Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday accused the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government of “treachery” for pursuing an independence referendum and warned that Iraqi Kurds would starve when Turkey blocks its trucks from crossing the border.

The comments were some of the harshest yet from Erdogan about Monday’s referendum in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Turkey sees the vote as a threat to its national security and fears it will inflame separatism among its own Kurdish population.

“Until the very last moment, we weren’t expecting Barzani to make such a mistake as holding the referendum, apparently we were wrong,” Erdogan said, referring to Kurdistan Regional Government President Masoud Barzani.

“This referendum decision, which has been taken without any consultation, is treachery.”

Erdogan, whose comments were broadcast live on television, again threatened to cut off the pipeline that carries oil from northern Iraq to the outside world.</s>BAGHDAD: Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi demanded on Wednesday that the Kurdish authorities "cancel" the outcome of the independence referendum they held in northern Iraq on Monday.</s>The backlash against the Kurdish referendum continues:

The Iraqi ultimatum follows Iran’s move to close its land border with Iraqi Kurdistan after it had already closed its airspace to flights in and out of the region. Turkey is threatening to shut down oil exports out of Kurdistan:

Turkey can choose to “close the valves” on oil exports from Iraq’s Kurdish region through the Turkish port of Ceyhan, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned as Kurds voted in a referendum on independence from Iraq. The landlocked Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq can ship as much as 700,000 barrels a day through the pipeline to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. The Turkish president’s comments served as a reminder that Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government depends on good relations with neighboring Turkey for most of its oil sales.

Just as Iraqi Kurdistan depends on good relations with its neighbors to export its oil, it is heavily dependent on imports from the outside. According to the FT, around 80% of their goods are imported. If both Turkey and Iran decide to wage an economic war on Kurdistan in coordination with Baghdad, the region will be deprived of both revenue and goods and their economy will be ruined. The dependence on food imports is even greater:

The shelves of any supermarket in the region illuminate the risk for the Kurdish region: Almost all products are either trucked through or made in Turkey. “Everything is imported,” said Amer Abdullah, 40, who sells foodstuffs brought from Turkey at the wholesale market. “If the borders are closed, in one month everything would be finished.”

These are the conditions that make a viable independent Kurdistan practically impossible so long as its neighbors are determined to oppose it. The economic ties that supporters of the referendum assumed would protect Kurdistan from retaliatory measures had the opposite effect: it is the region’s economic dependence on its neighbors that makes its political independence against their wishes hard to imagine. This week Alex Dziadosz made the economic case against a Kurdish state:

Because the KRG’s roughly 600,000 barrels per day of oil exports are piped almost exclusively through Turkey to the port of Ceyhan, Ankara has enormous leverage not only over the region’s economy, but over the resource-distribution systems underlying social stability, such as the government’s ability to pay salaries. “Oil is the main source of revenue in the region and all of that falls into the government’s coffers. So that’s it—the KRG’s economy depends on one pipeline that sells oil to international markets and the pipeline goes through Turkey. You shut down that pipeline, you choke the Kurdish economy,” Bilal Wahab, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told me. The other major problem is the region’s heavy reliance on imports, which account for some 80 to 90 percent of goods, analysts estimate. The region produces significant amounts of cement, steel, and wheat, but little else. Walk through Erbil’s downtown market and you will see pomegranates from Egypt, apples from Iran, and peaches and eggs from Turkey—not to mention clothes and household goods from China and cigarettes from as far as South Korea. Because Kurdistan is land-locked, shutting its borders with Iran and Turkey and airspace through Iraq could quickly lead to sharp spikes in prices or shortages of basic goods such as food and fuel. A coordinated blockade by the region’s neighbors would be devastating.

It was a measure of how weak the case for an independent Kurdistan was that all of these practical obstacles have been ignored or waved away by supporters. Proponents of backing a new Kurdish state are in such a hurry to turn it into their latest vehicle for hostility to Iran that they failed to think through how much leverage the governments opposed to the new state have over the region. The U.S. should urge all parties to refrain from additional actions that would inflame the situation, but there is not much else that the U.S. can do at this point.</s>The Iraqi government gave the Kurdistan Regional Government three days to hand over control of its airports in order to avoid an international air embargo, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday, according to state TV.

