“Negative developments in the relations between the KRG and IOCs can lead to major disinvestment that can hit current oil production and future projects on gas exploitation, and erode confidence of potential foreign investors in other sectors”

“Without addressing these issues and providing a detailed plan for post-conflict reconstruction and employment, I fear that [ISIL] will either return or another radical entity will take its place, continuing the cycle of ethnosectarian violence in Iraq”

A military coup, if successful, would have at best brought about new uncertainties, and at worse would have taken Turkey & KRI back to the old days.

“The Iraqi leader wants to reshuffle his cabinet but he has a weak base of power… his greatest rivals are now his fellow party members and former fellow campaigners”

“The people who are asking for reforms as well as the people promising the reforms are not talking about the fundamental changes in the rule of law, policies and vision, and they neither show will and determination.”

“If Kirkuk was to become part of the KRG there is no doubt that locals would want Kirkuk to be treated in a different manner to Sulimani, Erbil, Dohuk and Halabja.”

“The current financial position of the KRG is unsustainable,” and it would be difficult for the KRG to carry out the necessary structural reforms unless it received external financial assistance to “stabilise its macro-economic environment.”

Kurdistan’s boom was dependent on a single factor: high oil prices. A failure to build a tax base or diversify the economy left it vulnerable. “But its weaknesses did not show for as long as there was a good flow of cash.”

“No party pushed for private-sector development because it was not in their interest,…It’s not a matter of firing people from the public sector, it’s making employment in the private one more attractive.”

“[MERI] A leading organization based in the Kurdistan Region was ranked the top think tank in Iraq and among the top research institutions in the Middle East and North Africa”