The international community pledged more support at the Munich Security Conference for the Kurdistan Region and its Peshmerga forces in light of the current economic crisis, head of Kurdistan Region’s foreign relations department, Falah Mustafa told Rudaw. Mustafa said that Kurdish President Masoud Barzani has been conveying the current financial and refugee crisis as well as the war against the Islamic State (ISIS) to European and world leaders in Munich and urged them for their support. The world’s top officials reportedly promised the Kurdish delegation more military, humanitarian and financial support. “These countries do not want to lose the Peshmerga forces’ successes against Daesh, so they promised more help to the Kurdistan Region,” said Mustafa, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. Speaking on the Kurdish referendum, according to Mustafa, Barzani told the world’s leaders attending the conference that Kurdistan has the right to decide on its own future in a referendum. Following his meeting with Kurdish President Barzani Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said the question of independence referendum in the Kurdistan Region is a political question and Kurdish leaders can decide it, keeping in mind the current situation and the issue of stability in the region. Meanwhile, the German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed his country’s “serious concern” over the Kurdish independence referendum while the deputy head of Germany’s CDU ruling Party Armin Laschet told Rudaw that Kurdish independence is an issue that “can be decided in Kurdistan with Iraq.”
