Knowing Kurdistan: 9 Days

CAIRO – 16 September 2017: The Kurdistan Regional Parliament reconvened and resumed sessions on Friday, nearly two years after it was suspended over leadership disagreements.

A total of 68 MPs joined the session out of a possible 111, where the upcoming independence referendum was top of the agenda.

Although talks have been continuing all week in order to reach an agreement, the main opposition movement, Gorran, and the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG) decided to boycott the opening of parliament.

“We decided not to participate in the parliament session for two reasons; one is due to not reaching an agreement by the political parties, second is the parliament debate that has been prepared by two factions [KDP and PUK],” said Marwan Galali, head of KIG faction in parliament, to NRT.

Of the 68 attending MPs, 65 authorized the Independent High Election and Referendum Commission to hold the independence referendum on September 25.

Gorran has referred to the resumption of parliament as illegitimate, and said that their faction would not attend due to a breach in parliamentary procedures leading up to the session. The parliament speaker is a Gorran member, and the party believes he should have convened the legislature, not his deputy.

In a rally late of Friday, Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani publically opposed the futile attempts of the international community to postpone the referendum. This came just day after the U.S., UN, and UK presented what they called an “alternative” to the referendum.


Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani gestures as he attends a rally in support for the upcoming September 25th independence referendum in Zakho, Iraq September 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ari Jalal


“To this date, we have not received an alternative that can take the place of the referendum,” Barzani told a pro-referendum rally in Amedi. “The referendum’s legitimacy comes from the people of Kurdistan, not from the outside.”

“We were expecting to be told that it is our undisputed right to have a state for sacrifices we have made in the fight against Daesh [Islamic State] and blood of our martyrs,” Barzani said during a rally in Akre.


Kurdish people celebrate to show their support for the upcoming September 25th independence referendum in Erbil, Iraq September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari


In other news:

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Massoud Barzani's decision not to postpone an independence referendum is "very wrong."

There have also been hints that Turkey will impose sanctions if the referendum goes ahead.

“We don’t want to impose sanctions. But if we arrive at that point, there are steps that have already been planned that Turkey can take,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters in Ankara on Friday, according to Hurriyet Daily News.

The U.S. has continued its adamant opposition to the planned referendum.

“The United States does not support the Kurdistan Regional Government’s intention to hold a referendum later this month,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary said on Friday. “The United States has repeatedly emphasized to the leaders of the Kurdistan Regional Government that the referendum is distracting from efforts to defeat [the Islamic State] and stabilize the liberated areas.”

In the face of U.S. opposition to the referendum, a rally will take place at the Washington Monument in the heart of the US capital on Sunday afternoon.

“We don't want the Americans or the Europeans to think... that the Kurds are 50-50 [on independence] like Scotland, where it [the vote] was almost 50-50, but ‘No’ had the majority... it is very important for the people of America to realize that the people of Kurdistan, those who live in Kurdistan and those who are here, are all with referendum, and are all with independence,” Representative Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman said on Friday.