Barzani: Independent Kurdistan brings stability, won't alter neighboring states' borders

“An independent Kurdistan could have a much stronger relationship with Baghdad.”

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The Kurdistan Region President stated Kurdistan’s exercise of its right to self-determination is not a threat to anyone, and they are ready to accommodate Iraq’s concerns over the independence referendum.

In a Washington Post op-ed published on Wednesday, the Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani said an independence referendum would resolve an old conflict with Baghdad that “has long treated Kurds as less than full citizens of the country.”

President Barzani added an independent Kurdistan would “make a volatile region more stable,” assuring “it will not alter the borders of any neighboring state.”

“[Independence] will make for a much stronger relationship between Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds,” he continued.

“We are determined to do everything possible to accommodate Iraqi concerns in the likely event that the vote is for independence,” the President added.

President Barzani mentioned all previous Iraqi governments suppressed Kurds, highlighting the “atrocities” committed by Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1980s where he used chemical weapons on Kurdish towns and villages.

He added the former Iraqi regime had “leveled more than 5,000 Kurdish villages and deported Kurds to the south, where they were murdered and buried in mass graves.”

“One hundred eighty-two thousand Iraqi Kurds (nearly five percent of our population), including members of my own family, perished in this period,” President Barzani said.

Regarding the relations between Erbil and Baghdad after the overthrow of the Ba’ath regime, the President stated the Kurds tried their best to build a new Iraq.

He said this included “drafting a constitution that guaranteed Kurdistan’s autonomy and protected the rights of all Iraqis.”

President Barzani reaffirmed that after 14 years, Baghdad failed to apply key requirements of the constitution adding he believed “it never will.”

In his piece, the Kurdish leader argued a single Iraq was not able to protect its citizen.

He pointed to the example of the Islamic State’s (IS) attack on Kurdistan using US weapons abandoned by the Iraqi Army in Mosul.

He also mentioned Baghdad cutting “Kurdistan’s constitutionally mandated share of the federal budget” and failing to provide Peshmerga forces with weapons.

“As an independent country, we could have financed and equipped our own troops and brought this fight [against IS] to a swifter conclusion,” President Barzani declared.

“An independent Kurdistan could have a much stronger relationship with Baghdad,” President Barzani wrote.

“Kurdistan will be a great neighbor, cooperating against terrorism and sharing resources — including water and petroleum infrastructure — in ways that benefit both countries,” he added.

President Barzani emphasized that “the forced inclusion of the Kurds in Iraq has not worked,” despite “a century of trying.”

“We ask that the United States and the international community respect the democratic decision of Kurdistan’s people [as] both Iraq and Kurdistan will be better off [in the long run],” he concluded.

 

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany