Privileges gone, Kurds adapt to a new order

The highway to this prosperous Kurdish city is lined with rolling, well-irrigated wheat fields. The first petrol station is a designer fantasy of glittering blue glass. The main boulevard is a parade of Internet cafes, half-built mansions and a familiar-looking "Madonal" restaurant featuring "Big Macks".

For the past 12 years, while the rest of Iraq struggled under dictatorship and foreign sanctions, the isolated north and its ethnic Kurdish population enjoyed a privileged period of political autonomy, international aid and rapid economic development under skies patrolled by Western warplanes enforcing a 'no-fly' zone.

But with the toppling of President Saddam Hussain, that special status is no longer assured, and Kurdish leaders are scrambling to preserve benefits they fear will be lost in the ethnic, religious and political free-for-all of post-Saddam Iraq.

"Thirteen years ago, we had nothing. By the time Saddam was overthrown, we were far ahead of the rest of Iraq," said Adel Murad, a spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two major Kurdish parties.

"We had satellite TV and cell phones. We had security and human rights. Now we're scared, and we need something to protect everything we've built."

Despite a reputation as tough guerrilla fighters, shrewd politicians and clever smugglers, Iraq's 3.5 million Kurds are at a distinct numerical disadvantage. They account for only 15 per cent of the country's 23.3 million people, while Arabs, with whom they have often clashed, constitute 80 per cent and would inevitably dominate any future government.

But having helped U.S. forces bring down Saddam, Kurdish leaders are adjusting rapidly to the realities of post-Saddam politics. First, to maximise their national influence, the PUK and the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) have renounced the differences that led to civil war in their 17,000-square-mile enclave in the 1990s.

The two groups now speak with one voice, and they say they are preparing to merge the dual administrations now ruling separate parts of the Kurdish region.

Their top leaders, Jalal Talabani of the PUK and Massoud Barzani of the KDP, are among five Kurds holding seats on Iraq's Governing Council in Baghdad, where the two men behave more like lifelong allies than onetime armed adversaries.

"We have learned our lessons," said Hoshyar Zubari, a spokesman for the KDP, which controls Arbil, 100 miles northwest of here. "The power struggle did a lot of damage, but all that is over now. We must be unified so we will be in a stronger position for the battle ahead."

More importantly, Kurdish leaders say they have jettisoned their long-standing dream of an independent ethnic homeland - a goal that inspired generations of Iraqi Kurds through numerous cycles of rebellion and repression, including two uprisings against Saddam's rule.

The main reason for the radical retreat is to placate nervous foreign neighbours. Since 1920, the Ku-rds have populated a mou-ntainous region divided among Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.

The latter three - especially Turkey - have always feared that their Kurdish minorities would rise up and unite under Kurdish leadership, and they have quashed periodic separatist movements.