Understanding and managing intra-state territorial contestation: Iraq's disputed territories in comparative perspective

“有争议的伊拉克领土”是一个有争议的、不稳定的问题，对英国国家安全的重要性与日俱增，会对地区产生更广泛的影响。这场争执影响到更广泛的中东不稳定，并在伊拉克和库尔德斯坦地区的能源安全和经济利益方面符合英国和欧洲的利益。伊拉克的稳定是英国外交政策关注的一个关键问题，尽管近年来它的知名度有所下降。关键问题仍未解决，也许最紧迫的问题是库尔德斯坦地区的领土范围、库尔德斯坦地区与巴格达的关系以及这块石油资源丰富的领土的安全和资源管理。这一特殊问题的中心地位还源于“库尔德问题”对地区的更广泛影响，该问题也影响到土耳其(北约盟国)、伊朗和叙利亚。该项目考察了有争议领土的动态--内部方面是当地社区的社会和政治愿望，外部方面是它们与巴格达和埃尔比勒(库尔德斯坦地区首府)的联系，这两个权力极的利益，以及它们的区域和全球互动。它这样做的目的是评估目前的提议(包括联合国2009年提交的提议和库尔德人提出的就有争议领土举行全民公投的要求)，以解决仍然存在的危险的政治僵局，同时提出经验丰富的比较分析，以帮助制定可能有助于管理争端的方法。这一分析集中在三个相互关联的问题上，我们认为这三个问题是争论的核心：(1)社区动员和表达当地愿望，即该地区的人民在其治理、社会经济供应和总体未来方面想要什么？(2)库尔德斯坦地区政府(KRG)和伊拉克政府(Goi)在“安全”和自然资源开采方面的利益，以及(3)邻国和区域大国(即土耳其、伊朗、叙利亚、关于库尔德斯坦地区的地位及其作为伊拉克境内存在的自治实体或已脱离伊拉克的独立实体的整体地位，国际社会(包括伊拉克和阿拉伯海湾国家)以及区域外和全球大国(特别是美国和英国)的意见。有了这一套理解，研究然后考虑了不同利益集团为解决问题而提出的当前选择。在撰写本文时，有两项提案已经获得了巨大的吸引力。首先是KRG和那些倾向于反对政府的伊拉克政治力量，即执行规定了解决有争议领土地位的路线图的相关宪法条款(第140条)。在(A)如何执行该条，以及(B)执行(或不执行)该条的影响方面，在执行该条方面存在着各种各样的问题。现有的第二套备选方案是联合国伊拉克援助团(联伊援助团)在2009年提出的备选方案。在争议领土进行深入实地考察后，联伊援助团提交了一系列可能的权力分享方案，所有这些方案都被伊拉克利益攸关方以当时的政治敏感性为由拒绝。我们认为，有必要对这些建议进行系统和比较分析，以确定其适当性，以此作为问题的可能解决办法。我们将根据在分裂社会中管理领土争端的现状对这些建议进行分析，从而能够思考哪些被认为是可行和可行的有关体制设计的备选方案，以及如何将这些方案应用于伊拉克有争议领土的具体情况。

The 'disputed territories of Iraq' are a contentious and destabilizing issue with wider regional ramifications of increasing national security importance to the UK. The contestation impacts upon broader Middle East instabilities, and is of interest to the UK and Europe in terms of energy security and economic interests in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. The stability of Iraq is a critical UK foreign policy concern, even though in recent years it has diminished in visibility. Key issues remain unresolved, with perhaps the most pressing being the territorial extent of the Kurdistan Region, its relationship with Baghdad, and the management of security and resources in this oil-rich territory. The centrality of this particular issue also derives from the wider regional implications of the "Kurdish question" that also affects Turkey (a NATO ally), and Iran and Syria. This project examines the dynamics of the disputed territories - internally in terms of the social and political aspirations of communities there, and 'externally', in terms of their links with Baghdad and Erbil (the capital of the Kurdistan Region), and the interests of these two power poles, plus their regional and global interactions. It does so with a view to assessing current proposals (including those submitted by the UN in 2009 and Kurdish demands for a referendum on the disputed territories) to resolve what remains a dangerous political stand-off, while presenting an empirically rich and comparative analysis to assist in the formulation of approaches that may assist in the management of the dispute. This analysis focuses upon three inter-related issues which we contend lie at the core of the contestation: (1) communal mobilization and the articulation of local aspirations, i.e. what do people in this territory want, in terms of their governance, socio-economic provision, and overall future? (2) the interests of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Government of Iraq (GoI), in terms of 'security' and natural resource exploitation, and (3) the influence of neighbouring and regional powers (namely Turkey, Iran, Syria, and the Arab Gulf states) and of extra-regional and global powers (especially the US and UK) on the status of the Kurdistan Region and its overall status as either an autonomous entity existing inside Iraq, or an independent entity having seceded from Iraq. With this set of understandings in place, the research then considers the current options that have been posited by different interest groups for the resolution of the problem. At the time of writing, two proposals have gathered significant traction. The first is that by the KRG and those political forces in Iraq that tend to stand in opposition to the government, namely the implementation of relevant constitutional articles that specified a roadmap for the resolution of the status of the disputed territories (Article 140). There exist a myriad range of problems regarding the implementation of this article in terms of (a) how the article could be implemented, and (b) the impact of the implementation (or lack of implementation) of the article. The second set of options that exist are those presented by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) in 2009. Following in-depth fieldwork in the disputed territories, UNAMI submitted a range of possible power-sharing options, all of which were rejected by Iraqi stakeholders for reasons of political sensitivity at the time. We contend that these proposals warrant systematic and comparative analysis to identify their appropriateness as possible solutions to the problem. We will base our analysis of these proposals on the current state of the art in relation to the management of territorial disputes in divided societies, thus being able to reflect on what are considered feasible and viable options for relevant institutional designs and how these may be applied in the specific context of Iraq's disputed territories.