The long-standing dispute over an oil-rich Iraqi city may have reached a critical hour as Kurdish Peshmerga forces now claim to have taken control of Kirkuk. As neighbouring countries and the international community scramble for an appropriate response to the so-called Sunni rebellion rapidly gaining ground across Iraq, Kurdish troops have stirred controversy by stepping in to fill what they say was a “security vacuum” in Kirkuk. Indeed, while frightened residents welcomed the move, it has raised pertinent questions over whether Iraq, in its present form, will survive the mayhem. The Kurds, a nation of over 30 million spread across several countries, have maintained a semi-autonomous region in the north of Iraq since a Western no-fly-zone (above the 36th parallel) was imposed at the end of the Gulf war in 1991. In the years since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the […]