Back in the eye of the storm

ENAR

  The quiet and largely peaceful Kurdish region of Iraq was last month thrust back into the spotlight by two events, firstly the somewhat contentious election results and secondly a rare Al-Qaeda attack. Coupled with an influx of refugees from Syria and continued acrimony with Baghdad, such events have once again highlighted Kurdish vulnerability amid the geostrategic games currently being played out in the Middle East. The Kurdistan region’s parliamentary poll on the 21st saw a drop in support for the junior member of the ruling coalition, which led to cries of foul play and some rowdy protests. The election resulted in an advance by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) the leading political grouping in Iraq's Kurdish region, while its coalition partner the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) fell behind, overtaken by Gorran (Kurdish for “change”), a relatively new opposition movement. The KDP, led by the President of the Kurdish