MERIP Media Resource List, January 28, 2005

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS on the following topics:
- Iraq's election January 30
- Tensions in Kirkuk over provincial election January 30
- Anticipating Bush's second-term foreign policy on the Middle East, particularly regarding Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and the implications of Zoellick's appointment

THABIT A.J. ABDULLAH
Thabit Abdullah is associate professor of history at York University, Toronto. Publications include several articles on Iraq and three books, the most recent of which is A Short History of Iraq (Pearson-Longman, 2003). Abdullah recently returned to Iraq to work with the al-Amal Association on several development projects and to investigate the possibility of establishing a new university in Baghdad. He intends to cast his vote in the Iraqi election at a polling place in Toronto.

JOOST HILTERMANN
Joost Hiltermann is Middle East Project Director at the International Crisis Group, which conducts research and writes policy-focused reports on armed conflict. The Crisis Group has released a report this week on Kurdish ambitions in Iraq: http://www.icg.org/home/index.cfm?id=3241&l=1 . Commenting on the tensions in northern Iraq between Kurds, Turkmen (who are supported by Turkey), and Arabs in the oil-rich Kirkuk region on the eve of national as well as Kirkuk regional council elections, Hiltermann says: "It is not at all a good idea to have provincial elections in Kirkuk at this time. Various groups are arming themselves and it may take only a minor provocation for open conflict to break out. As the US is forced by a worsening insurgency to concentrate on instability in the rest of the country, things in Kirkuk might well get out of hand and the communities there find themselves in a violent standoff. Turkey needs stability in Iraqi Kurdistan, whatever its eventual status. The only way it can facilitate this is to work closely with the Iraqi Kurdish leadership to promote trade and funnel investment to the region."

SALIM TAMARI
Salim Tamari is director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies and associate professor of sociology at Birzeit University in the West Bank. He has also been coordinator for the Refugee Working Group in the multilateral peace negotiations with Israel. This semester he is a visiting associate professor in the history department at UC Berkeley. Tamari can comment on Palestinian politics and society, Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, the status of Jerusalem in light of recent reports of Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land, and the situation of Palestinian refugees.

PETE W. MOORE
Pete Moore is assistant professor of political science at the University of Miami. He is author of Doing Business in the Middle East: Politics and Economic Crisis in Kuwait and Jordan (Cambridge University Press, 2004). His areas of research are economic development in the Middle East, business-state relations, trade liberalization and sub-state conflict. Moore said today: "Former US trade representative Robert Zoellick's appointment to the State Department signifies that US trade and economic development policy toward the Middle East is now a core element of overall US policy toward the region. The political logic is quite clear -- increased free trade through bilateral trade agreements with the US and targeted development aid are expected to 'unleash' the Arab/Muslim private sector. Businessmen are assumed to be liberal bulwarks against radicalism and the key to sustainable job creation. Evidence of these assumptions is already observable, particularly in Jordan, which has signed a Free Trade Agreement and is host to over 12 Qualified Industrial Zones. However, contrary to expectations that freer trade will spark political and economic decentralization, evidence in Jordan suggests that these reforms have increased economic concentration, contributed to a reversal of political liberties, and undercut efforts at deepening peace between Jordan and Israel."

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