SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region — The topic of Kurdish separation from Iraq was one of the main points of debate at the Sulaimani Forum on Wednesday, where Kurdistan’s speaker of parliament said that partition may be Iraq’s last savior. “There is a real fear of partition and separation,” said Yousif Muhammad at a panel on the future of Iraq. “But maybe partition would solve the age-old fears and tension.” Muhammad said that Iraqi people tried for years to live together but in the end they saw only violence and bloodshed. “From the beginning of Iraq its various groups have tried to live together, but it did not work out,” he said, pointing out the country’s tragic history. “So as a Kurd it is my right to have my own state and it doesn’t violate the rights of any other group in Iraq,” he added. Muhammad’s co-panelist was Iraq’s Higher Education Minister Hussein Shahristani, who opposed the notion of the partition of Iraq, saying: “Iraqis -- Shias and Sunnis -- don’t accept partition because they know it won’t solve their problems.” Shahristani added: "The world tried nation states, but they realized it doesn't work, and now they work for integration and union." In response, the Kurdish parliament speaker said that the fear of separation was misplaced. “We should not fear separation,” he said. “The best thing is to end the centuries-old flow of blood and we should not fight for a geography that no longer exists.” Muhammad added that the best way forward was for Kurds and Iraqis to talk to each other on the country’s future course. “We think the closest place to talk about this is Iraq itself -- not Turkey or Iran -- for we have lived together for so long,” he said. “We decide whether it is living together or separation.”
