Freezing Kurdish vote is one more nail in US, Israel coffin: IRGC commander

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan Regional Government’s decision to propose freezing the referendum results is one more nail in the coffin for US and Israel power in the Middle East, said the deputy head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

 

Hossein Salami, the second-in-command of the IRGC, stated at an event on Wednesday in Iran’s Kurdish city of Kermanshah that the United States is no longer a super power.

 

The American military is now being challenged by smaller nations in the Middle East and North Korea, he said.

 

“The United States currently plays a minor, weak, and not decisive role in the equations of the region,” Salami was quoted as saying by Iran’s ISNA news agency. 

 

The IRGC’s Quds force reportedly played a key role backing Iraqi forces and the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi in their takeover of the oil-rich Kirkuk province and other disputed areas last week.

 

Chief of staff for Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mohamadi Gulpaigani, stated on Tuesday that the fall of Kirkuk was based on instructions from Ayatollah Khamenei that were carried out by the commander of the Quds Force in order to spoil an American-Israeli plan to create an independent Kurdistan in Iraq, dubbing it a second Israel in the Middle East.

 

Salami, from the Revolutionary Guards, celebrated the expectations that the Kurdish vote, in his view supported by Tel Aviv and Washington, will further undermine the authority of these two countries in the region. 

 

“Today the news about cancelling the referendum of Iraqi Kurdistan is one more nail in the coffin of the United States and the Zionist regime,” Salami said.

 

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has not canceled the vote that saw nearly 93 percent support for leaving Iraq. It offered, however, to freeze the results, halt military confrontations, and commence open dialogue with Baghdad on the basis of the Iraqi constitution.

 

Iraq is yet to officially respond to the KRG offer. 

 

While Israel has publicly supported Kurdish aspirations for an independent state, the United States opposed the vote, mainly citing fears that it will distract from the war on ISIS. Kurdish officials have also said that Washington wants the Kurdish population to help Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi win a second term in parliamentary elections next May.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said Israel had "great sympathy" for Kurdish aspirations and that the world should concern itself with their well-being.