Kurdistan's independence, a moment of truth: Kouchner

"International law is very strict on borders. To move them is always a very particular story about a particular people in a particular place."

DUHOK, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - The Middle East was facing "the real end" of the colonial borders as the Sykes-Picot agreement was over, according to France's former Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner.

Kouchner was speaking at a Thursday-Friday conference on the prospects of Kurdistan Region's independence held at the American University of Kurdistan (AUK) in the city of Duhok.

"There is no good moment or bad moment but a moment to [tell] the truth to the world," said Kouchner on the timing of declaring Kurdish independence.

Kouchner, who is a co-founder of the humanitarian aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has been a witness on the ground to the Kurdish people's and Peshmerga's fight against the Iraqi authorities since the 1970s as a volunteering physicist, activist, and later a politician.

"I have been waiting for this moment for 50 years for the independence of Kurdistan. Many of you were not born then," he told an AUK audience made of top Kurdish officials and diplomats, including Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and Kurdistan Region Security Chancellor Masrour Barzani who were attending the event.

Reminding of the mid-1990s intra-Kurdish war between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Kouchner warned against any future repeat, saying "please don't forget internal battles, don't forget infighting in Kurdistan."

"International law is very strict on borders. To move them is always a very particular story about a particular people in a particular place," said Kouchner who served as the United Nations High Representative to Kosova in 1999-2001 after the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

In the case of Kosovo, Kouchner said it was forbidden "even to think about" independence, but it was obviously the only way to stop the murder and war.

The small Balkan country of Kosovo got its independence in 2008.

"When the international law is not convenient enough for the movement of a people you have to change the law or correct it," added Kouchner, mentioning that in the 20th century Africa the dogma was not to move the colonial borders, which eventually changed.

"Kurds are ready. This is certainly the right moment to express the voice of Kurdistan, you are allies of democracy, you are the people fighting the Islamic State, the people fighting for gender egalitarianism, the people able to separate the state and religion," concluded Kouchner.

 

Editing by Ava Homa