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Music and mountains, can the Kurds offer a
tourist haven?
20.6.2008
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June
20, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region "Iraq", —
For the Kurds of Iraq, Zakaria Abdulla is the
nearest thing to the Beatles, rolled into one man.
He claims that one of his more recent albums, “Telinaz”,
meaning “lovely”, has sold more than 3m copies
across the region and in Europe. But mere musical
success is no longer enough. These days he has a
political vision—and a business nose to match.
As a budding property magnate, he is the driving
force behind Naz City, a burgeoning housing
development on the edge of Erbil, the Iraqi
Kurdistan's capital,www.ekurd.net
with some 700
Western-style flats designed to “bring something
beautiful to Kurdistan”. Such projects, he hopes,
may lure back some of the thousands of professionals
who fled from Saddam Hussein and are now used to
European and American living standards; Mr Abdulla
spent some years in Sweden. So far, he says, seven
ministers in the Kurdish regional government, more
than 100 assembly members and at least 50 academics
have taken flats in Naz City. |
Zakaria Abdulla, for the Kurds of Iraq, Zakaria is
the nearest thing to the Beatles, rolled into one
man |
Mr Abdulla's cosy relations with the Kurdish
Democratic Party (KDP), one of the two main ones in
the region, have helped him along. The prime
minister of Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, a KDP man,
has arranged for several of his leading officials to
take flats there. Mr
Abdulla says he is also planning to build a “medical
city”.
Other housing developments include an “English
village”, an “Italian village” and “Dream City”, all
meant to lure back investors and professional Kurds.
Last week the Kurdish prime minister signed a deal
with the United Arab Emirates said to be worth $4.5
billion to build a hotel, shops and resort complex
in Erbil.
With its peaceful gardens, tennis courts and
swimming pools, Naz City is a far cry from battered
Baghdad and other cities in the non-Kurdish parts of
Iraq. The only hint of nearby strife is the heavy
presence of watchful security guards. The Kurdish
government loves to stress the difference between
the quiet Kurdish north and the rest of Iraq: this
week the most lethal bomb in months killed at least
63 Baghdadis.
The regional government has also launched a campaign
to tout Iraqi Kurdistan as a tourist destination,www.ekurd.net
describing it as “the
Other Iraq”. The Pank Resort near Sulaimaniyah, the
region's second city and Kurdistan's cultural
capital is popular with locals—as is its
mountainside roller coaster. Farther north, a spring
day at the waterfalls near Rawanduz, another resort,
draws hundreds of visitors to picnic at the water's
edge. Most of them are Kurds. But the government
thinks that Kurdistan's lush mountains, peaceful
cities and easy-going attitude to alcohol should
attract Westerners and Gulf Arabs too.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
economist com
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