Third portion: the Middle East
Entering Iraq
A little nervous, we exited Turkey, driving over a short no-man's-land towards the Iraqi checkpoint. We were in the unknown here. We did not have an Iraqi visa, but we were crossing into Iraqi Kurdistan's autonomous region. From the information we had gathered, a French citizen could procure a temporary visa to the Kurdistan region on arrival. However that information was slightly dated, and the only ones to have reported on it had arrived by plane into Erbil. Could this be done over a land border? Was this still valid after the Islamic State's northern offensive in Iraq, and the relatively recent fall of the city of Mosul into their hands? The border crossing is about 100km from the city center, and driving to Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, would bring us under 30km from Mosul... and much less from the "front', that porous region where the kurdish Peshmerga forces have taken up the fight against Daesh in the wake of the Iraqi army's desertion. Questions that worried us as we approached the terminal.
As we approached, we were waved down by an angry looking man, pointing us away from the line of vehicles.. Every single one of them was a cargo truck, there were no civilian passenger cars that we could see. We stopped next to the man, but staying near the line. Angrily, he shouted: "Police! Document!"
Anyone having traveled extensively knows that your most precious belonging is your passport. Under no circumstances should you hand out your passport to anyone, much less some random guy in civilian clothes. We had lots of photocopies of our documents, to hand out to police, or military personnel. Often, "control checks" are in effect bribe seekers that will hold on to your documents until you pay them a fictitious fine or fee. We started to question the man, asking him what he wanted, who he was.. Without good arabic language skills, the conversation was short lived, as the man kept repeating "Police! Document!", before becoming more and more angry. We handed out photocopies of our passports, but he demanded the originals. At this point, we were getting a bit angry ourselves, as we assumed he was just someone looking for a quick buck. I got out of the car, leaving my friends to guard it, and walked with our passports to the truckers standing by. Pointing at the angry man following me, I asked the truckers "Police?" They nodded, smiling and shrugging, pointing at the unmoving line of trucks.
It turned out that the man was indeed Kurdish police, but since today was a holiday (first day after Ramadan), he was stuck on duty and not wearing a uniform. After a cursory check, and a smile when he realized we were French, and we apologized, he waved us on to continue to the immigration area where we were supposed to receive our visas...
Parking the car in front of the decrepit building, we went inside, unsure what to expect. A lonely man was sitting behind a desk, waiting patiently. We approached, handing in our passports, which he eyed surprisingly.. Flipping through them several times, perhaps looking for a visa, perhaps pretending to verify something, he got up and motioned for us to back up and wait in the room. Walking away with our passports, he entered an unmarked door in the back, dissapearing inside. We waited for a long time, until finally the policeman came back with another, older man, out of uniform. This second one spoke a little English, and was now carrying our passports. Eyeing us while the policeman went back to his deserted desk, he pointed at the passports. "No visa?"
Shaking our heads, we tried to explain in pidgin english that French citizens were supposed to be able to acquire a visa on arrival. We didn't question him, not wanting to show our hesitation, but presenting it as a fact. After asking us a few more times where our visa was, and us giving him the same answer, he silently went back to his office, leaving us alone once again.
After a long while, he came back out, and walked over to us. "Chief coming. Wait". And so we waited.. After another hour of this, another man came into the deserted building, immediately walking to the office. Several moments later, he peered out, calling the name of one of my friends, and motioning for him to come into the office. Over the next hour and a half, we were individually questionned in the office by the "chief', while the other man stood beside us, telling us repeatedly not to talk between ourselves. Fortunately we all had the same story, visiting Iraqi kurdistan on our way to Iran, showing him the Iranian visa in our passports. Officially we merely wanted to visit Erbil, before continuing on.
After the individual questionings, he came back out to us. "Cannot enter Kurdistan." was all he said. We started to question him, again stating that officially nothing prevented us from entering, that French citizens had a visa on arrival procedure, and pressuring him to give us a valid reason... We started spinning a story about how we could not backtrack into Turkey as our visas were not multiple entry, that we had to cross Iraq to get to Iran, and that we had no choice in the matter.. After a while, the man changed his story, telling us that the French embassy supposedly had contacted the Kurdish government, asking to refuse entry to French citizens. This of course worried us greatly, but seemed very strange... French diplomats are notorious fear-mongerers, very often building up the potential danger of travels to certain areas to avoid having citizens travel there, but had never, in our knowledge, actually asked a government to deny entry to their citizens. In France, liberty of movement and travel in a foundation of the diplomatic corps.
Thinking quickly, we pulled out our cellphones. Fortunately before departure we had jotted down the contact information for all embassies and consulates in the regions we would be crossing. This turned out to save the day, as of course, without internet we would have no way of finding it otherwise.
We called up the French consulate in Erbil, and the officer in charge of consulate security picked up the phone on the other side. We quickly explained the situation, asking if what the officer was saying was true. Reluctantly, the officer told us that there was no such rule, but that he very much advised us not to attempt to enter Iraq, and that we should turn back to Turkey without hesitation. We spun the same story to the officer, explaining that one of our members had already utilized all the visa-exempt days for Turkey, and that they would most definitely not accept our return... This wasn't an outright lie, even if Turkish officials would most certainly have accepted our temporary return.
After a while (and an ungodly amount in roaming fees), the officer accepted to talk to the Kurdish police for us. For the entire duration of the phone call, they repeatedly were asking us the name of our contact at the embassy, his rank, and what he was telling us. I passed the phone over to them, and the French officer spoke in broken English to a police chief who barely spoke it that he was from the consulate, and that they had no express rule against us entering the country...
