Aaron Glantz

ARBIL, Iraq – Fresh from their success at the polls, Iraq’s two main Kurdish political parties have put forward 72-year-old Jalal Talabani as their candidate for the presidency of Iraq. If he succeeds in winning the post, it will be a fitting coda to one of Iraq’s most colorful careers. Born into a prominent Kurdish … Continue reading “The Next President of Iraq?”

ARBIL, Iraq – The George W. Bush administration and the Turkish government did their best to kiss and make up this week. After days of saber-rattling from Ankara over Kurdish domination in Kirkuk, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared shoulder to shoulder with her Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, yesterday. "Friends have differences from time … Continue reading “Violence Leaves Long Lines at Gas Pumps”

AINKAWA, Northern Iraq – Zaid Suleyman, a 34-year-old taxi driver, sits in the administration office of St. Joseph’s, an Assyrian Christian church in the Kurdish-controlled north of Iraq. He and his wife fled the capital, Baghdad, for the comparative peace of this region in September, and have been renting a room from an elderly church … Continue reading “Iraqi Christians Flee to Safer Ground”

KIRKUK – Kurds are declaring victory after elections in Iraq’s northern oil-rich city, Kirkuk, but other groups in the multi-ethnic city are not ready to concede. Some allege massive voter fraud. "This election was done without any oversight from the United Nations," says Ali Mahdi, an officer in the Iraqi Turkmen Front, the largest party … Continue reading “Non-Kurds Allege Vote Fraud in North”

KIRKUK – "When someone has the power, he will take everything," says retired soldier Mohammed Hassan Mohammed in a Shia mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Like most Shia Arabs in this oil-rich city, his family came here in the 1980s during Saddam’s massive campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kurds. Like most … Continue reading “Arabs Fear Kirkuk Purge”

KIRKUK – Two members of Kurdish parties are touring a soccer stadium turned refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Iraq’s northern oil-rich city Kirkuk on a sunny morning. They are carrying a petition asking Kurds whether they want ethnic federalism in Iraq or Kurdish independence. The politics of freedom is very much in the … Continue reading “Kurds Serious About Independence; Arabs Worry About Expulsion”

ARBIL – It is 8:30 in the morning, and the roads of Arbil appear for a moment to be eerily silent. Most cars have been banned from the streets of this Kurdish city of 800,000. Roadblocks are up all over town. But the city is hardly abandoned. The local peshmerga guerillas are out in force. … Continue reading “Kurds Make a Strong Showing in Relative Safety”

ARBIL, Northern Iraq, (IPS) – Many Kurds in Northern Iraq are facing new threats – and they do not come from masked Arab terrorists. They come from the two main Kurdish parties doing all they can to gain strength in the election Sunday, independent local journalists and opposition politicians say. Kurds are voting for the … Continue reading “This Democracy Could Be Paper-Thin”

ARBIL, Kurdistan – The afternoon call to prayer sounds on the final Friday before election on Sunday, and thousands of Kurds across Northern Iraq file into their mosques. At each one of them, imams appointed by the ruling Kurdish factions give the same message: go out and vote. "Vote, vote, and vote for all the … Continue reading “Worried Turkey Keeps Close Watch Over Kurdistan”

ARBIL – Tensions in the northern Iraqi city Kirkuk have reached breaking point after Arab parties announced they will boycott the election Jan. 30. The boycott is potentially explosive. The Arab population of Kirkuk was settled there largely as a move by the Saddam regime to dilute the Kurdish strength in this oil-rich region. Kirkuk … Continue reading “Cracks Surfacing Fast in Iraq’s North”