Kurdish leader says he will step down in wake of failed bid for independence from Iraq

washingtonpost.com BAGHDAD — The longtime president of the Iraqi region of Kurdistan said Sunday that he intends to resign, a month after he led a widely criticized referendum on independence that triggered a military response by the Iraqi government.

Masoud Barzani, whose father had been the face of the Kurdish minority’s struggle in Iraq, had promised that the vote would be a vital step in a century-long fight for self-rule. Instead, it unraveled many of the gains the Kurds had made in carving out a semiautonomous region in northern Iraq after decades of war.

Barzani’s intention to step down was announced in a letter addressed to the Kurdistan region’s parliament on Sunday. It was not clear whether Barzani intends to leave public life or whether his resignation would simply curtail his powers and redistribute authority to the legislature and the prime minister of the Kurdish Regional Government.

A senior aide to Barzani said in a Twitter post that the president would not seek an extension of his mandate past Wednesday. Nov. 1 was the date of a planned election for president and parliament that has now been postponed indefinitely.

Barzani has been president of KRG since 2005 and has continued to serve in the role despite his term expiring in 2013. He engineered several extensions through parliament, roiling his opposition amid a security and financial crisis sparked by the rise of the Islamic State militant group in 2014 and the collapse of global oil prices.

Several of his Kurdish political opponents and Iraq’s central government accused Barzani of staging the referendum to shore up his shaky legal hold on the presidency.

His supporters, on the other hand, consider him the only credible candidate to lead the Kurds in a long-deferred quest for self-rule.

The aide, Hemin Hawrami, said Barzani wrote in his letter to parliament on Sunday that he will continue to serve Kurds as a member of the peshmerga, the armed forces of the Kurdish region.

Mustafa Barzani, Masoud’s father, led the forces in multiple uprisings against Iraqi rule dating to the 1940s and held the largely ceremonial position of commander until his death in 1979.

Barzani and his powerful family had been the primary architects of a referendum held last month on independence from Iraq. His son is the head of the KRG security council, and his nephew is prime minister.

Voters overwhelmingly approved of the move, but Barzani has been repeatedly warned by Iraq’s central government, the United States and regional powerslike Iran and Turkey that its results would not be recognized.

Barzani pressed on, even as Kurdish opposition groups expressed misgivings about the timing and scope of the vote. (ontinueReading

Iraqi Kurds vote in favor of independence as crisis escalates

via washingtonpost.com IRBIL, Iraq — Kurds voted overwhelmingly to secede from Iraq, with 92.7 percent approving a controversial referendum that was held Monday, according to an official tally released Wednesday.

While Kurds celebrated the result in the streets of their semiautonomous enclave in northern Iraq, the bid for independence continued to roil Iraq’s central government and powerful regional neighbors Turkey and Iran and is shaping up to usher in a period of contentious wrangling over its implementation.

Early Wednesday, Iraqi lawmakers authorized Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi to deploy troops to a disputed city in northern Iraq and urged for legal action against Kurdish leaders as a showdown escalated over the vote. The parliament also called for the government to take control of all oil fields in the Kurdish region, bringing them under control of the ministry of oil.

Several regional airlines said they would suspend flights to airports in the Kurdish region in a sign of Baghdad’s pressure to try to punish and isolate the Kurds.

The vote has led to a tense standoff between the Kurdistan regional administration and Baghdad, setting off a crisis that has spiraled beyond Iraq’s borders.

The move toward autonomy, a long cherished dream for millions of Kurds, was vehemently opposed by the United States as well as Turkey and Iran, which have worried about their own restive Kurdish populations.

Several regional powers have threatened to impose a raft of punishing sanctions to forestall any further steps toward independence and force the Kurds to negotiate with Baghdad. Both Iran and Turkey have separately held military exercises along their borders with the Kurdish region ahead and since the vote.

Though it opposed the referendum and has since said it is disappointed the Kurds went ahead with it, the United States State Department said on Tuesday it would not effect Washington’s long-standing partnership with the regional government.

