TURKEY WARNS KURDS OVER VOTE

Ankara threatens retaliation if Iraqi Kurds carry out referendum

IRBIL (Iraq)

KURDS seeking independence from Iraq came under intense pressure on Saturday from their powerful neighbour, Turkey, which demanded that Iraqi Kurdistan cancel an independence vote scheduled for today.

Turkey, the main link to the outside world for the autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, threatened economic and diplomatic retaliation if Kurds carried out a referendum the Turkish government called a “terrible mistake”.

Turkey’s Parliament voted on Saturday to renew for one year a mandate to authorise military intervention in Iraq or Syria if Turkey determines that developments there threaten national security. Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member, is conducting tank exercises on its border with Iraqi Kurdistan.

Turkey’s prime minister, Binali Yildirim, when asked whether a cross-border incursion was possible, replied that security operations were a question of timing based on “developing conditions”.

Iraq’s Kurds refused to back down. The Kurdish region’s president, Massoud Barzani, said the Iraqi Kurds waving Kurdish flags at an event to urge people to vote in the independence referendum in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region, in northern Iraq, on Friday. (Inset) Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani independence vote would proceed as scheduled despite threats from Turkey and Iran.

“It’s too late to talk about delaying the referendum. It’s not my decision any more. It’s a decision for the people,” Barzani said on Saturday.

In a defiant speech on Friday evening to 40,000 Kurds in Irbil chanting “Bye-bye Iraq”, Barzani said of Turkey and Iran: “You have punished us for 100 years.

Are you not tired yet?”

Both Turkey and Iran fear that an independence move by Iraqi Kurds could set off unrest among their own Kurdish minorities.

Baghdad considers the vote illegal and unconstitutional, and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq said his government was prepared to use military force if the referendum provoked violence

A delegation of Kurdish leaders

travelled to Baghdad on Saturday to discuss the referendum with Iraqi officials.

Ali al-Alaq, a member of Iraq’s Parliament who has led talks with the Kurds, said negotiations would end if the vote were conducted today.

Kurdish officials said voting had already begun on Saturday among Iraqi Kurdish expatriates in Germany, Denmark, Britain and Switzerland. NYT