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| Iraq |
| Iraqi Kurdistan sets roadmap for independence referendum |
| 2017-04-04 |
| [RT] The major parties in Iraqi Kurdistan have agreed on a roadmap for a much-anticipated referendum on independence. Although a timeline for the landmark vote is yet to be set, the region’s leaders say it is Kurds’ "natural right" to secede from Baghdad. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) met on Sunday with Masoud Barzani, the long-time president of the Kurdish autonomous region, to discuss the practicalities of the independence referendum. In a joint statement quoted by Rudaw news outlet, Kurdish leaders declared that the vote was "a natural right of the nation of Kurdistan to decide on its political and administrative path in a referendum and an entity of an independent state." A joint committee will now be set up to discuss the issue with the other parties of Iraqi Kurdistan as well as "to set the timing and mechanism to hold a referendum," the statement said. A spokesperson for the KDP, Mahmud Mohamad, told Rudaw that it had already been agreed that the referendum would be held in 2017. Kurdish parties will start talks with Baghdad and neighboring countries on the issue, he added. Calls for Kurdistan’s secession from Iraq gained impetus following Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... ’s (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIS) offensive on northern Iraq. Baghdad-controlled forces abandoned some areas, which were then recaptured by Kurdish Peshmerga militia and placed under their control. As the struggle against IS in Iraq gained pace, Kurdish leaders argued that it was the right time for Kurdistan to employ the right to self-determination. In October last year, Iraqi Kurdistan’s prime minister, Nechervan Idris Barzani, told German newspaper Bild that the Kurds will renew their push for self-rule once djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... is liberated from Islamic State. "We are not Arabs, we are our own Kurdish nation... At some point there will be a referendum on the independence of Kurdistan, and then we will let the people decide," he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |