A man sits outside a store selling photos of Kurdish President Masoud Barzani and members of his family, Irbil, Iraq, Oct. 29, 2017 (AP photo by Felipe Dana).

In mid-December, at least five people were killed by security forces during anti-government protests in Iraqi Kurdistan. The leading opposition political party, Gorran, responded to the crackdown by withdrawing its ministers from the government. In an email interview, Hannes Cerny, a visiting professor at the Department of International Relations at the Central European University in Budapest and the author of “Iraqi Kurdistan, the PKK and International Relations: Theory and Ethnic Conflict,” explains the protesters’ grievances and the implications for Kurdish politics. WPR: What triggered the recent protests in northern Iraq? Hannes Cerny: When discussing the recent anti-government protests in Iraqi […]