Abstract

This research discusses the essential but sensitive subject of paradiplomacy in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq after 2003, with regard to the present and the future. It attempts to seek answers to the main question facing the Region regarding paradiplomacy as a means for achieving an independent state, and to extent the Kurdistan Region has used this mechanism successfully to achieve this aim. In order to answer this question, the study will focus on paradiplomacy in the region from 2003 until today, by examining various scenarios and to project Kurdistan Region’s future. The conclusion is that the Kurdistan Region -with all comments- that is able to use paradiplomacy as an effective mechanism at both regional and international levels, and in this way, the KRG has taken a step closer to independence, but to achieve success in the future, all its departments of democracy must be strengthened and to become more powerful it must become more successful in paradiplomacy.