TODAY’S SHORT CUT NEWS KURDISTAN (CLICK HEADLINES FOR FULL TEXTS)

The Door of Opportunity is Open in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Diplomatic Courier – Construction cranes dot the skyline of the city. New Fords, Toyotas, and Chevys now command the roads that just a short time ago featured a long procession of rusting cars and trucks, relics of decades long forgotten. The lobbies of the city’s hotels bustle with business people from all over the globe, all of whom are eager to pursue new deals and make investments…

Syria’s Kurds and the Struggle for Oil – The National Interest – Last month, fierce clashes broke out between armed Kurdish groups and Arab militias affiliated with the government of Syria’s embattled president Bashar al-Assad on the outskirts of Rumeilan, an oil-rich town in the far northeastern part of the country. The fighting signaled an outbreak of a dispute for control of the sprawling oil fields in the predominantly Kurdish region…

Iraqi Kurdistan Shifts Investment Approach – Al-Monitor – The Kurdistan Region of Iraq is preparing to change its investment approach to focus on new areas of foreign and local investment — including tourism, agriculture and industry — after having focused exclusively on housing and oil for the past six years…

Turkey builds closer oil links with Kurds, angering US

The National – Turkey is pushing ahead with plans to extend economic cooperation with Iraq’s Kurdistan region, brushing aside warnings from the United States that this approach could lead to the disintegration of the Iraqi state…

Iraq’s political sides to meet in Erbil later this month, President Barzani tells Europe’s ambassadors

KRG – In a meeting with EU ambassadors to Iraq today, President Masoud Barzani said that Iraq’s political sides will meet in Erbil later this month as an effort to find a way out of the current crisis facing the country…