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Iraq's premier gives Kurdish officials 3 days to hand over control of airports
[Iran Press TV] Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has given the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) three days to hand over control of its airports if it seeks to avoid an international air embargo, a retaliatory move the Iraqi government says will take against the independence-seeking region in the wake of a highly controversial referendum.The Iraqi premier made the remarks in a weekly presser in the capital Baghdad on Tuesday. He said international flights to and from the Kurdish region would be suspended in three days. Last week, Baghdad called on all countries to stop direct flights to the international airports of Erbil, the capital city of the KRG, and Sulaymaniyah, another city in the Iraqi Kurdistan, but so far only Iran has put in place such an air embargo, halting direct flights to the region on Sunday. Abadi added that Baghdad would not negotiate with the Kurdish authorities the results of the provocative plebiscite on the independence of the KRG, which is led by  Massoud Barzani... hereditary head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, maybe a little too close to the Medes and the Persians for most people's tastes... . The Iraqi prime minister said the whole nation would suffer from the repercussions of the "unconstitutional" move. The contentious non-binding Monday vote, which had been announced by the KRG earlier in the year, was held in the region in open defiance of Baghdad and much to the consternation of the international community that warned it could most likely create more trouble in the already violence-weary Arab country, which is trying to emerge from years of a campaign of death and destruction by ISIS Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... terrorists. Posted by: Fred 2017-09-27 |
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