I arrived in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq this afternoon, as part of a UK Parliamentary delegation (organised by the All-Party Kurdish Region Group).

Kurdistan is an independent State within Iraq and has its own Government. It achieved full independence in 1992 - after the first Gulf War (when Saddam invaded Kuwait). Despite a number of years of civil war - which ended in 1999, in part thanks to the efforts of American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright).
Since 1999, however, the State has made great advances in democratic development, educational achievement and economic success. Kurdistan has elections every four years, a Supreme Court in which the judges are picked by the President, but have to be approved by Parliament, and a free-press. The State is a secular Muslim nation, tolerant of other religious minorities - Christians in particular.

Incidentally, Kurdish MPs are elected on a PR List ballot. This is deemed to be unsatisfactory and is unpopular with the public. There is growing support for a First Past the Post/Constituency electoral system.

Tonight, I met with the Vice-Chancellor (and his senior staff) of the influential Salahdin University in Erbil (the Kurdistan capital). With 21,000 students, the University is at the forefront of developing the next generation of scientists and engineers.

It is going to be a very interesting few days.

P.S. You can read more about Kurdistan by clicking these weblinks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Regional_Government