Kurdistan’s election, Kurdish rights in New York during UNGA

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A veteran US statesman urged people in the Kurdistan Region to actively participate in democratic processes like elections, while the spokesperson for United Nations secretary-general emphasized the recognition of Kurdish rights on Tuesday in New York.

“I am very glad that after many discussions about whether the elections will be held or not in time that there is an agreement that the elections will be held next month,” Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to Iraq, told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The Kurdistan Region is set to hold parliamentary elections on October 20, with official campaigning kicking off on Wednesday. Elections were last held in 2018. They were initially scheduled for 2022, but have been delayed several times. 

“I urge all Kurds to participate. This is not a process where you can sit on the couch and watch on TV, you have to participate, you have to show interest in order to get democracy to be consolidated. People need to participate…” Khalilzad said.

Nearly 2.9 million people are eligible to vote, including around 215,000 early voters. There will be 1,400 polling stations, including locations in the disputed areas and most Iraqi provinces, for eligible voters.

Khalilzad emphasized that besides elections, other elements are necessary to have a successful democracy: “You have to have other things too: free press, competition, people having the freedom to organize to press for what they believe.”

He served as US ambassador to Iraq from 2005 to 2007 before being appointed to the same post at the United Nations.

While Kurds have achieved a level of autonomy through the constitution in Baghdad with the Kurdistan Region and its government, Khalilzad lamented that the nation was separated between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

“That is a historic injustice - what colonial powers and others have done - that borders have been created which the Kurds have been divided into several countries; [a] great, large nation without a state of its own,”  Khalilzad said, remarking that it has impacted their ability to represent themselves internationally.

Khalilzad had a substantial role in bringing together Iraq's many components during its 
transitional period culminating in its new constitution in 2005. 

“I urge all Iraqis to respect that constitution…” the former ambassador said. 

The veteran diplomat relied heavily on Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, former Iraqi president and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

On the sidelines of the UNGA, Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, emphasized that the Kurds are not the only group without a state.

“There are a number of cases of groups, nationalities, who are spread across boundaries…” who had decided not to change their borders “because they knew how violent that could be,” Dujarric told Rudaw’s Sinan Tuncdemir.

He echoed that Kurds, wherever they live, should be recognized by governments, adding that the secretary-general hears their voices.

“The secretary-general, his heart has been very close to the Kurdish people… it is very important that the voice of Kurdish people in whichever country they live be recognized, be listened to, and their rights as a minority be respected,” Dujarric added.

In March 2017 at the height of Iraq’s humanitarian crisis during the Islamic State (ISIS) conflict, Guterres visited the Kurdistan Region that hosted more than 1.8 million internally-displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees including more than 200,000 from Syria. About 98 percent of Syrians who came to Iraq came to the Kurdistan Region.

Dujarric said Guterres “has seen the generosity of the Kurdish people in different parts of the region in how they have absorbed refugees, how they have taken care of people in displacement…”

 

Updated on September 25 with UNSG spox video interview, refugee data