The president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, has announced plans to hold a referendum on independence:
[A]nnouncing a Kurdish independence vote during an interview with the BBC, Barzani said a referendum would only confirm what is clear already—namely that Iraq has been “effectively partitioned now” following the territorial gains by the self-declared Islamic State (IS), formerly known as ISIS, the al-Qaeda offshoot which has proclaimed an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria. He added: “Are we supposed to stay in this tragic situation the country’s living? It’s not me who will decide on independence. It’s the people. We’ll hold a referendum and it’s a matter of months.”
The Kurdish leader’s remarks drew a sharp denunciation from the central government in Baghdad, which dubbed the planned referendum unlawful. But with Iraq’s security forces in disarray and unable to roll back the Sunni insurgency, there is little Baghdad can do to stop the Kurds from breaking away, unless it receives grater military assistance from Iran.
One of the factors allowing Barzani to make this bold move is that Turkey has softened its longstanding opposition to an independent Kurdistan. Marc Champion puts this down to next month’s presidential election, in which incumbent Erdogan may need Kurdish votes to secure the mandate he’s looking for:
May’s local elections were a dry run for the presidential race, in that both Erdogan and his opponents turned the polls into a referendum on him. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party won 43 percent of the vote, a good result but not the majority he needs to win the presidency in the first round. The two main opposition parties together won 44 percent.
The even split between Erdogan and the main opposition means that Turkey’s Kurds will be the kingmakers. For them, any concern over Erdogan’s authoritarian bent pales next to securing an independent Kurdish state in Iraq and a better deal for themselves in Turkey. Erdogan is letting them know he is the man to deliver both.
Goldblog urges Obama forcefully to champion the cause of Kurdish “liberation”:
For two decades, the Kurds have shown themselves to be the most mature and responsible entity in Iraqi politics, which is one reason American officials are panicked by the thought of their permanent departure. A Kurdish exit will promote instability, the thinking goes. But what the region has now isn’t stability. What’s there, among other things, is an institutionalized injustice, an injustice at times exacerbated by U.S. policy. …
The Kurdish leadership is far from perfect; corruption is a serious problem, and Kurdish parties are incompletely committed to democratic ideals. But the Kurdish autonomous zone is Switzerland compared to the rest of Iraq, and the rest of the neighborhood.
But Adam Taylor warns that the situation is more complicated than it looks:
The Baghdad government has vocally opposed a referendum (“The government doesn’t accept anything outside the constitutional way, which was voted on by the Kurds,” an adviser to Maliki has told Bloomberg News) and the vast majority of non-Kurdish Iraqis also oppose it. …
Even the Kurdish people don’t necessarily represent a united front. Kurdish groups in other countries, notably Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), have long called for a united Greater Kurdistan rather than separate states. Even Iraqi Kurds aren’t as united as it might appear, with much of the country split between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, both of whom operate their own security forces (the two parties fought a three-year civil war in the 1990s but have a power-sharing agreement now).
Previous Dish on the prospect of an independent Kurdistan here.
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