A Message from the Founding President of the Erbil Policy Institute
Understanding a region requires much more than simply following its current political agenda. Wars, elections, diplomatic crises, and power struggles form the visible face of history; however, the processes that determine the direction of societies are shaped much deeper and over longer periods of time. Cities change, borders are redrawn, and institutions are established and dismantled; in contrast, memory, social relations, economic ties, and historical experiences persist under different forms.
This is one of the important lessons that Eric Hobsbawm’s historiography reminds us of: Today is not a moment independent of the past. The political and social order in which we live is the product of long historical processes, ruptures, and continuities. Therefore, a serious research institution attempting to understand the present cannot content itself merely with keeping pace with the speed of current developments; it must occasionally look back, return to the archives, and re-examine today’s questions within a historical depth.
The Erbil Policy Institute (EPI) was founded on this very premise.
EPI’s starting point is the conviction that it is impossible to understand Iraq, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), Türkiye-Iraq relations, and the broader regional environment within the confines of a single discipline or a single mode of explanation. International relations provides us with a powerful analytical framework for understanding states, institutions, power relations, and regional orders. However, states do not operate in a vacuum. Behind politics lie societies; behind societies lie history, memory, economy, culture, identity, and geography.
For this reason, field research, history, and analysis are not separate domains for EPI.
Analysis detached from the field is incomplete; assessment lacking historical context is transient.
Looking at the Region from Erbil
The inclusion of the name Erbil in our institution's name is a deliberate choice.
Erbil is more than just the name of a city to us. With its continuous history of settlement spanning thousands of years, the historical legacy left by diverse communities living side by side, and its geographical location between Mesopotamia and Anatolia, it serves as a powerful vantage point from which we can gain insight into the region’s past and its transformation.However, EPI’s research horizon is not limited by the boundaries of Erbil.
From Baghdad to Ankara, from Mosul to Sulaymaniyah, we strive to understand a broader geography extending from regional relations to Tehran and Damascus. Because the issues of the modern Middle East neither begin within administrative boundaries nor do they usually end within them.
Precisely for this reason, EPI bears Erbil in its name as an Ankara-based institution. We view this as more than establishing a symbolic link between two cities; rather, it is the expression of the conviction that the political, historical, social, economic, and intellectual relationship between Türkiye and Iraq, particularly the KRI, constitutes a distinct field that warrants dedicated research.
Beyond the Contemporary
Our era pressures research institutions to speak ever faster.
A development occurs; assessments, commentaries, and predictions follow one another within hours. Yet speed does not always equate to comprehension.
EPI’s purpose is neither to fall behind the agenda nor to surrender to its velocity.
For us, the core issue is to understand why a development became possible before focusing on what it is.
Therefore, on any given day, we might examine a diplomatic document or the cultural heritage of a city; in another study, youth expectations regarding the future, migration, or the education system; and in yet another piece of research, the long-term transformation of political, economic, and social relations between Türkiye and Iraq.
We do not see the presence of an Ottoman archival document and a contemporary sociological study within the same institution's publication program as a contradiction, but rather as a necessity inherent to regional studies.
Because sometimes a single document written a century ago can provoke more probing questions than dozens of commentaries about the present.
The Scope of Research
The Erbil Policy Institute is not an institution established to produce the viewpoints of any political actor, government, party, or social group.
For us, independence is not merely an institutional definition; it is a precondition for research.
This independence does not mean that EPI will lack opinions. On the contrary, scientific research requires asking questions, making comparisons, challenging established assumptions when necessary, and clearly presenting the conclusions reached.
However, we believe there is a fundamental difference between research and partisanship.
For this reason, different academic traditions, distinct disciplines, and divergent views will find a place in EPI’s publications. The institution's task is not to eliminate these differences, but to establish a ground for debate based on evidence, methodology, and intellectual honesty.
Not Preserving the Past, but Reinterpreting It
One of the areas to which EPI attaches particular importance will be history and archival studies.
We view the archive not as a warehouse where the past is stored, but as a field of research where the questions of today can be asked anew.
Therefore, in studies such as "A Page from History" (Tarihten Bir Yaprak), we will bring various primary sources—ranging from Ottoman archives and British documents to League of Nations records and personal letters—into dialogue with the reader.
We do not want the document to tell us what to think.
By presenting the document as much as possible within its own historical context, we want the reader to encounter it directly.
The same approach applies to our social and cultural studies. The story of the region is not merely the story of states and political leaders. The experiences of Kurds, Turkmens, Arabs, Syriacs, Yazidis, and other communities of the region; of cities, families, students, merchants, and migrating people are all parts of this history.
If we wish to understand a region, we must look not only at who governs it, but also at how people live within it.
The Beginning
EPI is setting out today not with a ready-made collection of answers, but with questions.
The value of a research institution lies not in its ability to speak on every subject, but in its capacity to discern which questions are truly worth asking and to pursue those questions with patience.
For us, EPI’s success will not be measured by the number of publications it produces or how visible it is in the public eye. The true measure is whether, years from now, researchers, students, decision-makers, and people seeking to understand the region will be able to look back at EPI’s work and say, “Here is research I can trust.”
Therefore, our starting point is quite simple:
That is why our starting point is quite simple:
Examine the field.
Study the past.
Understand society.
And after all that, analyze without rushing.
We are building the Erbil Policy Institute on this foundation.
We are building the Erbil Policy Institute upon this understanding.