Kurdistan

WOOOHOOO!!! Just a few days after complaining about getting several cards in a row from countries that "didn't count" for my every country goal, I get a card from a place I thought, quite frankly, I would never get a card from: Kurdistan! It is a semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq that's taken increasing steps towards full independence following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, who was very hostile towards the Kurdish people. Postcard shows the Citadel of Erbil, in the eponymous capital city. Evidence of human habitation goes back to 4,000 BC and may even go as far back as the Neolithic Period, making the Citadel one of the oldest continually occupied sites in the world. Part of the Erbil Citadel site on the Tentative World Heritage List that was inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2014. The first card displayed here to move from the tentative list to inscription.

My super-duper huge enormous high-five and bear hug thanks to Oliver for send this to me. 

As Kurdistan has become more (semi-) autonomous, it's begun doing a bunch of State-like things such as issuing own stamps that are recognised for international mailing (unlike other most other breakaway States  – I'm looking at you Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria) and stamping passports at borders (photo). Information about Kurdistani stamps is understandably pretty sparse. On the left, as you can see, a stamp issued in 2010 for the Post Festival Erbil with the logo of the Universal Postal Union. On the right, a coat of arms, but not the national coat of arms, which is different.