Once again the Kurdistan becomes a sensitive issue in the international arena after more than 90% of the kurdish people said yes to their independence from Iraq and to gain their long desired statehood, raising the ire from pivotal players in the region like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and well, once again the U.S. opposes the kurdistan statehood.
But Russia and Israel are the only ones so far to recognise this, and even before this referendum, state oil company ROSNEFT was announcing deals with Kurdistan Regional Government. Foreseeing something maybe? Truth is Russia has been expanding its role in the MENA region, for lovers or haters, friends or foes, to the dismay of the U.S.
So far, Baghdad, and Tehran specifically have announced in a fanfare of statements angrily their rejection of this and calling for the annulment of the results, closing of air spaces and other steps in order to coerce Erbil back from this action and from the GCC states reactions of this sort have also been at the order of the day, since separatism and desires of independence have never fit well into monarchies projects and plans, especially having a kaleidoscope of religions and ethnic groups, many times under arbitrarily drawn borders. And precisely Kurdistan represents this and with geopolitical implications for Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.
Its true that the Kurdistan Regional Government claims that historically they are a different people religiously and ethnically speaking from Baghdad, but here oil, gas and natural resources as in other separatist cases in the world play a crucial role in their aspirations to become a state and will definitely cut off resources from Baghdad mainly depriving it from resources to the central government.
Counting with approximately 50 billions of barrels of reserves of oil, its no wonder why Baghdad has been extremely worried at this step by Kurdistan and the government of Barzani. Already, the KRG has been going solo giving away bidding contracts with IOC's and NOC's. No easy task then for Baghdad and Ankara. Syria probably would find a way to negotiate with Erbil in this regard.
Not surprisingly Washington once again rejected this move and wont recognise this, since this is not the first time the White House and the Pentagon have used and leveraged on the peshmergas, kurdish warriors, in order to attain their strategic goals in the region vis a vis the former dictator Saddam Hussein, and other hotspots, and then forgetting about their claims for statehood. But interestingly, Israel, traditional ally of Washington supports this move, which might seem logic, since fuelling this independence move will instil more instability to its longstanding foes, Tehran and Baghdad, hence for Tel Aviv, this seems geopolitically speaking.
It will be interesting in the coming weeks the reactions from other strategic players in the region like China as important oil importer from Iraq and also from Germany, where a significant kurdish diaspora resides towards this move and also what further actions will do Moscow in regards to this move by Erbil, in a period of high instability in the region. But definitely Kurdistan referendum is causing and will still produce shockwaves that will configure the new geopolitics of the MENA.
In this sense, this weekend Iraq along with Iranian forces invaded Kirkuk, which holds the main oil wells in the Kurdistan soil and as of today, according to news outlets took control of the city, which might have important consequences for the geopolitical dynamics of the region and already has seen impacts for the oil prices.
Hence, will be critical to see the consequences for the war on ISIS in Syria and Iraq and across the region as the peshmergas were an important key asset in the struggle against ISIS for the West and also Russia, if their cause for statehood keeps being betrayed and discarded over and over again.
