The call made by Iraqi Kurdistan region President Massoud Barzani to put the recent KRG draft constitution to a referendum was officially rejected by the Kurdish opposition forces in the region. The latter consist of the Movement for Change, the Islamic Group and the Kurdistan Islamic Union, and they have stressed the need to reach a political consensus on the draft.

On Sunday, May 26, Barzani delivered a speech in Erbil in front of a large crowd of his supporters on the occasion of the anniversary of the outbreak of the Kurdish Coughlan revolution, which was led by his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the mid-1970s against the former Iraqi regime.

Following the setback of the Algiers agreement between the shah of Iran and the Iraqi government in 1975, and under the guidance of his father Mullah Mustafa, Barzani, together with his brother Idris Barzani and a group of his comrades, organized the ranks of the peshmerga and established an interim command for the KDP  to defend the Kurds and Kurdistan. This set the stage for the outbreak of the Gulan Revolution on May 26, 1976.

Barzani said in a speech he delivered in Kurdish in front of a large crowd of supporters waving yellow flags of the party and photos of Barzani: “There are those who talk about the need to ensure a political consensus on this draft constitution. They forget that this draft was approved at the time by 36 political parties in the Iraqi Kurdistan region; 96 MPs approved the project while only one opposed it. This in itself is described as a political consensus on this draft constitution.”