The measure is meant as a retaliation against the independence referendum held by the KRG in northern Iraq on Monday.

>> Israel is right to support Kurdish independence. But it is unwise / Analysis >>

Last week, Baghdad asked foreign countries to stop direct flights to the international airports of Erbil and Sulaimaniya, in KRG territory, but only Iran declared such an air embargo, halting direct flights to Kurdistan.

Tehran has vowed to stand alongside Baghdad and Ankara against the outcome of the referendum. On Tuesday, Iranian state media quoted an army commander as saying that new missile systems have been installed in western provinces that border Iraqi Kurdish areas to "firmly respond to any invasion."

"The Iraqi people won't stand silent. Iran and Turkey and other regional countries won't stand silent and will stand against this abhorrent deviation," Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency. "The Muslim nations will not allow the creation of a second Israel."

Velayati did not say what action Iran had in mind. However, the country's media have compared the Kurds' desire for a homeland with the 1948 creation of Israel. The Islamic republic regards the Jewish state as its greatest enemy along with the United States.

The vote organized by Kurdish authorities is expected to deliver a comfortable "yes" for independence, but is not binding. However, it is designed to give Masoud Barzani, who heads the KRG, a mandate to negotiate the secession of the oil-producing region.

Iran, Iraq and Turkey - countries with Kurdish minorities - have all denounced the referendum as a threat to the stability of a region already beset by conflict, while the United States has expressed similar disquiet.

On Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered security services "to protect citizens being threatened and coerced" in the Kurdish region, after unconfirmed reports that Arabs in a small town in eastern Iraq were compelled to vote yes. Kurdish officials say no such coercion happened.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkey could cut off the pipeline that carries oil from northern Iraq to the outside world, piling more pressure on the Kurds. "After this, let's see through which channels the northern Iraqi regional government will send its oil, or where it will sell it," Erdogan said in Istanbul. "We have the tap. The moment we close the tap, then it's done."

As polls closed on Monday evening, the Iraqi army started "major maneuvers" with the Turkish army at the border, outlining coordinated measures by the two countries against the Kurds in retaliation for the referendum. Turkey later took the Rudaw TV channel off its satellite service TurkSat, a Turkish broadcasting official told Reuters</s>ERBIL: Almost 93 percent of Iraq’s Kurds voted to create an independent state, the High Elections and Referendum Commission said on Wednesday, in a referendum that has angered the Baghdad government and regional powers Turkey and Iran.

Voters were asked to say "yes" or "no" to the question: "Do you want the Kurdistan Region and Kurdistani areas outside the (Kurdistan) Region to become an independent country?"More than 72 percent of eligible voters, or 3.3 million people, cast a ballot, with 92.73 percent of valid votes in favour of "yes" and 7.27 percent in favour of "no.

Meanwhile, Baghdad piled pressure on Iraq’s Kurds on Wednesday, demanding they cancel their overwhelming vote for independence while parliament urged the Iraqi central government to send troops to take control of vital oil fields held by Kurdish forces.

Stepping up efforts to isolate autonomous Kurdish-held northern Iraq, which backed secession in a referendum on Monday that angered neighbouring countries, Baghdad demanded that foreign governments close their diplomatic missions in the Kurdish capital, Erbil.

Final results released on Wednesday showed nearly 93 percent in favour of independence, and 7.3 percent against. More than 3.3 million people, or 72 percent of eligible voters, took part in Monday’s ballot, according to the electoral commission.

The referendum has fuelled fears of a new regional conflict. A delegation from Iraq’s armed forces headed to neighbouring Iran to coordinate military efforts, apparently as part of retaliatory measures taken by the government in Baghdad following the vote.

Iran and Turkey also oppose any move towards Kurdish secession and their armies have started joint exercises near their borders with Iraqi Kurdistan in recent days. Iraq and Turkey have also held joint military drills.

Foreign airlines began suspending flights to Kurdish airports after the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority said international flights to Erbil and Sulaimaniya would be suspended at 1500 GMT on Tuesday.

