NEW YORK – Iraqi President Fuad Masum said Friday that the results of a referendum on Kurdish independence will not be implemented immediately, and that an independent Kurdistan will take a “very long time.”
“A referendum doesn’t mean that immediately after the referendum there will be the announcing of the Kurdish state,” Masum said in a briefing to the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
“Forming a Kurdish state is a project; it has to take into account regional and international countries,” said Masum, himself a veteran Kurdish politician. “This process will take a very long time.”
Leaders from the autonomous Kurdistan Region announced plans for a referendum in July, amid tensions between Erbil and Baghdad over oil revenues. A new government under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is aimed at bridging Iraq’s ethnic divides to tackle an Islamist rebellion.
“There is a decision from the Kurdish leadership to stay in Iraq. The idea is to hold a referendum for independence; it was at a time when the dispute was very high with the Iraqi central government,” Masum said.
A sectarian Sunni group of more than 30,000 fighters, known as Islamic State (IS) or by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, has persecuted minorities while imposing caliphate rule across swathes of Sunni-majority areas straddling the Iraq-Syria border.
“Other (extremist) organizations are interested in one state, one boundary, one border. ISIS is different. ISIS is an international terrorist organization,” said Masum.
“They are interested in the whole world. Others have specific target against one authority, But ISIS has an aim to form a state that brings together the entire Middle East – and this is where the danger comes from.”
US President Barack Obama says IS can be defeated with US-led airstrikes and by arming and equipping Kurds, Iraqis and moderate elements of Syria’s opposition as ground forces. Critics say he lacks reliable allies, over-depends on air-power and has no plan for ending Syria’s civil war.
The US military carried out 10 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Thursday and Friday, destroying and damaging IS vehicles south and southwest of Kirkuk, a guard shack west of Baghdad and vehicles and a command post near Al Qaim. Three airstrikes south and southeast of Dayr Az Zawr hit five IS tanks.
The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, says that more than 144,000 Syrian refugees, mostly Kurds, have sought refuge in southern Turkey’s since September 19, after fleeing an IS advance around Kobane, also known as Ayn al-Arab, in northern Syria.
Antonio Guterres, the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, warned that Turkey is struggling to cope with the influx – together with more than a million other Syrians. “It is absolutely critical that the international community supports Turkey to respond to spiralling needs.” he said.
Daryl Grisgraber of Refugees International warned that Kurdish officials in north Iraq’s autonomous zone are similarly overloaded with some 215,000 Syrian and 800,000 Iraqi refugees, who fled during a lightening IS advance this summer.
“The camps built for Syrian refugees are now full. Displaced people are living in schools, church compounds, and unfinished buildings,” Grisgraber said on Friday. “At one centre, we saw displaced people sleeping 35 to a room, with some even living on the roof.”
----------
See video here:
http://www.cfr.org/iraq/conversation-fuad-masum/p33513
