Monday 14 July 2014

Kurdish dream still swimming in a sea of ‘sharks’ - FT.com

Kurdish dream still swimming in a sea of ‘sharks’ - FT.com:



"From a compound overlooking Erbil, Taleb Murad Ali looks out at the construction sites sprawling over formerly fertile fields. They are a symbol both of the growth of Iraqi Kurdistan’s regional capital and of the challenges ahead.



“We were the breadbasket of Iraq. Now look at all that concrete . . . we’ve gone from a producing to a consuming unit,” says the agricultural adviser to the prime minister of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.



Economic independence has long been a mantra for Kurds, who have watched countries such as South Sudan founder without a solid development plan beyond exporting oil. But with KRG leaders openly discussing political independence as conflict embroils Iraq’s Shia and Sunni Arabs, the oil-rich region’s struggle for economic viability remains incomplete."



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