ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani says "Inshallah" or God willing this year the Kurdistan Region will hold a referendum because it is "ripe for independence." "Inshallah this year a referendum will be held," said Barzani during a wide ranging interview with a Swiss newspaper Neue Züricher Zeitung. Barzani added that "Kurdistan is ripe for independence." Barzani has stressed the rights of individual nations, noting that nations have to be consulted whether they want to live within borders or separate. "No resolution can be imposed and any new resolution now has to be made through referendum," which is a gesture of democracy, Barzani said. "Each nation has its own natural borders, and those borders that have been drawn through the use of force should not be maintained anymore." Barzani also talked about the Sykes-Picot agreement by which the boundaries within the Middle East were drawn through use of force by the superpower countries at the time, France and Britain. "The strong forces drew the borders, but now they are essentially destroyed and the time has come that this current reality has to be admitted and accepted," Barzani said. In a statement made last week on the centenary of the Sykes-Picot agreement between France and Britain that divided Kurds behind arbitrarily drawn borders 100 years ago, the Kurdish president said those frontiers were now meaningless. “We should admit that the concept of citizenship did not come forth, and the borders have no meaning anymore. It means Sykes-Picot is over,” he said. “There is a historical responsibility on the international community to not insist more and more on the suffering of the people of Iraq,” Barzani added. “Instead they should search for a real resolution for Iraq and the region, otherwise war and conflict will continue and the global peace will be threatened.” Concerning the Kurdish question from neighboring countries including Syria, Iran and Turkey, Barzani told Neue Züricher Zeitung that a nation of 40 to 50 million people must have its own state. "Undoubtedly, we welcome the fact that our 40-50 million nation has to have a state of its own, but we must also consider the fact that we are divided into four parts. And each part has its own situation and each should find a solution with its central governments." Throughout the interview with the Swiss paper, the Kurdish leader also spoke of the fight against the Islamic State and the battle for Mosul as the Kurds will play a part in this impending battle. "The fight against ISIS is our priority," said Barzani. "We are ready to take part in the Mosul offensive; but the Iraqi government and Americans are laying out the offensive plan and administration of the city after liberation." Barzani believes more important than liberating Mosul "is the administration of the city after the offensive.” The Kurdish leader on many other occasions has reiterated that a referendum will be held this year before the US elections take place in November. He asked the Kurdish parliament last year to lay the groundwork for a referendum on Kurdish independence. That project however was put on hold due to the war against the Kurdish region by the Islamic State (ISIS). Barzani also instructed his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) late last year to work with other parties to find a mechanism to hold the promised referendum on independence after the Kurdish parties drifted apart in late 2015 following violent demonstrations in October that targeted KDP offices in some cities and the expulsion of the parliamentary speaker and government ministers of the Change Movement (Gorran).
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