Kurdish authorities rejected Baghdad’s demands that they should annul the referendum as a condition for dialogue and hand over control of their international airports. Turkey, which has threatened to impose sanctions on the Kurds, said its border with northern Iraq remained open, although it may not remain so. The number of trucks passing through had however decreased.

Home to the region’s largest Kurdish population, Turkey has been battling a three-decade insurgency in its largely Kurdish southeast and fears the referendum will inflame separatist tension at home.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who have stressed the need for Iraq’s borders to remain unchanged, will meet in Ankara on Thursday.</s>The cause of Kurdish independence is one of the great taboos of western diplomacy. Regardless of where one’s sympathies lie, it’s a topic more consistently avoided than engaged. Yet, Monday’s historic referendum saw three quarters of the population participate. Early results suggest more than 90 per cent voted for an independent Kurdistan. This expression of the democratic will cannot be ignored.

On some level, global reluctance to accept an independent Kurdistan—which is also opposed by the Iraqi government in Baghdad—is a natural outgrowth of the anxiety many of us feel about the broader prospect of nations breaking up. This apprehension is informed by memories of civil war in the Balkans, genocide in Sudan, the partition of India, and countless other bloody battlefields of contested borders. Many western nations, including Canada, have active separatist movements of their own, which only feeds nervousness about equipping overseas secessionists with rhetoric and precedents that may someday be used against us.

Yet any nation that seeks to dissolve political bonds between itself and another is proposing a unique idea. Every secession movement occurs in a context particular to itself, bearing its own particular challenges and opportunities, and deserves to be considered on its own merits.

An objective analysis of present conditions in Iraq makes clear that the Kurdish desire for sovereignty is not an arbitrary or ill-considered fancy, but the logical and appropriate conclusion to an unsustainable, eight-decade status quo of political failure. The West can add resolve to the Kurds’ efforts by fully endorsing their long-delayed dream of a free Kurdish state.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has faced unimaginable challenges in crafting a workable, federal democracy from a society left broken and demoralized by one of the most hideous dictatorships of the 20th century. Current Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi is more independent of Tehran than was his predecessor, Nouri al Maliki, yet the political environment that al Abadi must navigate remains heavily controlled by Iran’s sectarian influence. Iraq’s character as a free nation was destined to take many difficult years to solidify, and the conversation regarding what sort of constitution is best suited to its complex and diverse population remains ongoing, and led — appropriately — by the Iraqis themselves.

A Kurdistan operating as a self-governing “region” within an Iraqi system of federalism could never hope to be more than an interim solution to a dilemma dating back generations. For the Kurds, the compromise to participate within a federal Iraq had been brokered in good faith. Stability in the near term would lead to long term independence. Baghdad has broken with that faith, most recently by failing to ensure the expeditious supply of weapons to Kurdish forces confronting ISIS, and attempting to starve the Kurdish treasury by stalling oil revenue transfers.

Since the end of the first Gulf War, Kurdistan has managed its own largely autonomous government — originally protected by a US/UK-enforced no-fly zone — and in 2005, this authority was incorporated into Iraq’s first democratic constitution. Under the longtime leadership of Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani, Kurds have used their quarter-century of self-governance to build an inspiring success story in a part of the world where such things are too rarely seen.

Economic prosperity has flowed to the region through the Kirkuk-to-Ceyhan pipeline, a testament to the leaders’ ability to overcome historic animosities with neighbouring Turkey in favour of mutually beneficial trade. Intelligent investments of the ensuing wealth, in turn, have provided Kurds with a society equipped with impressively modern social and physical infrastructure, and a safe standard of living that in many cases exceeds that of their neighbours.

Though their contentious political ambitions have proven a persistent obstacle to completely normal diplomacy, the Kurdish government has nevertheless established mature, respectful, peaceful relationships with key regional powers, including Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports Kurdish independence. Though not yet a perfect democracy, Kurdistan aspires to be a tolerant, pluralistic society with laws and traditions guaranteeing protection for its Christian population and other ethnic and religious minorities. Staffed by some of the world’s bravest soldiers, the Kurdish army, or Peshmerga, has played a decisive role in the war against ISIS, defending disputed areas even when Iraqi soldiers proved unwilling.

