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Iraq: Saddam Kurds
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Iraq's two largest ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds. Other distinct groups are Turcoman, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Persians, and Armenians. Arabic is the most commonly spoken language. Kurdish is spoken in the north, and English is the most commonly spoken Western language.
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· Iraq’s Oil Ministry has begun halting oil exports to companies that refuse to cancel contracts made directly with officials in the Kurdish region on the ground these contracts are illegal. Austria’s OMV, “the leading oil and gas group in central Europe,” and South Korea’s SK Energy have already been cut off. [Washington Post, 2/3/08]
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Regional laws within Iraq ... create a lack of clarity for foreign investors. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has investment laws separate from the central Government of Iraq. Although investment is not expressly mentioned as a federal exclusive authority under the constitution, the federal government does have exclusive authority to regulate commercial policy across boundaries, suggesting a possible basis on which the GOI could assert authority to provide uniform rules for foreign investment in Iraq. Regardless of the permissibility of a separate KRG law, separate investment laws can be confusing for companies that want to be compliant with both KRG and Iraq central government laws.
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Iraq's diverse population includes some 20 million Arabs consisting of Shiite Muslims (60 percent), Sunni Muslims (35 percent), and Christians (3 percent). Most Shiites live in the southeast, and most Sunnis live in central Iraq. About four million Kurds, a non-Arab Muslim people, live in the mountainous northeast.
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Currently, Kurdistan is the only legally defined region within Iraq, with its own government and quasi-official militia, the Peshmerga. Iraq itself is divided into eighteen governorates (or provinces) (Arabic: muhafadhat, singular - muhafadhah, Kurdish: پاریزگه Pârizgah). The governorates are subdivided into districts (or qadhas).
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