Iraq Feature: The Critical Issue of Succession in Kurdistan (Van Wilgenburg)

Jalal Talabani & Massoud BarzaniIf you wish to understand the future of Kurdish politics and its significant role in the evolution of democracy in Iraq and the Kurdistan region, then an introduction to the question of succession is essential.

This week's case? Jalal Talabani is both the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Iraqi President. According to Kurdistan Tribune, Talabani has been absent from Iraq when he left for a knee operation on 20 June, feeding speculation about his ill health.

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Iraq Feature: The Collapse of the "Kurdish Spring" (Peterson)

Photo: Shwan Mohammed (AFP/Getty Images)Tucked away in an often-overlooked arc of northern Iraq, Kurds launched their "Kurdish Spring" simply enough in mid-February, in solidarity with Tunisians and Egyptians who had toppled dictatorial rulers. 

But the result here was very different, and hardly looked like an unfolding of freedom. Washington’s close Kurdish allies cracked down hard. After 62 days of street protests, 10 people were dead. The carefully crafted image of Kurdistan as a democratic island in an ocean of regional dictatorship was in tatters.

All that visibly remains of the uprising are a few faded posters of its first victim --- a 16-year-old --- and scorch marks where security forces burned the tents of protesters. But it has deepened the political crisis in this semiautonomous region of northern Iraq.

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Iraq Feature: The Protests in Kurdistan (Salih)

The winds of change sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa have now reached an otherwise peaceful corner of northern Iraq. Nowhere is their arrival more visible than in Bardarki Sara, the central square of Sulaimaniya, which has turned into a venue for mass protests against the authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Inspired by the protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the protesters have renamed their square "Maydani Azadi", the Kurdish equivalent of Tahrir or Liberation Square.

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