ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – After opening dialogue with Baghdad on independence, the Kurdistan Region plans to enter talks with neighbouring countries to reassure them that an independent Kurdish state will not be a threat to security and stability. In discussions with Turkey, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is waiting until after that country’s April 16 referendum on constitutional reforms, the spokesperson for the KRG said in a recent interview.
The KRG is seeking an “amicable solution” for the irreconcilable Kurdish problems with the Iraqi government, Safeen Dizayee told the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News, “an amicable solution for divorce.”
Dizayee said that they want to hold talks first with Baghdad before anyone else.
“Then hopefully with our other neighbors so that they do not see this newborn entity as a threat to their security and stability. We are talking about the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan alone. We have no ambitions of a territory in Iran, Syria and Turkey,” he said.
Kurdish leaders have not officially opened dialogue on this issue with Turkey yet, Dizayee said, explaining that Erbil hopes to start such a conversation with Turkish leaders after the April 16 referendum on an executive presidential system that gives more power to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a strong ally of the Kurdish government of President Masoud Barzani and Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
“The referendum is only a couple of weeks away,” he said. “I don’t think it is too much of a time in a nation’s history. We are ready to wait. For sure we have to talk with Turkey.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi expressed his doubts that even if the Kurdish people voted in favour of leaving Iraq, an outcome the prime minister said is clearly expected, the question arises then whether the Kurdistan Region will be able to take steps in this direction.
Abadi said that Iran, Turkey, and Syria, each of whom have significant Kurdish populations in their countries, are opposed to Erbil in its quest for independence.
“It is not a secret,” Abadi told Rudaw on Wednesday when asked whether any of these countries has told him in private of their opposition to Kurdish independence. “The official stance of Turkey is that they are against the separation of the Kurdistan Region. The official stance from Iran is that they are against the separation of the Kurdistan Region. The former Syria was in the same way against the separation, Syria both as a government and regime. I imagine that generally the Arab situation does not want it, either.”
Dizayee said that the principle on which the new Iraq was founded after the 2003 US invasion no longer exists, leaving Kurds with an increasing sense of being a minority.
“The principle of consensus was something all sides agreed on [in 2003], but now that principle is no longer there. It is a majority-minority vote. So even if Kurds have 65 seats in Baghdad, we will always be the minority,” he said.
Dizayee added he doubts that an independent Kurdistan coming out of Iraq would set an example for other parts of Kurdistan in other countries to follow suit, especially Syrian Kurdistan, also known as Rojava, where the ruling Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its allies have established a Kurdish-majority enclave, strongly opposed by Ankara.
“First the Kurds’ progress in Iraq has been continuing almost uninterrupted since World War I in Iraq. We have a legal status as an autonomous region. The Kurdish leadership in Iraq has been received at the White House, Downing Street, Elysee, and Beştepe [Ankara]. There is a de facto recognition. I do not think you can draw a parallel with the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] or Syrian Kurds. This luxury for Syrian Kurds will not last long, unfortunately. We encourage them to be more realistic. We also encourage the PKK to be more pragmatic to open doors with other opposition groups,” Dizayee explained.
He added that there is still hope for the peace process in Turkey that ended in the summer 2015 after a year and half-long ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish state, during which time both sides were involved in negotiations to end the decades long conflict that claimed more than 40, 000 lives, many of whom are Kurds.
He said the possibility for the peace process is not immediate, but could happen in the future and President Barzani may play a role in this regard.
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