Not very many people believed that the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), created through the Treaty of Paris between Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg will serve as the first step to transform part of the European continent. During the second world war, many American politicians would imagine Europe as a lost continent because of the two world wars.

However, ECSC paved the way for creating of the European Union. Before signing the Lisbon Treaty (2007), that formally created the EU, European countries signed nine other treaties as a consequence of the ECSC. The French foreign minister of the time, Robert Schuman, believed that by creating such economic ties among European countries would “make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible”. The basic idea was to these links would encourage a peaceful regional integration. Natural recourses were seen to play a constructive role in moving former waring countries away from competing with each other aggressively to co-ordination and co-operation.

What the European countries and other regions learned from this example is a basic observation that has been repeated by scholars, diplomats and mediators: in order to prevent conflicts, countries and societies need to establish good relationships. These relationships will function to support what is usually know as bridge-building. Economic relationships turned out to be a crucial bridge-building task, which requires constructive communication, trust and alignment of interests.

It is a common place to regard natural resources either as an important factor to generate more income and bring prosperity to a country or as a source of destabilisation and conflict. It is not difficult to cite examples in which natural resources have been wasted or caused destructive state or elite behaviours. However, a vast amount of research has also shown that the natural resource wealth is good for development if it is coupled with investments in skills and technological capacities and with good macro-economic institutions and management.

In the case of Kurdistan, direct access to the Natural resources is a novelty. This is the first time in the modern history of Kurdistan, elected political leaders are managing the country’s resources and take responsibility of how it is envisioned, developed and implemented.

The pipelines built between Kurdistan Region and Turkey can be seen as peace pipelines because it brings income to a war-torn country (Iraq), creates a regional integration (Kurdistan Region, Iraq and Turkey), creates job opportunities in the beyond Middle East, contributes to energy security (Kurdistan Region, Turkey and international energy market), trust-building (Kurdistan Region, Turkey and Iraq) and peaceful settlement of political conflicts (inside Turkey).

When the oil and gas pass through the newly built pipelines, Kurdistan Region makes a statement of historical significance because the Region’s first step towards international market ends a long process of creating a peaceful state re-building.

In order to appreciate the importance of this move by Kurdistan Region, we need to highlight a few milestones. In May 1992, Kurdistan Region’s political parities decide to hold an election. Later that year, the new elected Kurdistan Assembly issued a degree in which expressed that the Kurdistan Region will “determine its fate and define its legal relationship with the central authority at this stage of history on the basis of the federation within a democratic parliamentary Iraq.” That remained with no effect until December 2002, when the Bush administration publicly agreed that post-Saddam Iraq will be a federal state. In March 2004, the TAL (Transitional Administrative Law) went into some details about the nature of federalism in Iraq. In 2005, Iraq’s interim assembly approved the country’s current constitution which was later approved by 4 out of 5 voters in a referendum.

This was crucial milestone. Throughout the entire process of Iraq’s constitutional negotiation, the issue of oil and gas was one of most difficult to agree on. The final agreement was a peaceful settlement. The issue of oil and gas was not included in the exclusive power of the federal government. The articles dealing with oil and gas are shared power between the federal government, the regional government (Kurdistan Region is the only recognised authority so far) and governorates.

The next milestone came when Kurdistan Region passed its own oil and gas law (in August 2007). That opened up for foreign companies to directly sign contracts with the elected Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Since then, over more than 50 stakeholders (from 23 countries) have entered Kurdistan’s emerging energy market.

With the oil and gas pumped through Kurdistan’s pipeline system over to the Turkish border and then to the international market, the KRG establishes its next milestone in peaceful development from insisting on federalism in Iraq to create new economic and political relationships to bridge-building using energy in a constructive and imaginative way to enhance regional communication, encourage trust among regional players in a region burdened with conflicts, civil strife and instability.

Maybe in 20 or 30 years historians and analysis will see the even of opining the pipeline between Kurdistan Region and Turkey as a remarkable peace initiative by leaders of a population that were subject to war, destruction, mass exodus and genocide as a new political trend in the Middle East. Maybe future strategy centres will have bear names of several of today’s decision-makers for being innovative, creative, constructive and courageous. Maybe future researchers will find out that the Kurdistan pipelines was the beginning of a new political order in the Middle East in based on economic ties, regional co-operation and political initiative.