ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani vowed to go ahead with the referendum for Kurdish independence, saying that the Islamic State (ISIS) and its successors won’t stop the process.
“Independence and referendum had reached an advanced stage,” said Barzani on Tuesday, speaking to a group of Peshmerga fighters who recently returned from Kobane. “They [ISIS] wanted to hit that process, but of course, even if one hundred or a thousand ISIS came, that process will still continue,”
“It is impossible to back down from it,” he added.
Barzani said that the radical group had been manipulated into attacking the Kurdistan Region in the summer.
“There were two reasons that ISIS attacked Kurdistan; first they were pushed to do so and now we are searching to know who pushed them to attack the Kurdistan Region,” he said.
According to Barzani, the second reason was the ‘blind support of the Sunnis to the ISIS,’ hoping to take back the territories under article 140.
The president praised the role of the Peshmerga forces and their sacrifice in Kobane.
“You are the pride of the Kurdish people,” he said. “You recorded a glory for yourself, your families and your country,”
Barzani told a group of 150 Peshmergas who returned to the Kurdistan Region last week after two months of fighting ISIS militants alongside the Peoples Protection Units (YPG).
“The honor of assisting our sisters and brothers in another part of Kurdistan was yours and that is a great honor,” he said.
Barzani said the Islamist militants did not expect the Peshmerga and the people of Kurdistan to stand up to them.
He said, “Helping the defenders of Kobane is a patriotic duty,”
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