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Escalating Tension, Iraqi Kurds Head to Polls

Escalating Tension, Iraqi Kurds Head to Polls
folder_openIraq access_time6 years ago
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Despite international rejection to the step and neglecting the calls for unity in Iraq, Kurds go to the polls Monday to vote in a controversial referendum on independence for the northern region.


Escalating Tension, Iraqi Kurds Head to Polls

In response to the step, Baghdad ordered Kurdish officials to hand over all border crossings and airports to federal government control late Sunday night, while urging all countries to stop oil trading with the Kurdish region.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, meanwhile, spoke by phone to discuss the Kurdish referendum, voicing concern that it would cause regional chaos and stressing "the great importance they attach to Iraq's territorial integrity," Erdogan's office said.

The referendum which started Monday in the three provinces that make up the Kurdistan region as well as dozens of towns and villages that are disputed include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The Iraqi government "requests neighboring counties and the countries of the world to deal with the Iraqi federal government exclusively [with regards to] ports and oil," read a statement from the prime minister's national Security Council, released Sunday night.

Earlier Sunday, the Kurdish region's President Massoud Barzani pledged the vote would be held despite pressure from Baghdad and the international community.

He said that while the referendum will be the first step in a long process to negotiate independence, the region's "failed partnership" with the Iraqi central government in Baghdad is over.

Pressure from Baghdad and the international community to call off the referendum has mounted over the past week.

In an address on state television Sunday evening, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi repeated his call for the vote to be canceled.

"The map of Iraq is suffering attempts at division and tearing up of a united Iraq," he said from Baghdad.

Also Sunday, Iran closed its airspace to flights taking off from Iraq's Kurdish region following a request from Baghdad. Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard also launched a military exercise in its northwestern Kurdish region, in a sign of Tehran's concerns over the vote. Turkey renewed a bill Saturday allowing the military to intervene in Iraq and Syria if faced with national security threats, a move seen as a final warning to Iraqi Kurds.

Turkey, meanwhile, said its aircraft launched strikes against Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK] targets in northern Iraq's Gara region Saturday after spotting militants preparing to attack Turkish military outposts on the border. "Turkey will never ever tolerate any status change or any new formations on its southern borders," Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. "The [Kurdistan Regional Government] will be primarily responsible for the probable developments after this referendum."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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