Sadly, none of these achievements is yet fully recognized. As part of Iraq, Kurdistan lacks full legitimacy to exercise the economic, diplomatic, cultural, and military powers it has strenuously negotiated to use on a de facto basis for its very survival.

A strong Kurdistan has always been in Iraq’s national interest, and an independent Kurdistan will only strengthen Iraqi sovereignty. Yet Baghdad clings to the Kurdistan region, largely because of its oil wealth, even while post-Saddam era policies have often sought to limit Kurdish success rather than accelerate it. Liberated from each other’s domestic issues, and the endless distraction of negotiating the terms of a perfect political marriage, both states would be free to function as a mature alliance of equals — a relationship that, to some extent, they already enjoy today.

Even as the world lines up against Kurdish aspirations for sovereignty following Monday’s referendum, President Barzani has already indicated a vote to secede does not imply a unilateral declaration of independence, but will rather begin a process to afford Kurdish leaders a democratic mandate to enter into peaceful negotiations with Baghdad. As a practical matter, an independent Kurdistan bedecked in the full rights and symbols of sovereign statehood is likely to still be many years away.

At the moment, however, we must lack no moral clarity in affirming where our allegiances lie. The West should support the mandate the Kurdish people are bestowing upon their leaders: to guide the peaceful emergence of a confident Kurdistan, rather than the reinforcement of a bad marriage destined to fail. The cause of Kurdish freedom is right and just, and it is overdue that the West should say so.

Shuvaloy Majumdar is a Munk Senior Fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, and former policy director in the office of the foreign minister. He lived in Iraq in 2006/7 and 2009/10, leading US democracy assistance initiatives.</s>Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Wednesday called for the result of the Kurdistan independence referendum to be cancelled if the Kurds want dialogue, Reuters reported.

“We won’t have a dialogue about the referendum outcome,” Abadi said in Parliament. “If they want to start talks, they must cancel the referendum and its outcome.”

Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani had claimed that a majority of Kurds had voted in favour of independence from Iraq in the non-binding referendum held on Monday.

Abadi has also asked Barzani’s Kurdistan Regional Government to hand over control of international airports by Friday or face a ban on direct international flights to the Kurdish region in north Iraq.

In response, Murad said keeping control of airports was necessary for the fight against the Islamic State group.

Kurds make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in West Asia and have long wanted a separate state of their own. However, rivals as well as allies of the Kurdish Regional Government, are opposed to their independence. The Iraqi government, the United States, Iran and Turkey all called the referendum illegitimate, saying it is a dangerous step towards the division of the country.

Last week, the United Nations Security Council had said the referendum could have a “potentially destabilising impact”, and the Iraqi Supreme Court had suspended it.</s>Irbil, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Kurds have voted overwhelmingly in favor of declaring independence from Iraq in a historic and controversial referendum that could have wide-ranging implications for the Middle East.

More than 92% of the roughly 3 million people who cast valid ballots on Monday voted "yes" to independence, according to official results announced by the Kurdish electoral commission on Wednesday.

The outcome represents a step towards independence for the semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq and areas it claims, and puts Kurdish authorities on a collision course with their counterparts in Baghdad.

The poll took place despite vehement opposition from the Iraqi government , which described the poll as unconstitutional and has authorized use of force against Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Kurdistan Regional Government, however, says the referendum will give it a mandate for talks to secede from Iraq, although Baghdad has already ruled out such talks.

On Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called for the referendum to be annulled and for the KRG to engage in dialogue as guided by the constitution. His comments come a day after he ordered the Kurds to yield control of their airports to the central government by Friday.

Several international flight operators have announced plans to cease flights to the region on Friday, including Egypt Air and Royal Jordanian Airlines. Iran previously closed its airspace last Sunday.

Nearly all neighboring regional powers objected to the referendum, warning that independence could further destabilize the region.

"Let's engage in a serious dialogue and become good neighbors," Barzani said during a televised speech.

The vote was held across the autonomous region and in disputed territories including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, a flashpoint city claimed by both sides.

It comes as Kurdish forces play an instrumental role in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. In helping to eliminate the terror group, Kurdish leaders appear to have expected the backing of the international community in pursuing nationalist aspirations.

But the referendum has received little support outside northern Iraq.

