KDP calls on voters to side with candidates promoting Kurdish rights

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A high-ranking member of the leading party in the Kurdistan Region on Thursday underlined the responsibility voters bear in the upcoming parliamentary election and urged them to cast ballots for individuals they trust to promote the Kurdish cause.

Masrour Barzani, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Leadership Council and the Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC), made the statements during speeches he gave in the Duhok province as part of the KDP's election campaign, which is seeking a big win in the parliamentary elections scheduled for Sept. 30.

“The election will be decisive and your vote pivotal,” he stated, adding “for the next four years, parliament will make important decisions, vote for those you believe will represent you, and will guard the laws that serve the people of Kurdistan.”

He also called on KDP candidates who eventually win seats and enter parliament to remain the voice of the “rights of Martyrs and the brave Peshmerga.”

“We have passed through the bad stages we experienced last year,” Barzani said, a clear reference to the Iraqi military operation that ended with the ouster of the Peshmerga in response to the Kurdistan Region’s controversial independence referendum, described by the KRSC Chancellor as a “great achievement.”

As one of the parties championing the independence referendum, Barzani affirmed the KDP “was founded to defend the land of Kurdistan and will continue on that path.”

“Even with the economic and political pressure exerted on the [Kurdistan Region], it has become a paradise for the Iraqi people and the region,” Barzani continued, celebrating the greater comparative developmental milestones achieved in Kurdistan.

The Kurdistan Region has distanced itself from the internal conflicts that plague Iraq making it a haven for coexistence.

During the climax of the country’s recent instability and as the Islamic State seized large swaths of lands, the Region, despite the economic crisis it found itself in, took in and aided hundreds of thousands of displaced Iraqis and Syrian refugees.

Kurdistan has also witnessed unprecedented urban development and prosperity in comparison to the rest of Iraq in the years following the fall of the former regime in 2003.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany