Could Kurds hold independence referendum this year?
The Kurdistan Democratic Party is rushing to organize an independence referendum; however, there is no agreement on this matter among other Kurdish parties, and Baghdad, Iran and Turkey have strong reservations.
BAGHDAD — "The idea of a referendum has been re-energized," former Iraqi Foreign and Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a prominent leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said April 5. Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said March 25, “The Kurdistan Region will hold a fate-deciding referendum this year.”
Barzani noted that “a united Iraq” does not exist, adding, “The result will not lead to immediate independence. But if citizens empower us to act, we will proceed with independence, and the international community will know what the Kurds want.”
Although the Kurdish parties in Iraqi Kurdistan all agree on the inevitability of securing an independent Kurdish state, they have have been arguing about which date to hold a public referendum on independence from Iraq.
With the internal political dispute between the parties in Erbil and Sulaimaniyah, and the constitutional vacuum crisis in the Kurdistan Region, talk about independence has become an attempt to escape the thorny issues by trying to move a common cause forward.