The flight suspensions, by Lebanese and Egyptian carriers, came after Abadi ordered Kurdish authorities to surrender control of the airports to the central government in Baghdad by Friday. If the order was ignored, he said, flights to the airports would be stopped.

In a speech to parliament on Wednesday, Abadi also demanded the annulment of the independence vote, saying Iraq would “not allow any violation of the constitution.”

“We will impose the rule of Iraq in all of the areas of the KRG, with the strength of the constitution,” he added. “There will be no fighting between the sons of one country, but we will impose the law, you will see.” (ontinueReading

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Kurds in Iraq vote in historic referendum for independence

washingtonpost.com - IRBIL, Iraq — Kurds packed polling stations across northern Iraq on Monday in a historic referendum on independence despite vigorous opposition from the country’s central government as well as regional and world powers.

Church bells tolled and imams implored Kurds to go out and vote over mosque loudspeakers when polls opened across the Kurdish region, a wide swath of mountains, oil fields and desert that has been run as a semiautonomous enclave for decades.

Local news showed prominent Kurdish figures casting their ballots, proudly displaying the purple voter mark on their fingers in what they described as a national duty to begin the slow process of secession from the Iraqi state.

The poll is expected to produce an overwhelming “yes” vote that many Kurds see as the culmination of a century-long and bloody struggle for self-determination. Kurdish authorities said 3.9 million people are eligible to vote. Irbil-based Rudaw TV said turnout reached at least 76 percent with long lines at some polling stations, citing election officials.

Results could be expected within 72 hours of polls closing at 6 p.m. Monday (11 a.m. Eastern time).

But there are fears that the vote could set off another unpredictable and destabilizing cascade across the region.

Neighboring Turkey and Iran worry that Iraq Kurdish secession could further embolden their own Kurdish minorities, including a separatist faction that has fought Turkish forces since the 1980s.

The United States, traditionally a strong ally of Iraq’s Kurds, has said the timing of the referendum threatens the fight against the Islamic State amid claims that the militant group is on its last legs. U.S. officials also worry that the Kurdish move will weaken Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ahead of national elections next year while empowering sectarian political forces.

For his part, Abadi tried up to the last minute to block the vote, and Iraqi leaders insist they will not recognize the outcome — setting up a potential political standoff.

But Iraq Kurds appeared intent on sending a powerful message as a distinct political force with a culture, language and history of their own. Many voters perceived the referendum as a symbol of their unity and separate political path, rather than an immediate separation from Iraq. (ontinueReading

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Kurdish independence referendum: Turkey, Iran and Iraq unite in opposition to 'Kexit' vote

independent.co.uk - Turkey, Iran and Iraq have agreed to consider counter-measures against Kurdish northern Iraq over a planned independence referendum, Turkey's foreign ministry said on Thursday.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of the three countries voiced concerns that the referendum would endanger the gains Iraq has made against Islamic State, and reiterated their fears over the potential for new conflicts in the region.

"In the meeting, the three ministers emphasised that the referendum will not be beneficial for the Kurds and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), and agreed, in this regard, to consider taking counter-measures in coordination," the statement said.

The statement gave no details on the possible measures but said the ministers, who were in New York attending the United Nations General Assembly, called on the international community to intervene.

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to impose sanctions against Kurdish northern Iraq. Turkish troops are also carrying out military exercises near the border.

The central government in Baghdad, Iraq's neighbours and Western powers fear the vote could divide the country and spark a wider regional conflict, after Arabs and Kurds cooperated to dislodge Isis from its stronghold in Mosul.

The statement said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and their Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari expressed concerns that conflicts surfacing as a result of the referendum would "prove difficult to contain".

But the Kurds say they are determined to go ahead with the vote, which, though non-binding, could trigger the process of separation in a country already divided along sectarian and ethnic lines.

The three ministers also voiced their "strong commitment" to maintain Iraq's territorial and political unity, the foreign ministry's statement said.

Turkey, which has pulled forward a cabinet meeting and national security council session to Friday over the referendum, will also convene parliament for an extraordinary meeting on Saturday, the chairman of the ruling AK Party's parliamentary group said on Thursday. (ontinueReading