N. Barzani calls for a Federal Democratic Parliamentary State in Iraq. 

A new world awaits visitors who have been away from the Iraqi Kurdish region during the past 12 years.

A dozen years after the Kurds broke off with the central government in Baghdad, the region has been transformed into a prosperous entity, having little to do with the rest of the country.

Visitors landing here after long absence find a new world in which little or nothing remains of their old memories.

New super-markets, posh hotels, playgrounds and highways dot the Kurdish semi-independent enclave which a joint U.S.-British air power protects from the forces of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

The region has developed a unique character, very much different from the rest of the country. Similarities, which once made the enclave look as part of the neighboring government-controlled urban centers of Mosul and Kirkuk have almost disappeared.

Billboards, road signs and advertisements are all in Kurdish.The Arabic language, once the dominant tongue, is disappearing with fewer and fewer Kurds capable of speaking or understanding it.

Instead, Turkish and Persian influences have strengthened. Commodities from Turkey and Iran have replaced Iraqi-made goods and Kurdish traders strike almost all their transactions with Turkish or Iranian counterparts.

The goods on display are not of a prime quality and in many case less reliable than those which reached Kurdish markets from the government-controlled areas. But a combination of bad politics on the part of Saddam and deep-rooted Kurdish mistrust of his regime has led to the status-quo.

Saddam cracks down on trade with the Kurdish region. Police and military patrols forbid the flow of goods from either side and have recently made it extremely difficult for passengers to travel.

Saddam has massed troops along the enclave and Kurdish sources accuse the Iraqi military of sporadic shelling of their areas.

The scores of military camps in the region, some of them on the boundaries of major cities, have now been turned into parks, playgrounds and high-rises

The camp in Duhok for example is now the site of a massive supermarket, the first of its kind in in Iraq. close to the supermarket, a Turkish company has constructed a modern fairy park.

Goods in most retail shops are either of a Turkish or Iranian origin. Communication infrastructure has expanded and is far better than that in government-held areas. 

Many shopkeepers find it hard to speak Arabic while 12 years ago almost everybody spoke the language as it was widely used in schools, radio, television and administration.

The medium of instruction in schools is Kurdish and the students are given one class of Arabic every day, which is insufficient for them to communicate effectively. 

Iraqi radio and television, which broadcast in Arabic, are shunned by most viewers.

New cars ply Kurdish highways and streets and some of the brands are not to be found in government-controlled areas. The Kurdish economy relies heavily on free-trade. U.N. trade sanctions have failed to limit the region's expanding trade boom with Iran and Turkey due to the long and porous borders.

While smuggling has helped, it is the  U.N.-approved oil-for-food program which has been the catalyst for the region's prosperity. The Kurds are entitled to 13 percent of Iraqi oil revenues from the program. The return of the billions of dollars earmarked for the Kurds is easily discernible in the hundreds of construction projects currently underway all over the region.

But little is being done to industrialize Iraqi Kurdistan. Apart from small-scale projects employing a handful of workers, no major factory has been established and none is known to be in the pipeline.

Agriculture is still backward, relying on the same machinery and means it used 12 years ago. Yields, however, have increased due to the application of fertilizer and insecticides. But farmers find it difficult to sell their produce and prices occasionally slump to levels which make it uneconomical for them to continue.

The 3.5 million inhabitants of the region are entitled to free food rations which include, among other essential items, wheat four, legumes and rice - the cereals which the region produces in abundant quantities.
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