“The decision has been criticised,” Qadir readily admits. “But we are ready to discuss the decision with anyone who wants to. We do not intend for any Arab-majority in Sulaymaniyah and we are also aware that such a thing could be dangerous in areas like the disputed territories,” he says; here Qadir is talking about land that Iraqi Kurdistan believes should belong to the region but which Iraq says belongs to the federal state.
As it is, it seems that the numbers of internally displaced Iraqis, many of whom fled to Iraqi Kurdistan for safety, are dropping anyway. As the extremist Islamic State, or IS, group is pushed out of central Iraq, many people are hoping to return home and some are actually doing so. Recent figures, provided by Qadir’s office, show that where there were once 500,000 displaced people in the Kurdish region it is thought there are only about 386,000 now.
“It’s a good decision,” says Salam Khaled, a journalist originally from Fallujah, who moved to Iraqi Kurdistan three years ago with his family. “The Arabs of Iraq are searching for a stable place to invest in. It will only improve coexistence,” he says, adding that he does not believe the Kurdish are racists.
On the opposite side of the argument there are people like Mashxal Kaulusy, a writer and political analyst.
Comments are closed.