Independence referendum will be held this year: PM Barzani

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—A referendum through which the people of the Kurdistan Region to decide whether they want to stay with Iraq or separate and establish a state of their own will be held this year, says Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.

“Yes, there will be a referendum this year. No question,” PM Barzani has told Trudy Rubin, according to a column published on Times Record News. “The outcome doesn’t mean we will immediately embark (on independence) but it will show the international community what the population wants.”

Rubin who writers in her column that no other community in the Middle East, except Israel, have closer relationship with the US and who have played a critical role in confronting the Islamic State, quotes Barzani as saying that the Kurds and Iraq have entered a new era.

“We can’t go back to the old days,” she quotes the Kurdish prime minister. “Iraq after (the battle for) Mosul is not the same as Iraq before Mosul.”

The Kurdish prime minister says that many meetings between Erbil and Baghdad had been held without any outcome, which justifies a seeking a different solution.

“Our position is to have a serious dialogue with Baghdad and come to an amicable solution,”

Rubin writes: “Today, Kurdistan is the most stable and tolerant part of Iraq, and it has become a refuge for Christians and other minorities fleeing the Islamic State.”

She highlights the importance of the Kurdistan Region to U.S. security interests in the region.

Despite challenges and opposition from countries in the region to the Kurdish ambitions, she writes, “It is still important for Washington to consider the question of Kurdish independence.”

She writes that the Trump administration will have the challenge of stabilizing the Middle East which he could do through addressing the Kurdish issue “head-on” and especially when the Kurds are open to having a US base on their land.

“If the United States is in need of having a base in Kurdistan our leadership would welcome it,” she quotes Kurdish Prime Minister Barzani. “If the Americans want a united Iraq, in practical terms it doesn’t exist any more. If they want stability, they have to deal with the core issue of Kurdistan.”