Kurdish referendum: 'We refuse to be subordinates'

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Kurdistan to say 'goodbye' to Iraq within 2 years from referendum



SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish President Masoud Barzani has said that “serious talks” with Baghdad with the backing of the international community after the referendum could take up to one or two years during which they can negotiate the terms of Kurdistan leaving Iraq.

Addressing a large rally for independence in Sulaimani, Barzani said that the “referendum is to reach a sacred objective, that is independence.”

“We are prepared to enter serious, very friendly, and honest talks with Baghdad, with the international community, or with the support of the international community, so that we solve all the problems. If it needs time, one year or at the latest two years, we can solve all the problems within these two years. And then we can say ‘goodbye’ in a friendly way,” Barzani said, noting that afterwards, Kurdistan will be neighbors with Iraq.

He also said that there are “unfortunately no alternatives” offered to take the place of the referendum.

He said that he knows for sure that the people in Sulaimani would be “pioneers” on September 25 when they vote ‘Yes’ for independence.


The capacity of Sulaimani Stadium is 10,500. People filled the stands and spilled onto the pitch, putting estimates at around 20,000 attendees.

Barzani repeated that Erbil chose to take the path of the referendum because Baghdad failed to remain faithful to partnership and to commit to the constitution.

He said some Iraqi officials thought the vote would not go ahead because of disunity among the people of Kurdistan. “But everyone was wrong. They have realized that the people of Kurdistan are all one when it comes to national matters, for independence,” Barzani told a large rally in Sulaimani.

Sulaimani is the stronghold of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Gorran or Change Movement. Some PUK senior officials were present at the rally including Hero Ibrahim and Kosrat Rasul. Gorran has not supported the vote, but has chosen not to oppose it, either.

Barzani said now that Iraqi officials see there is unity and the Kurdistan parliament is active again, they can have no further excuses to ignore the people of Kurdistan.

The Kurdistan parliament voted to back the September 25 referendum when it convened on September 15 for the first time after two years suspension following tensions between Barzani’s ruling KDP and Gorran.

The international community, including the US, UN, and neighboring countries, has expressed its opposition to the referendum, mainly calling for the vote to be postponed, something Erbil has so far refused to accept.

Barzani said Baghdad was “encouraged” to reject all suggestions with respect to relations with Kurdistan when it saw the international community take a firm stance against the vote.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iraqi Vice-President Nouri al-Maliki, head of the ruling Shiite State of Law Coalition, rejected a UN or any internationally backed alternative to the referendum, instead demanding Erbil cancel the vote.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi even went a step further on Tuesday saying they reject a Kurdistan referendum on independence “now or in future.” Baghdad considers the vote “unconstitutional” and a “threat" against the unity of Iraq.

Erbil says Baghdad has violated at least 55 articles of the Iraqi constitution, including the budget, the Peshmerga defence budget, and Article 140 that concerns the fate of disputed or Kurdistani areas.

Barzani said the referendum vote is a “normal and legal” process practiced by the people of Kurdistan to achieve independence for a nation that has been oppressed since the creation of Iraq some 100 years ago.

He said those who reject a referendum must know they are denying the people their right to self-determination.

Barzani said that an independent Kurdistan would make sure that chemical attacks like Halabja never occur again.

Sulaimani is about 80 km northwest of Halabja, the site of the worst chemical attack ever carried out against a civilian population. The attack by the then Iraqi regime killed 5,000 people and injured another 10,000.

The president described as a mistake Kurds’ commitment to establishing a new Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion. He said Kurds used to have an “independent state” before 2003, but they chose to join the new Iraq hoping that the era of denial was over.

They soon realized, however, that in Baghdad “only faces have changed. Otherwise the culture of intolerance is the same.”

Say YES to KURDISTAN

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Barzani on the Kurdish referendum: 'We refuse to be subordinates'

Iraq’s Kurdish leader tells the Guardian why the independence vote is so vital, and how he will defy global opposition



Kurdish leader, Masoud Barzani, is on the edge of defying overwhelming international opposition to take the Kurds to a landmark referendum he says will end the region’s role in a broken, sectarian Iraq, and pave the way to independence.

Speaking days before the ballot, scheduled for Monday, Barzani said the majority of the global community had underestimated the determination of the Kurds. It had also, he claimed, made a miscalculation in believing that his intention to hold the ballot was a “pressure card” designed to draw concessions, rather than a tangible first step towards a long-held goal of sovereignty.

“From world war one until now, we are not a part of Iraq,” he said. “It’s a theocratic, sectarian state. We have our geography, land and culture. We have our own language. We refuse to be subordinates.

“The parliament in Baghdad is not a federal parliament. It’s a chauvinistic, sectarian parliament. Trust is below zero with Baghdad,’ Barzani said at his presidential palace in the mountains beyond Erbil – the ruined city of Mosul 50 miles away, a border with Iran to the east, and Syria and Turkey to the west.


Barzani: ‘Is it a crime to ask our people to express themselves over their future?’

