Kurdistan

Turkey's AKP Spokesman: Iraq's Kurds Have Right to Decide Their Future

By RUDAW 13/6/2014

Residents of Erbil condemning Iraq's sectarian policies, April, 2014. Photo: Rudaw

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—The Kurds of Iraq have the right to decide the future of their land, said Huseyin Celik, a spokesman for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Friday.

“The Kurds of Iraq can decide for themselves the name and type of the entity they are living in,” Celik told Rudaw in an interview to be published soon.

The AKP is the party of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan under whom Ankara and Erbil have built strong economic and diplomatic relations.

In case Iraq gets partitioned, said Celik, “the Kurds, like any other nation, will have the right to decide their fate.”

Celik believes that Iraq is already headed towards partition thanks to “Maliki’s sectarian policies.”

In the past several days fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have occupied most of Iraq’s Sunni areas in the center of the country.

They have declared war on Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite government whom they accuse of persecuting the Sunni population.

“Turkey has been supporting the Kurdistan Region till now and will continue this support,” said Celik.

Turkey and Kurdistan have signed a 50-year energy deal and Kurdish oil is exported via a pipeline that connects the autonomous region to the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.

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3 ararat barzani | 13/6/2014

waay babaa :) ,good article , finally turks know that the independent Kurdistan will not affect them but will be an excellent neighbor for them. Kurdistan and Turkey can live together as brothers and sisters.

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2 Hersh | 14/6/2014

Talk about turn around! 4-5 years ago these same people were threatening to invade south Kurdistan, and Kerkuk was their 'red line', now they're encouraging Kurds to declare independence. If they solve their own Kurdish issue we can have a VERY fruitful and strong partnership with Turkey, together we can be a sensible counter force towards the evil ayatollahs in Iran and dirty Wahabi's in Saudi Arabia who are destroying the whole region. Now that Turkey has seen how dangerous ISIL terrorists are they must also change policy in Syria and start supporting Rojava against ISIL and encourage a unification of Rojava and Bashur. Come on Turkey! have the vision and courage to form a real partnership with Kurds, after that only the sky is the limit!

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4 AkarHawleri | 14/6/2014

I always said kurds do not declare independence because you dont have the kurdish inhabited-area in controll. OMG this is a perfect time to declear independence! Kurdish peshmerga have all south kurdistan in their controll and shia and sunni are in war. God is looking down on kurds and is saying, i did this for you, now make sure you have your country.

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5 bvural34 | 14/6/2014

this is a game and the kurds had better not to trust in any nation, anymore. our best friends is our people. to anyone, we know that this century is the last chance to give us for unity

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