(De)securitizing Kurdish Politics in Iraq? The Kurds in the Post-1991 Political Context

Research on the security interdependencies between Turkey, Iraq, and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) tends to conclude that the Kurdish question in Iraq has been gradually normalized since 1991. Despite the growing number of studies focusing on the KRG, to our knowledge, none have examined the KRG’s complex web of security interdependencies involving Turkey and the Iraqi central government from a desecuritizing approach. Using a revisionist interpretation of the Copenhagen School’s model of securitization, this paper empirically examines (de)securitizing moves as applied by Iraq and Turkey to Iraqi Kurdistan. We refer to (de)securitization as the synchronous enactment of desecuritization alongside securitization discourses and practices that, in fact, might introduce more violence into politics and exacerbate protracted conflicts. The discursive evidence shows that Iraq and Turkey have normalized substantial dimensions of their security interactions with the KRG. However, other dimensions of the Kurdish question in Iraq have remained securitized. We use the figure of splitting speech acts to show the simultaneity of securitizing and desecuritizing discourses/practices towards Iraqi Kurdistan. We conclude that these synchronous movements have artificially divided the Kurdish territory, its leadership, and population. We end by discussing how desecuritization, as a selective process, has introduced more violence into Iraqi Kurdish politics and the implications for scholarship interested in the Kurdish question.