Kurdistan Region

The Kurdistan Region (KRI) is a semi-autonomous federal region of the Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurdish-majority governorates of Arab-majority Iraq: Erbil Governorate, Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Duhok Governorate, and Halabja Governorate. It is located in northern Iraq, which shares borders with Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, and Syria to the west.

It does not govern all of Iraqi Kurdistan and lays claim to the disputed territories of northern Iraq; these territories have a predominantly non-Arab population and were subject to the Ba'athist Arabization campaigns throughout the late 20th century. These northern territories remain contested between the Kurdistan Regional Government (in Erbil) and the Government of Iraq (in Baghdad) to the present day. The Kurdistan Region Parliament is based in Erbil, the capital of KRI.

Throughout the 20th century, Iraqi Kurds oscillated between fighting for autonomy and for full independence. Under the Ba'athist regime, the Kurds experienced Arabization and genocidal campaigns at the hands of the government in Baghdad. However, when the United States, the United Kingdom, and France established the Iraqi no-fly zones, which restricted the Iraqi government's power in the country's northern areas following the Gulf War and 1991 Iraqi uprisings, the Kurds were able to establish self-governance and the autonomous region was de facto established in 1992. The Iraqi government only recognized the Kurdistan Region as a federal region in 2005, after the American-led 2003 invasion of Iraq overthrew Saddam Hussein and a federal, democratic Iraqi constitution was adopted. The KRI largely escaped the privations that afflicted other parts of Iraq in the last years of Saddam Hussein's rule as well as the chaos that followed his ousting during the Iraq War (2003–2011), and built a parliamentary democracy with a growing economy. In 2014, when the Syria-based Islamic Stateinvaded the north of the country, the Iraqi Armed Forces retreated from most of northern and western Iraq, including the disputed territories, leading to the KRI's Peshmerga to enter and take control of these areas for the duration of the War in Iraq (2013–2017). In September 2017, the KRI held a non-binding independence referendum, which drew mixed international reactions. As a result, in October 2017, the Iraqi Armed Forces moved against the Peshmerga and reasserted control over most of the disputed territories, forcing KRI to concede to Baghdad's demands. The failed independence referendum and subsequent punitive measures against it have had significant adverse effects for Kurdistan Region, resulting in a significant erosion of its autonomy.