ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim said on Wednesday that now is the time for Kirkuk province to break away from the central government in Baghdad. "Kirkuk needs to get away from Baghdad," Karim told reporters, according to Foreign Policy magazine, explaining that the political crisis in Baghdad is directly harming the fabulously oil-rich province. The central government halted the export of oil through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline in protest to the Kurdistan Region’s independent export of its oil. Baghdad did this without consulting Erbil, a move that has done more harm to Kurdistan’s already struggling economy. Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani "has no faith left in Baghdad at all," Karim said. In reference to the US forces fighting in Iraq, he said that "young men are losing their lives to keep a country together that doesn't want to be together." In an interview with Rudaw English early this year Karim upheld the right of the Kurdistan Region, including Kirkuk, to hold a referendum on independence. He also advocated "special status and autonomy within the Kurdistan Region," for Kikuk, given its multi-ethnic population, a move he hopes will eventually encourage all the people of Kirkuk to "buy into the idea of Kurdistan."
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