constructed. It is now ready, tested and tried and will export up to 350,000 barrels of oil per day in the coming year. This could rise to two million bpd in the coming years. The Kurdistan region will soon become a net contributor to federal coffers in Baghdad and account for a substantial proportion of the much-needed oil revenues of the country.

Yet some in Baghdad, where successive regimes have repressed the Kurds and conducted genocide, are wary and suspicious. Many retain a Baghdad-knows-best approach and chide the Kurds for smuggling oil and acting outside the federal constitution agreed in 2005. They claim that the Kurds will transform economic into political independence.

The Kurds feel they have waited long enough to see the fruits of their natural wealth. There are huge pent-up demands for infrastructure – schools, hospitals, roads, bridges – as well as diversifying their economic base through developing tourism and agriculture. Some public services are far ahead of those in the rest of the country but improving the quality of health and education is a priority for its people.

The Kurds insist that they have the right to exploit and export energy as they see fit within the constitution while all revenues are shared by the Iraqi people. The Kurds should receive 17 per cent of all revenues, though this is about 10 per cent in practice. The sticking point with the export revenues is how Turkey pays for them. Do revenues go to Baghdad or to Erbil to be shared out or can they be held in a state account in Turkey until Erbil and Baghdad finally agree a robust and reliable revenue sharing formula? Maximum transparency can reassure the federal government that exports are properly measured and monetised.

Behind these technical matters is a debate about whether Iraq can stay together. The Kurds insist that Iraq as a whole will benefit from their greater economic dynamism which flows from their superior security having enjoyed a headstart over the rest of the country – Saddam Hussein left in 1991. Their prime minister Nechirvan Barzani told the conference that it is ‘very difficult to trust anyone who wants to decide our destiny’ and that its new energy sector means that ‘the door has been opened to the world.’ He added that the Kurdistan region was a ‘security pillar of Iraq.’

An amicable resolution, supported by Ankara, is eminently achievable without anyone losing face. We can then come to see this hiatus as a storm in a teacup before Iraq finally accepted that it is a binational and federal country and that all will gain from the new natural wealth of the Kurds and their new links with the Turks. It is a win-win position which can turn foes into friends and is now moving towards its finale.

As Yildiz put it: ‘let’s not break each others’ hearts but talk to each other.’ Given the old hatreds and rivalries in the Ankara-Erbi-Baghdad triangle this will be an historic volte-face and one that could transform the Middle East.

Gary Kent is director of the all-party parliamentary group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq, and is writing from Erbil on his 18th trip to Iraq since 2006. He writes in a personal capacity.

Last week during the short Parliamentary recess I visited the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. I was impressed with the peaceful situation, booming economy, social, health and infrastructure development.

Domiz refugee camp Kurdistan Twenty years ago the Kurds had to flee from Saddam Hussein into the mountains and to Turkey. The democratic Kurdish Regional Government are proud of those in Britain who helped their liberation. Today they host 250,000 refugees fleeing from another brutal Baathist, Bashar Assad and the civil war in Syria.

I saw the Domiz refugee camp where 75,000 including 13,000 children live in densely packed crowded temporary shelters with no prospect of an early return home. Despite the welcome agreement to remove chemical weapons, over 120,000 have died and 7 million Syrians forced from their homes, including 4 million into neighbouring countries with little prospect of an early ceasefire or political solution.

http://www.mikegapes.org.uk/column-for-ilford-recorder-21-november-2013

Just five years ago, 100,000 Turkish troops were poised on the border with the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Today 200,000 Turkish workers live there as employees of hundreds of Turkish companies that are taking advantage of its booming economy.

Last week, the Kurdistan region’s President Barzani made an historic trip to the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in eastern Turkey for a joint appearance with Turkish prime minister Erdogan. A once banned Kurdish singer provided the music as Kurdish and Turkish flags fluttered together.

Very soon, oil will flow from the Kurdistan region by pipeline into Turkey, further boosting Iraqi prosperity and supplying Turkey with much needed energy resources. The Taq Taq field in Iraqi Kurdistan, which I visited with a cross-party group of MPs last week, has the capacity to provide much of Turkey’s daily energy needs and is operated by an Anglo-Turkish company, Genel Energy.

These warmer links between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey, where most Kurds live, can also bolster the slow peace process between the Turkish government and Abdullah Ocalan’s PKK, which is on ceasefire.

Commerce is overcoming ancient enmities and tensions. Policy makers should catch up with the implications of the historic rapprochement between the Kurdistan region of Iraq and Turkey – a rare bright spot in the Middle East.