As things got sorted out (the police chief went back to his office), we chatted with the remaining policeman, trying to figure out what was going on.. Apparently tensions were running very high in the area, both because of tensions between ethnic Kurds and Turkey, and because of an Islamic State offensive going on in the region.. Apparently they had reports from Syrian kurds of a massive influx of foreigners illegally crossing the border into Syria to join the ranks of ISIL. Then, with a serious look, he pointed at me, before motionning at his own clean shaven face... He waved his hand in front, signaling the absence of beard in contrast with my unshaven, unkept tatted mat of facial hair and told us "We don't know where you go after this..."
The boss came out, looking a bit mollified. Apparently he had come to the conclusion that had we been wannabe jihadists, we probably would not have called up the French military in charge of consulate security. He brought us back to the original desk, and got our passports stamped quickly, before waiving us off...
This was it, we thought, after several hours, we were finally in Iraq! But of course, nothing was so simple...
A hundred meters away, another checkpoint. We hadn't cleared customs yet... A taciturn customs agent came up to us, talking in arabic, before attempting Turkish. In front of our incomprehension, he motioned for us to park on the side, and follow him in the building, before pointing us to a desk. No indications, no informations, signs, or documents anywhere to be seen. Fortunately, on the other side of the desk was a short, jovial man who spoke almost flawless english, having studied in London for a number of years. We explained the situation, and he said "No problem, no problem!" while pulling out a series of documents. Of course, here, "no problem" means that there are problems...
It turns out that one can only drive a car in Iraqi Kurdistan if they exit by the same border crossing they enter. To ensure this (ridiculous?) rule, the customs officers take, and keep, the official car documents at the border until you return to claim them. Needless to say, you cannot cross another border if you are not in possession of the vehicle documents.
After arguing some more, (arguing is not the proper term here, as the man was actually incredibly nice. More like presenting the situation), he frowned, trying to think of a solution. Apparently we were the first people they had ever seen that were going to drive across their country to go to another one...
Remember how I told you this was a national holiday? Yeah... Nobody of any significance was at the border crossing that day. And noone would risk their *** and career by waving through an old Defender with three young men, should we end up in the hands of ISIL, or worse, joining their ranks. We continued the debate, "surely there must be a provision, a rule, an exemption, surely a great country like Iraqi Kurdistan must have a way to let us cross through, bla bla bla" (A little *** licking never hurts in this situation, especially since Kurds are very, very touchy about being recognized as different from the rest of Iraq).
After a while and a few phone calls, and running around from office to office asking absolutely everyone what to do, (I was following our new friend around), it turned out a fairly important man from the Ministry of Finance and Economy would be nearby in a while, he was finishing a "meeting". (Turned out to be a lunch).
Waiting for what seemed like hours in the sweltering Iraqi heat, by the car, we were the curiosity of the year. People would randomly walk up to us, inspecting the car, looking around (and in, wanting to take pictures of themselves behind the wheel - see below -), and peering at us. A kurdish man who spoke English came up to us, asking us to jumpstart his old beat up car. While we did so, we talked a bit and laughed around with him, explaining the absurdity of the situation. It turned out he was from Kirkurk in the south of Kurdistan, and was driving home after a bit of business in Turkey. We inquired about the situation in Kurdistan, where the frontline currently was, and so on. Laughing, he just shrugged, telling us "it changes, but Kirkurk safe!', and inviting us over to his place should we decide to go to the city. We exchanged information before he drove off, and we kept waiting...
Hours later, our friend finally came back looking for me, smiling, telling us that the "important man" was now ready to receive us. I followed him through a meandering labyrinth of offices and desks, before getting into a waiting room, where a bunch of officials in suits were laughing and talking to each other. I waiting, unable to understand anything. After another while, we were finally waved into the office.
I stood there, in my dirty clothes and flip flops, stained with oil, mud and dust, an unkept and tatted beard, in a luxurious meeting room where a bunch of Ministry officials sat around a desk, suited up, and stared at me... Feeling a little uncomfortable to say the least, I waited while our friend explained the situation. After a brief exchange, my friend waved for me to exit. We were done. And like that, we had permission.
We walked back to the other end of the vast compoud, to one of the offices we had gone to previously to see if there was any way to let us in... Our friend explained that the "Boss man" (To this day I have no idea who he is) had given permission, and all was fixed. The men all stared at me suspiciously, before barking something at our friend. Turns out they wanted a written guarantee from the Boss man, so they could put it in their folder. (I have a suspicion we were in some kind of intelligence service branch, as while I waited for my friend to go back to get the written permission, they photocopied every single document I could give them, as well as took pictures of me). Once back, they started to redact the document that would allow us to drive freely in Iraq. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but motioned a few times around their faces (everyone was clean shaven, and they were obviously talking about my beard)... It was time for me to shave, most definitely.
After a while, I was handed the precious document, as well as all my papers... After spending around 8 hours at the border crossing, we were finally let into Iraq proper... After profusely thanking our english-speaking friend, shaking his hand many times, and sharing our cigarettes, we parted ways. I'm absolutely convinced we would have been stuck for the night at the border crossing without him, having to wait for the next working day. He saved our ***.
Finally breathing easier, we got all our stuff together, and climbed back aboard old Deffy, ready to go on. We handed our manuscript authorization to the guard on post, which he examined carefully, before waiving us on through..
So now, all we had to do, was find a safe road to Erbil, that did not go to Mosul... But all was good, we had the sage advice from our Kurdish trucker friend! Just follow the Kurdish trucks, right?
Remember how I said that day was a national holiday? Yeah.. They were not letting any trucks through until the next day, hence the enormous line of trucks we had seen on the Turkish side of the border...
We peered ahead.. An empty sand-covered road into Iraq laid in front of us, with only a few Iraqi cars, and absolutely no trucks or Turkish licence plates to be seen... And our map showed the only existing road to Erbil passing through Mosul...
To be continued...