Portsmouth is a home to a community of people of Iraqui Kurdish origin and I recently spent a  week in the Kurdistan region to try and understand their homeland better and how their story fits in with the wider picture of Iraq.

It is impossible to spend any time there without coming to understand the scale of the terrible physical and psychological violence inflicted on its people by Saddam Hussein and the Ba’athist regime. It is not surprising that the 2003 “invasion” is referred to as the “liberation” here. In the late 1980’s nearly 200,000 men, women and children were slaughtered in Saddam’s genocidal “Anfal” campaign. Most notoriously, 5,000 people were gassed in one attack by the “bombs without voices”. Over 4,000 villages were razed to the ground and people herded into detention camps near the towns. Twenty years on these detention camps are slum ghettos with unfinished breeze block dwellings and when I spoke to the people who live there, the memory of the Anfal is so strong, there were tears in their eyes as they told me of their relatives who were lost and it was as if it only happened yesterday.

Last year a multi-faith service was held in Portsmouth to remember these victims of genocide. Working with the thriving Kurdish Community Association and faith groups within the City, in this 20th anniversary year I am hoping to persuade the City Council to plant a tree as a long lasting memorial.

But the Kurdish people are determined that they are not going to spend the rest of their lives being victims. There is a tremendous optimism for the future. The Kurdish region is largely self-governing and has a democratically elected government. Security in Kurdistan is a world away from other parts of Iraq. People can go about their everyday business without interference and business investment is starting to pick up both from the international community and home grown businesses.

It’s early days but if Kurdistan gets it right, this could be a model for the rest of Iraq to finally give the country the peace and stability it deserves.