Both Iran and Turkey have sizable Kurdish minorities and fear the ballot might galvanize independence movements in their countries.

The United States, United Kingdom and the United Nations denounced the vote amid concerns that it could detract from the campaign against ISIS.

As voters cast their ballots Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the referendum as "illegal" and suggested Turkey could cut off oil exports from northern Iraq, depriving the KRG of a key source of revenue.

Israel is the only country in the region that supported the vote, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsing what he described as "the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to achieve their own state" ahead of the vote.

European Union leaders issued a statement on Wednesday calling on all parties involved to "exercise calm and restraint" and to resolve their issues through peaceful dialogue.

Numbering 30 million, Kurds make up a sizable minority in a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.

Despite nearly a century of Kurdish nationalist movements in various countries, the Kurds have never had a nation of their own.</s>The backlash against the Kurdish referendum continues:

The Iraqi ultimatum follows Iran’s move to close its land border with Iraqi Kurdistan after it had already closed its airspace to flights in and out of the region. Turkey is threatening to shut down oil exports out of Kurdistan:

Turkey can choose to “close the valves” on oil exports from Iraq’s Kurdish region through the Turkish port of Ceyhan, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned as Kurds voted in a referendum on independence from Iraq. The landlocked Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq can ship as much as 700,000 barrels a day through the pipeline to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. The Turkish president’s comments served as a reminder that Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government depends on good relations with neighboring Turkey for most of its oil sales.

Just as Iraqi Kurdistan depends on good relations with its neighbors to export its oil, it is heavily dependent on imports from the outside. According to the FT, around 80% of their goods are imported. If both Turkey and Iran decide to wage an economic war on Kurdistan in coordination with Baghdad, the region will be deprived of both revenue and goods and their economy will be ruined. The dependence on food imports is even greater:

The shelves of any supermarket in the region illuminate the risk for the Kurdish region: Almost all products are either trucked through or made in Turkey. “Everything is imported,” said Amer Abdullah, 40, who sells foodstuffs brought from Turkey at the wholesale market. “If the borders are closed, in one month everything would be finished.”

These are the conditions that make a viable independent Kurdistan practically impossible so long as its neighbors are determined to oppose it. The economic ties that supporters of the referendum assumed would protect Kurdistan from retaliatory measures had the opposite effect: it is the region’s economic dependence on its neighbors that makes its political independence against their wishes hard to imagine. This week Alex Dziadosz made the economic case against a Kurdish state:

Because the KRG’s roughly 600,000 barrels per day of oil exports are piped almost exclusively through Turkey to the port of Ceyhan, Ankara has enormous leverage not only over the region’s economy, but over the resource-distribution systems underlying social stability, such as the government’s ability to pay salaries. “Oil is the main source of revenue in the region and all of that falls into the government’s coffers. So that’s it—the KRG’s economy depends on one pipeline that sells oil to international markets and the pipeline goes through Turkey. You shut down that pipeline, you choke the Kurdish economy,” Bilal Wahab, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told me. The other major problem is the region’s heavy reliance on imports, which account for some 80 to 90 percent of goods, analysts estimate. The region produces significant amounts of cement, steel, and wheat, but little else. Walk through Erbil’s downtown market and you will see pomegranates from Egypt, apples from Iran, and peaches and eggs from Turkey—not to mention clothes and household goods from China and cigarettes from as far as South Korea. Because Kurdistan is land-locked, shutting its borders with Iran and Turkey and airspace through Iraq could quickly lead to sharp spikes in prices or shortages of basic goods such as food and fuel. A coordinated blockade by the region’s neighbors would be devastating.

It was a measure of how weak the case for an independent Kurdistan was that all of these practical obstacles have been ignored or waved away by supporters. Proponents of backing a new Kurdish state are in such a hurry to turn it into their latest vehicle for hostility to Iran that they failed to think through how much leverage the governments opposed to the new state have over the region. The U.S. should urge all parties to refrain from additional actions that would inflame the situation, but there is not much else that the U.S. can do at this point.</s>
• Israel may be the only country recognizing the Iraq Kurdistan referendum



 Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani (C) sits during his meeting with clerics and elders in Erbil last month (Reuters)

Thousands of ethnic Kurds in Erbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq, were dancing in the streets and setting off fireworks on Tuesday, celebrating what is apparently an overwhelming YES vote on the non-binding referendum for Kurdistan independence.