The language coming from Baghdad in the south has been equally forceful, predicting violence if the referendum goes ahead. And Haider al-Abadi, the Iraqi prime minister, says that if that happens, military intervention will follow.

Barzani, a slight figure walking with a sway and invariably clad in the studied simplicity of khaki, has led the Kurds of Iraq for 12 years, the last two as a de facto president of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north of post-Saddam Iraq. His burden, and his cause, throughout a lifetime as a revolutionary, then statesman, has been to transform aspirations into sovereignty. Ranged against him – for now at least – is the rest of Iraq, the US, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UK, France, the European Union and the Arab League. In favour is Israel, a declaration he could probably have done without.

The vitriol between Baghdad and Erbil has a real manifestation on the ground. As part of the post-Iraq war settlement, the Kurdistan region was guaranteed annual injections of money from central funds, but that agreement collapsed amid a row over oil receipts.

Now, at first sight, there is a mass of construction work in and around the city, which is home to 850,000 people. Up close, the view is different: stalled construction, immobile cranes, the skeletons of half-finished skyscrapers sending out the message: no money. A debt of at least $20bn (£14.7bn) and fickle revenue stream add little comfort.

Along streets festooned with independence flags, past cars bearing posters and the ubiquitous image of Barzani, through three reinforced barriers, and three sets of armed guards, the Guardian is shown into Barzani’s conference room, ushered into the same seats occupied in recent weeks by the US defence secretary, James Mattis, and secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and General Qassem Suleimani of Iran - and by the UK defence secretary, Michael Fallon, only 24 hours before. All of them told him: don’t do it.


A Kurdish boy sells banners supporting the referendum in Erbil

But for 71-year-old Barzani, who has led the Kurdistan Democratic Party since 1979, having succeeded his father, it may be now or never.

Barzani has been fired by a sense of purpose ever since he joined the Peshmerga at the age of 16: “There are so many of us who have fallen and given their souls for this fight.”

Now, with the anticipated fall of Isis, he has another card to play.

“In 2015 I told President [Barack] Obama ... that the partnership with Iraq had failed. At the time we agreed to concentrate on the fight against Isis, so we left it at that.

“Is it a crime to ask our people to express themselves over what they want for the future?” asked Barzani. “It was surprising to see the reaction from the international community. Where is your democracy now? Where are the UN charters? Where is the respect for freedom of expression? After the big sacrifice of the Peshmerga and breaking the myth of Isis, we thought they would respect this right.”

Barzani appeared rattled by the intensity and volume of the opposition to the ballot. On Thursday, Washington released the latest of three increasingly strident statements condemning the poll. Iran and Turkey fear for regional stability and for how an almost certain win in Iraq would galvanise Kurdish minorities in their own countries, as well as Syria.

The multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk, which has been fought over by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen throughout the ages, and controlled by the Kurdistan regional government for the past three years, has been included in the referendum. The move led Suleimani and Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of Iraq’s Shia militia, to threaten military force to retake the city.

The Iraqi government continues with its message that the referendum is in breach of the constitution and a potential trigger for the breakdown of the country, which was declared independent in 1932 when the post-Ottoman British mandate officially ended. To that charge, Barzani argued Iraq was a consequence of the Sykes-Picot document of 1916, a secret British-French carve-up which delineated borders: “The work of officials with a pencil and map.”

Barzani said he had been given no reason to change his mind, or the date, insisting that all offers put to him had centred on reverting to negotiations with Baghdad, which have repeatedly failed in the 14 years since the ousting of Saddam Hussein.

He said the referendum was a means to an end “but not the end itself”, and that post-referendum negotiations with Baghdad and regional partners could start within the next two years.

Asked what would be required for a postponement, Barzani said it would only be the offer of a UN mandated solution, with a prescribed agenda and timeline.

“Why would we enter into an open agenda, not knowing the alternative? We are not going to do that. It would need a real agenda, with a specific timeframe and the supervision of Unami [UN assistance mission in Iraq].

“Baghdad must come forward with a concept on how we can negotiate, being two good neighbours, within a timeframe.”


An Iranian Kurdish woman takes a selfie with a man at a gathering near Erbil to urge people to vote in the referendum

The referendum ballot asks: “Do you want the Kurdistan region and the Kurdistani areas outside the region’s administration to become an independent state?”

It sets no pathway towards sovereignty and has no administrative mechanism for any immediate changes to dealings between Baghdad and Erbil.

Attempting to allay fears that the referendum would set a dangerous precedent by creating a de-facto partition of Iraq along ethnic lines, Barzani said: “This would be a nation state, not built on one ethnic group. It would be based on citizenship.”

And with that the president is off: there are more rallies to address, more envoys to confront.

There was a last-minute boost: an appearance in Sulaimaniya alongside Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, the wife of Jalal Talabani, the stricken leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the second clan-based party in the Kurdish north, which, after some ambivalence, has fallen in behind the referendum. The appearance offers a rare moment of unity before the ballot.

But there are dark warnings from some long-time observers of the Kurds’ struggle towards statehood. “They want to become a second Israel,” said one. “But they could become a second Palestine.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... SApp_Other