However, there is many a slip twixt cup and lip. Some in Baghdad have long been suspicious of and obstructive towards the successes of the Kurdistan region, although its leaders decided when Iraq was liberated to remain in Iraq – a tough call given the genocidal campaign waged against them from Baghdad, chiefly by Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders have done much to consolidate the country as a whole and have brokered deals that have given Baghdad what stability it has. But successive deals have been dishonoured by Baghdad. Pathways to solve the issue of the status of disputed territories such as Kirkuk, which was forcibly Arabised in the 1960s, have been kicked into the long grass. The Kurds are entitled to 17 per cent of all Iraqi revenues but generally receive about 10 per cent and not reliably and don’t benefit proportionately from pan-Iraq programmes.

Some in Baghdad describe the export of oil on Kurdish territory as smuggling and Baghdad may yet seek to block exports to Turkey. The Kurds are adamant that all they do is within the law, as laid down in the 2005 constitution endorsed overwhelmingly by the Iraqi people. The many major international companies would not be in Kurdistan if they thought their contracts were illegal.

In any case, the oil and gas remains the property of the Iraqi people, however it is exported, and Baghdad will get its fair share. The country as a whole can benefit from Kurdish dynamism. Some in Baghdad claim that economic independence will lead to the Kurds declaring UDI. This is difficult for what would be a landlocked country and its neighbours probably wouldn’t back it.

Yet, bureaucratic obstruction of Kurdish growth could make this fear a self-fulfilling prophecy. The best way to keep the Kurds is to acknowledge their rights and allow them to succeed.

Nothing much will change before the scheduled parliamentary elections across Iraq in April 2014. But once they are concluded, friends of Iraq should support full implementation of federalism that can assist the Kurds as they make further historic change for the benefit of themselves, Iraq and the wider Middle East.

Gary Kent is director of the all-party parliamentary group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq, which he has visited three times this year. He writes in a personal capacity. – See more at: http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2013/11/22/progress-in-kurdistan/#sthash.G8KmV09w.dpuf

Please take a look at this uplifting video of a recent Kurdish schools delegation to the King Edward VI school in Bury St Edmunds whose students and teachers have been visiting schools in the Kurdistan Region as part of their international work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly4pWJXu-bI&feature=youtu.be

London ¬– “The historic news that the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and its neighbour, Turkey have concluded a comprehensive agreement to build oil and gas pipelines to ship the autonomous region’s rich hydrocarbon reserves to world markets” has been formally welcomed in a motion in the British Parliament.

The Early Day Motion, tabled by Robert Halfon MP – a senior Conservative MP and old friend of the Kurdistan Region – “warmly welcomes” the news and cites several positive consequences of the deals.

The motion says that it “could allow the Kurdistan Region to export two million barrels per day of oil to world markets and at least 10 billion cubic metres per year of gas to Turkey in a move that will increase the security and diversity of energy supplies.”

It further recognises that this represents “a triumph of diplomacy based on hard-headed self-interest between two places which were once at loggerheads” and adds the hope that “it can underpin a successful peace process between Turkey and its Kurds.”

The motion from Mr Halfon, who is Vice-Chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the Kurdistan Region in Iraq, also addresses the fears expressed by some for KRG-Baghdad relations.

The motion “rejects the unreasonable fear that economic independence for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq will lead to the disintegration of Iraq, because the country as a whole will gain from the success of the Kurdistan region, oil will remain the property of the people of Iraq and the proceeds of energy sales will be shared by all according to a much needed and robust revenue sharing formula and a fully-functioning federal system, as outlined in the Iraqi constitution which was approved by the people of Iraq in 2005.”

Mr Halfon’s Early Day Motion was tabled in the immediate wake of the news of the deals between the KRG and Turkey. It will be supported by other parliamentary friends of the Kurdistan Region as well as MPs from all parties in the days to come.

The Early Day Motion is a parliamentary mechanism that allows MPs to put opinions on the record and can then be used to raise issues with ministers, in parliamentary questions and debates and to alert the media.

MPs from the all-party parliamentary group, which is sending a delegation to the Kurdistan Region this week, then aim to seek a special debate on progress in the Kurdistan Region, including this historic news.

The full text is at http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2013-14/693

The Guardian recently published an article by Rachel Shabi (Iraq needs leadership worthy of its people, 25 October). http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/24/iraq-leadership-people-death-toll-unity

The following response from the APPG Co-Chairs, Meg Munn MP and Nadhim Zahawi MP has been sent.

An article on Iraq that fails to mention its Kurdistan Region just won’t do. This region of the country has been harnessing its resources and providing for its population almost continuous power, including supplying to neighbouring provinces. It ensures superlative public safety and enjoys a booming economy built on developing its oil and gas industry. Crucially, old enmities with Turkey are being overcome.

It has been able to do this and work positively within Iraq as a whole. Its leaders have played a decisive role in brokering political solutions in Baghdad in order that the central government could function. There has been a protracted dispute with some in the national capital about the region’s quest for economic independence – devo max. This is part of the debate with Iraq as a whole about the role and reach of a federal structure, and how to ensure reliable revenue-sharing mechanisms.