Voters were asked to answer either YES or NO on the ballot asking them just one question in Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic and Assyrian: “Do you want the Kurdistan Region and Kurdistani areas outside the (Kurdistan) Region to become an independent country?”

An estimated 78 percent of the more than five million eligible voters cast a ballot. The ballots are still being counted, though some reports indicate a YES vote around 90 percent.

The reasons that they were celebrating is that they were hoping, probably delusionally, that the successful referendum may be the first step in the creation of an independent nation of Kurdistan, something that has been a frustrated hope for at least a century.

Although the referendum took place in Iraq, there are large populations of Kurds in several countries in the Mideast and the South Caucasus. There are 20 million Kurds living Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, and other countries, making it an anomaly that they are one of the largest ethnic groups that did not get their own state after two world wars in the last century.

The reason that this particular time was chosen for the referendum is because the Kurds believe that they have leverage for their role in fighting the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), which began occupying Iraq with the the catastrophic fall of Mosul to ISIS in June 2014.

Since then it has been the Kurds that have been the main fighting force against ISIS. The Kurds protected Iraqi refugees, including Yazidi refugees, from ISIS, and played an important part in expelling ISIS from Mosul earlier this year. The Iraqi Kurdish leader, Massoud Barzani, was emboldened by the Kurds’ success in fighting ISIS and felt that it was necessary to move quickly before the international goodwill dissipated. Reuters and AP and Atlantic (24-Sep)

Israel may be the only country recognizing the Iraq Kurdistan referendum

Iraqi leader Massoud Barzani may have been hoping for some gratitude from the international community, especially the United States, for the Kurds doing such a great job fighting ISIS in Iraq, and even for the great job that the Kurds are doing fighting ISIS in Raqqa in Syria. Unfortunately, those hopes are not being fulfilled.

Secretary-General António Guterres voiced concern over the referendum in a statement:

There are many countries in the world today with ethnic sub-populations that would like to form an independent region. Many people in Scotland would like to leave the United Kingdom. The Catalonia region of Spain would like independence. China has multiple separatist problems, in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan.

So none of these countries is going to support an independence referendum in Iraq, since doing so would energize the separatist forces in their own countries.

Iraq’s prime minister Haider al-Abadi will not even negotiate with the Kurds:

The United States, the European Union, Turkey, and Iran all fear that the referendum could destabilize the region. Turkey, Iraq, and Iran are all sending troops for exercises near the Kurdistan border. Iraq is threatening to cut off air travel. Turkey is threatening to close the pipeline that goes through Turkey, and which the Kurds use to sell oil to international markets. Closing the pipeline would cut Kurdistan’s major source of revenue. In fact, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Barzani of “treachery,” while Iranian officials have called the referendum “evil.”

So with almost universal rejection of the referendum results, it may be considered surprising the Israel supports the independent state of Kurdistan. Several times in the last few years, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has supported independence, saying that the Kurds are a “brave, pro-Western people who share our values.” Many Israelis feel that they have a lot in common with the Kurds, in that Jews also had to fight to create the state of Israel.

This has led Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei to issue a statement calling the independence referendum a “Zionist plot” meant to fuel violence in the Mideast.

With almost every nation in the world opposing an independent Kurdistan, with only one major exception, Israel, it seems pretty certain that there will not be an independent Kurdistan. United Nations and Al Jazeera and BBC and Jerusalem Post (13-Sep) and Times of Israel
• Concerns grow over chaos in Iraq after ISIS is defeated in Mosul (22-Mar-2017)
• Confusion and chaos in Iraq mark the operation to free Mosul from ISIS (30-Oct-2016)
• Iraq in major crisis after catastrophic fall of Mosul to ISIS (11-Jun-2014)

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iraq, Kurds, Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia, Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, António Guterres, Haider al-Abadi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Seyed Ali Khamenei, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu

 Permanent web link to this article

 Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Iraq's prime minister has demanded the Kurdistan Regional Government "cancel" the outcome of the referendum on independence that it held on Monday.