In 1991, following its defeat in the Second Gulf War and as a response to the international humanitarian protectionist umbrella provided to the three Kurdish-population governorates in Northern Iraq, the Government of Iraq (GOI) under Saddam Hussein centrally seceded from the area. The vacuum that ensued was soon filled by the leadership of the Iraqi Kurdistan Front (KNA) and soon a de facto state resurrected from the ashes of destruction besieging Iraqi Kurdistan for many decades. Hence, the precarious existence of what came to be known as the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) in a highly challenging geopolitical environment and the strategic imperative of preserving the de facto independence of the entity forced the Kurdish leadership to give high priority to building foreign relations and pursuit of foreign policy. Foreign policy as a political activity is of paramount importance to all actors including sovereign states to preserve and promote their national interests. The practice of foreign policy, however, is particularly acute for de facto states. As internationally non-recognized entities, the international system of sovereign states is often skeptical if not hostile to engage in foreign relations with de facto states. Yet, projection of foreign policy and building foreign relations is extremely vital for the continued survival and consolidation of de facto states. By exploring the case of the KRI as a case of de facto statehood, this research argues that, mutatis mutandis, de facto states can pursue independent foreign policies. By identifying major transitions in the KRI, this thesis seeks to better explain foreign policy determinants, objectives and instruments of implementation of foreign policies of the KRI. In doing so, this thesis further seeks to contribute to the analysis of de facto statehood in general, and to contribute to the study of the KRI as the case of de facto statehood in the Middle East region.

With the conflict ongoing in Syria since 2011, many Syrian Kurds have been forced to leave their homes to seek safety and security in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). Their displacement to KRI is a distinctive experience of migration as it has happened within an intra-ethnic setting of Syrian Kurds, as refugees, encountering Iraqi Kurds, as hosts. Sharing ethnic identification and imagination of a historical homeland but holding different nationalities, has turned identity and belonging into sites of contestation between the refugees and the hosts. Within this intra-ethnic setting of displacement, the study has investigated the construction of home and politics of identity and belonging among the refugees in relation to protection regimes and forms of inclusion and exclusion. This has been done through a content analysis of relevant policy and regulations for refugees in KRI and Iraq and a thematic analysis of individual narrative interviews with the refugees themselves. Research results from the policy analysis have indicated the lack of a comprehensive protection regime in Iraq and KRI, and the deployment of the ‘guests’ rhetoric towards the refugees as a responsibility evasion mechanism. Results from the interviews have revealed that home for the participants is plural, and it connects to Syria and Kurdistan to varying degrees. Their identity as Kurds is contested when their Syrianness is evoked with boundaries limiting their recognition to be both Syrian and Kurdish. Similarly, their belonging is challenged with their social position as refugees and their legal belonging to Syria. With this, they get involved into a continuum of politics of identity and belonging ranging between the situational demonstration of their Syrian identity and the role of ‘the successful Syrian refugee’, and the accentuation of their attachment to Kurdishness through belonging to Rojava. These politics have been discussed as reflecting a process of reconstructing Syrian Kurdish identity in the light of the experience of displacement and the intra-ethnic encounter. Contextualizing the research results in a wider perspective, it is argued that they carry further implications related to the Kurdish struggle with identity and belonging, not only in KRI, but in all the other parts of Kurdistan.