Kurds want right to self-determination

Entitled to the same rights as Quebecers: Diplomat

OTTAWA — A senior representative for Iraq’s Kurdish region is defending her people’s plan to hold a referendum on independence, saying they simply want to exercise the same right to self-determination as Quebecers.

Tensions in Iraq are mounting after the country’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil announced earlier this month plans to hold the longpromised referendum on Sept. 25.

Planning is now underway, despite fierce objections from Iraq’s central government in Baghdad, as well as varying degrees of opposition from the U.S., the European Union and most of Iraq’s neighbours.

Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdish government’s top diplomat in Washington, said her people have tried to live and work with the rest of Iraq, but Baghdad has chosen not to co-operate.

She cited a number of examples to illustrate the point: recent reports of the central government cutting off supplies of medicine to the Kurds, restrictions on Kurdish oil exports and a failure to resolve long-stand- ing land disputes with Erbil.

“We have done our best to be partners in Iraq; it has not worked,” Rahman told The Canadian Press. “We believe this is the right time to allow the people of Kurdistan to exercise their democratic right, a right that people across the world have, to express their self-determination.”

She also cited what she called historic injustices perpetrated upon Iraqi Kurds, including the killing of thousands of Kurds by Saddam Hussein, as well as forced displacements and disappearances.

Canada has said little about the planned referendum, despite the fact Canadian soldiers have partnered almost exclusively with the Kurdish peshmerga in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

“As a state that has its own province of Quebec that has exercised the right to hold a referendum, I think it would be difficult for Canada to deny that right to the people of Kurdistan,” Rahman said.

Rather than simply standing by and watching, she said Canada could help oversee a peaceful divorce between the two sides.

“We believe that the best way to reach our desired goal is to have a negotiated settlement with Baghdad, and a negotiated settlement means dialogue,” she said.