President Barzani: ‘Final Victory is Near’

KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region - During a visit to the Peshmerga frontlines in Kirkuk on Monday Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani praised the Kurdish forces for their “tireless” work and said that “final victory is near.”

“You are making history and building a future for your people and that is a great honor,” Barzani told a group of Peshmargas on the Dubis frontlines near Kirkuk on the first day of Eid.

Barzani visited areas that came under Peshmerga control last month after the Iraqi army withdrew in the face of the rapid advance of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS).

“You make sacrifices here so that the Kurdish people live free,” he said.

The president was accompanied by the minister of Peshmerga and a number of high-ranking commanders.

“The Peshmerga are ready to face death for a right cause,” Barzani said.

The president, who asked the Kurdish parliament earlier this month to establish an electoral commission and set a date for a referendum for independence, told the Peshmerga forces: “The people of Kurdistan have reached a very good stage and final victory is near.”

The Kurds have been fighting successive Iraqi regimes for Kirkuk and many other towns and villages in Nineveh and Diyala provinces that they consider historically theirs.

A constitutional Article 140 signed 10 years ago in Baghdad failed to address the issue, which underlined most disputes between Baghdad and Erbil.

Barzani said that he and the people of Kurdistan will spare no effort to stand by the Peshmerga “in their sacred task.”

The autonomous Kurdistan Region now shares a border of around 1,050 kilometers with the Islamic State declared by IS in most of Iraq’s Sunni center, with its capital in Mosul.

The shared border between Kurdistan and the Islamic State has been largely quiet, except in the town of Jalawla in northern Diyala, where both sides have engaged in daily battles.

The Kurds have so far lost more than 30 Peshmergas and they claim to have killed many IS militants.