A step closer to independence for Kurds, but fears remain
WOMEN came dressed in their finest, the men in traditional Kurdish sarwal trousers and sashes.
For some of the older voters, yesterday’s historic referendum on Kurdish independence was too much, and they broke down in tears as they walked out of the voting booths in Kurdistan’s capital, Erbil.
“Today we will finally be a nation, just like the UK,” Khano Darwesh, 77, said as he showed off his ink-stained finger. “Our people have been fighting for over 100 years for this moment.”
He joined three million other residents of Iraqi Kurdistan who turned out to vote yesterday.
For Mr Darwesh, who was not deterred by the two-hour queue, it was only the second time he had ever voted in his life. The last was Kurdistan’s 2005 local presidential election.
“Nobody wanted us to have this but here we are today,” he said, slamming his fist on his chest. The polls closed at 6pm yesterday and while the result is expected later this week, it is a foregone conclusion. Iraqi Kurds have long dreamed of independence – something the Kurdish people were denied when colonial powers drew up the map of the Middle East after the First World War.
However, yesterday’s vote, called by Masoud Barzani, the president of Kurdistan, has been rejected by just about every world power, amid concerns it could threaten the fragile stability on the region’s borders.
Iraq has called it unconstitutional, with its parliament demanding yesterday that troops be sent to areas contested by the Kurds that were included in the referendum.
Turkey, unsettled at the prospect that the vote might provoke the separatist dreams of its own Kurdish minority, has threatened that Kurdistan will pay “a price” in the event of a yes vote.
Escalating tensions, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, yesterday announced the country was closing its borders to Kurdistan before threatening to halt all oil exports.
The Iraqi Kurds export an average 600,000 barrels per day through a pipeline running through Turkey to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. The landlocked Kurdistan regional govern-
‘Our people have been fighting for more than 100 years for this moment. Today we will finally be a nation, just like the UK’
ment (KRG) imports 80 per cent of its goods and is heavily reliant on oil exports for revenues.
The UK and US, which have allied with Kurdistan’s Peshmerga military in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in northern Iraq, had urged Mr Barzani to delay the referendum, saying it would only distract from the fight against the jihadists.
Mr Darwesh, who for 45 years fought for independence as a soldier in the Peshmerga, said he believed his people would not be safe until they had a state of their own.
“I have had my home taken from me four times in my life,” he said. “The first was taken by the Persians in Iran, the second was stolen by Saddam’s forces, the third was burnt down by them and the fourth was taken over by Arabs when the Iraqi army invade Erbil in the Eighties. Now no one will ever take my house again,” he said, tears welling up.
While support for Mr Barzani and his referendum runs high in Erbil, opinions are divided in Kurdish areas outside the president’s heartland.
In oil-rich Kirkuk to the southeast, which was included in the vote despite being contested by the Iraqi authorities, many have reservations.
Critics of the referendum fear it is a cynical attempt to cement Mr Barzani’s rule, which has already been extended by two years and would likely be extended again if they were to achieve statehood. “This is a political vote, not a popular vote,” said Sammi Hawrani, manager of Kirkuk’s football club. “Holding it now, when things are so unsettled, is only asking for trouble.”
According to analysts, Mr Barzani, a guerrilla leader turned politician, is using the referendum as leverage in his KRG’S long-standing disputes with federal authorities in Baghdad over territory and oil exports.
“People are concerned about their vote as they fear it will lead to terrible consequences,” Kamal Chomani, of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, told The Daily Telegraph.
“Some think the ones who have called for this referendum will either use the vote as a bargaining chip in Baghdad, or they will turn Kurdistan into a Saudi Arabia, where one family controls the resources and the power for generations.”