ARBIL (Iraq): In Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region the official line is clear: there is no question of declaring independence. But in the regional capital Arbil, Baghdad seems more distant each passing day.

Bank notes, except where replaced by the US dollar, are the last refuge of the Iraqi flag.

Everywhere else in this region of four million people, spared the violence which has ravaged the rest of Iraq, it is the Kurdish tricolour — green, white and red — which flies. Not a single road sign is in Arabic.

“It is simple, for my students Iraq does not exist,” says Karim Kamar, professor in French at Salaheddin University.

“To feel part of a country, its language should be spoken. However Arabic is no longer even taught. Or if it is, then as a foreign language — a little less even than English,” says Kamar.

“For them Iraq is far away, and associated with bad memories. For the man in the street, it is a neighbour one must get along with because it could turn malicious. That’s all. Their country is here.” Equipped under the Iraqi constitution with very broad autonomy, the Kurdish region of Iraq has a president, a government and its ‘council of ministers’, armed forces which are completely Kurdish and fully-fledged international ties, including a privileged relationship with the United States.

It has signed, to the chagrin of Baghdad, numerous oil exploration contracts with foreign companies.

For Buhari Hidir, professor of political science at the University of Arbil and an MP in the Iraqi parliament, “we only formally depend on Baghdad.”

“We are not a state in the legal sense, but de facto we are one. We do not need formal independence. We have it in the street, in life. That is enough,” he said.

“It would be a mistake to go for true independence,” Hidir added. “That would alienate us unnecessarily from our powerful neighbours, who would view this as an incentive for their own Kurdish populations.”

Concerned to preserve and develop its thriving economy, and to reassure neighbouring countries and the Iraqi central state, officials are quick to offer appeasements.“We want nothing to do with secession,” said Falah Bakir, director of the “department of foreign relations” in the area. “We want to remain within the Iraqi borders, provided Iraq is a democratic and pluralist federal state.” Fouad Hussein, private secretary to the region’s president Massud Barzani, asserts: “We absolutely respect the constitution.

“Iraq is a federal state, the distribution of power between the central state and region is clear. We do not need anything more. This system suits us perfectly.”

But, beyond the political declarations, the Iraqi state is gradually disappearing from the lives of ordinary inhabitants of the region.

To launch Ishtar TV, which transmits from Arbil for the Christians of Iraq, “we requested a licence from the regional government,” smiles station director, Farid Aqrawi.

“In theory, we should have gone to Baghdad ... But nobody does that. It is useless.”

The bishop of Arbil, Monsignor Rabban al-Qas, goes further: “Day after day, the distance grows. We are always in Iraq, but the law enables us to dream, one day, of a country which would gather all the Kurds.

“Like separated brothers, you will never prevent them from dreaming of living one day under the same roof.”—AFP