KRG to prepare a dossier on relations with Baghdad, may demand compensation
In a Council of Ministers’ meeting, KRG PM Nechirvan Barzani said that the unity among the political parties and people of Kurdistan will guarantee a successful referendum.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister in a meeting on Wednesday emphasized on solidarity as the key to a successful independence referendum and instructed the council to prepare a dossier on Kurds' history with the Iraqi government.
In a Council of Ministers’ meeting, KRG PM Nechirvan Barzani said that the unity among the political parties and people of Kurdistan will guarantee a successful referendum.
According to a statement released on the KRG website on Wednesday, Barzani explained that "Our goal is not limited to holding a referendum. We want to achieve a bigger objective which is having an independent Kurdistan."
The KRG PM instructed the Council of Ministers to prepare a dossier of data and information about the matters related to the relations between Kurdistan Region and Iraq to be ready for holding talks with Baghdad.
According to the statement, the dossier would mention the injustice, illegal treatment of the of the Kurds by Iraqi.
More than 182,000 Kurds were killed during a military operation known as "Anfal" in northern Iraq in the late 1980s. Anfal destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages, expelling their residents. Moreover, the dossier should estimate Erbil's share in international loans provided to Iraq.
"[The dossier] must explain how the Iraqi government has been dealing with the Kurdistan Region in an unfair and illegal manner, particularly related to the Peshmerga, the budget, and compensating for all the damages conflicted on the Kurdistan Region at the hands of the successive Iraqi regimes, especially compensating the Anfal victims and destruction of the infrastructure of the Kurdistan Region," the KRG statement said.
He stated that the Kurdistan Region will make all efforts to hold a proper referendum which would be followed by serious negotiations with Iraq to achieve independence through peaceful means.
Barzani reiterated that referendum belongs to all people of Kurdistan not only one political party, stating that “There is no particular winner or loser in the referendum. If it succeeds, everyone will benefit and the opposite is also true.”
In the meeting, Barzani shed light on the international and regional reaction to the referendum, saying that they were "typical."
Kurdish officials have said they do not expect other countries to gift Kurdistan Region its independence, rather it is what Kurds would have to achieve on their own and statehood will eventually be recognized by the international community.
Editing by Ava Homa