Kurdistan confronts enemies within and without

Kurdistan faces many obstacles as it seeks to realise its untapped oil and gas potential

IRAQ’S autonomous Kurdish provinces are held up as a symbol of what the country as a whole should look like: largely free of violence, politically stable, pro-Western and increasingly prosperous. The only danger facing Western visitors walking down the main street of Sulaymaniya, eastern Kurdistan’s largest city, is being run over by the supersized SUVs that are now de rigueur for Kurds of any standing. But the Kurds’ attempts to build an oil industry from scratch are proving harder to realise. And with the fate of the jewel in the crown of northern Iraq’s hydrocarbons firmament – the region around Kirkuk – still uncertain, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG's) designs on becoming an i