yourselves what is possible, to see for yourselves why brands like pepsi, coca cola, lafarge, rotana, lufthansa are investing and doing trade with kurdistan and iraq. >>reporter: but despite the promise of a bright future, the dark past was also present. >>bakir: the people of kurdistan have survived a difficult and tragic history. under the previous regime we suffered what has now been recognised as genocide. our people were forced to flee their homeland many times over the past several decades. >>reporter: after chemical attacks and the destruction of more than 4,000 villages and agriculturalland, it's a remarkable story of survival and rebirth: >>garner: i don't think you can find an example in history where a group of people, an ethnic groupof people, have risen that far in that short a period of time. >>reporter: but issues still persist with the current baghdad regime, including disputes over territory and how to unblock the export of crude oil and pay oil companies. >>lee: in the oil and gas sector, they have one very big problem at the moment, and that is that the central government in