Kurdistan is a mess. Iraqi Kurds have been fighting successive Baghdad governments as well as other Iraqi Kurds, Turkish Kurds and the Turkish military. Vast mountainous regions mean that there are lots of places for the guerrillas of one side to hide and then whack the others. The Turkish Kurds, though, still use the Iraqi border as a springboard for attacks against Turkey. The Turkish military have virtually occupied a slab of the border zone since May 1997, under a media blackout, to fight their rebels in private. Some Iraqi Kurds have helped them. Others have helped the Turkish Kurds. In September 1998 the two main Iraqi Kurdish factions signed a peace deal in Washington. A mishmash of tribal and political allegiances with intelligence operatives from half a dozen countries running around makes it one of the most interesting and dangerous places in the world. But for the first time in Kurdish history Iraqi Kurds at least control their own destiny.
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