But any reasonable picture of Iraq should include the possibility that the Kurdistan Region could provide a model to the rest of the country as it seeks to escape from its tragic past.

Meg Munn MP (Lab) and Nadhim Zahawi MP (Con)
Co-Chairs, All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Kurdistan Region in Iraq

The Jewish Chronicle – Fri, 11 Oct 2013

In August, the Prime Minister gave an interesting response to a question from the campaigning Harlow MP, Robert Halfon, about intervention in Syria.
Among other things, Mr Halfon is the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Kurdistan Region in Iraq, and he asked the Prime Minister about the Halabja massacre in March 1988, when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurdish people with horrific consequences.

“Does he not agree,” said Mr Halfon, “that there is a humanitarian case for intervention, especially given what happened in recent history in Halabja in 1988, when 5,000 Kurds were killed with mustard gas?”

David Cameron replied: “I applaud my honourable friend for always standing up against genocide, wherever it takes place in the world. It may well be that the fact that no action was taken over Halabja was one of the things that convinced President Assad that it was OK to build up an arsenal of chemical weapons.”

The response was interesting not just because the Prime Minister was prepared to make the link between international inaction over Halabja and the events in Syria, but because he used the G-word to describe what happened 25 years ago in Iraq.

In February, Parliament voted to recognise the Kurdish genocide and survivors have been campaigning for the UK government to issue a formal recognition.
The UK High Representative of the Kurdish regional government, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, has now written to Mr Cameron to ask him to clarify whether he now recognises the Halbja massacre as genocide.

“If that is the case,” she wrote, “it will be warmly welcomed by the people of Kurdistan and all those who believe in the protection of human rights.”

I believe the Jewish community, like Robert Halfon, should fully support this campaign (not least because Saddam’s murderous “Anfal” operation also targeted Jews).

I understand the importance of recognising the unique horror of the Shoah and do not agree with those who believe a Genocide Day should replace the annual Holocaust Memorial event.

But I do not see how a recognition of the Saddam’s genocidal attack on his own people detracts from the suffering of the Jewish people under Hitler.

I have long thought that schoolchildren should study Halabja alongside the atrocities of the Nazi era in order to understand that this is something that can always happen again if good people do not remain vigilant. I hope Ms Rahman receives the response she and her people deserve.

http://uk.krg.org/articles/detail.aspx?lngnr=12&anr=36868

Brighton, UK (UK.KRG.org) – The Kurdistan Region is emerging as a player in its neighbourhood and offers massive potential to the UK, according to Ian Lucas, the UK Opposition Labour party’s Shadow Middle East Minister.

Mr Lucas was speaking recently at the Labour party’s annual conference in Brighton. He was part of a panel discussing the Kurdistan Region and energy security at a fringe meeting organised by the Kurdistan Regional Government UK Representation and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Kurdistan Region.

Other speakers were Lord Glasman and Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the KRG High Representative to the UK. The meeting was chaired by Gary Kent, director of the APPG on Kurdistan.

Shadow Middle East Minister, Ian Lucas

Speech, fringe meeting, Labour Party Conference

Brighton, September 2013

In many parts of the Middle East, the UK is handicapped by its history: from Iran to Israel, there are those who are suspicious of the UK because of past UK ME policy.

In the region of Iraqi Kurdistan, the position is entirely different. There is a huge well of goodwill towards the UK borne of UK policy towards the Kurds in the last 20 years.

It is in this context that Kurdistan region is developing.

Politically, it is in a tough neighbourhood, next to Syria, to Iran and its traditional foe, Turkey. last June, however, I saw for myself how Iraqi Kurdistan is thriving in that locality. Politically, it has a working relationship with Iran and is redefining its traditional relationship with Turkey.

It is also offering huge support to Syria, support I saw for myself at the Domiz Refugee Camp near the Syrian Border.

It is helped in this process by Kurds returning from across the world to what they see as the new born Kurdistan. I met Kurds returning from Canada, Australia and the United States. They want to be part of building a new country within Iraq.

As English speakers, they are beneficiaries of the Kurds’ thirst for the language – in its media, its universities and its economy. I met with Erbil University’s Vice- Chancellor who had already met with representatives of Glyndwr University in my own town of Wrexham.

What is driving relationships forward is Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil and gas wealth, resources that are at the root of the region’s new bond with Turkey. I saw the road near Duhok, packed with tankers delivering oil. It will shortly be superseded by a new pipeline, a physical expression of the new link between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey.

This emerging player offers massive potential for the UK. Our language and reputation are enormous benefits to the UK : together they offer us a new gateway to the region, a gateway that has not existed before