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Iraqi clerics fuel dispute over Kurdish independence

As the Kurdistan region is preparing for a referendum on independence, the religious authorities from both Kurdish and Arab sides are fueling the political dispute over the issue.
A man sews an Iraqi Kurdish flag bearing a portrait of Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani, in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on February 3, 2016.  
Barzani has declared that the "time has come" for the country's Kurds to hold a referendum on statehood, his office said.

 / AFP / SAFIN HAMED        (Photo credit should read SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)

ERBIL, Iraq — Objections to the Iraqi Kurdistan’s referendum scheduled for Sept. 25 have gone beyond the political arena. Mosques are now involved, and religion is being inserted into the equation of supporting or opposing the calls for an independent state.

Religious authority Mohammad Taqi al-Madrasi reiterated his previously stated opposition to independence in a July 28 sermon and advised the Kurds “to limit their demands to the confines of sense and reason and to the constitution.” Mohammad Mahdi al-Khalsi, the religious authority in al-Kazimiya, called on all Iraqis July 7 to stand up against “divisive projects” and asked to put a nail in the coffin of this "suspicious" project. He also warned the Islamic world against forming a new Zionist entity that is Kurdistan.

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