Northern Iraq Autonomy and Its Impacts for the Neighboring Ethnocentric Movements

With the establishment of safe zone in April 1991 the sovereignty of the Bath Party over the 36th parallel north was eliminated and an autonomous government was established in the said region. The formation of an autonomous government in the region and its establishment in the Iraqi Constitution along with the recognition of this government within the framework of federalism, legal recognition of the Kurdish military forces and Kurdish language, and the participation of the Kurds in the hierarchy of central government turned KRG into an affective element in the whole Iraqi political system. The present paper will study the impact of this government on the ethnocentric movements in the neighboring areas.