Iraq’s Kurds pressured to abort vote on independence
IRBIL, Iraq — In a region where few people concur on anything, adversaries and enemies in the Middle East find themselves agreeing on one goal: to stop Iraq’s Kurds from forging ahead with a vote for independence Monday.
As the Kurds rush headlong to embrace their region’s first steps toward independence, their neighbors and allies, led by the United States, are ratcheting up demands to cancel a referendum on independence from Iraq. They warn that it could unleash ethnic violence, tear Iraq apart and fracture the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic state militants.
It is difficult to reconcile the fierce international objections with the euphoric flag-waving celebrations in Kurdish cities, where residents are convinced they will be voting for independence next week no matter what the world thinks.
But almost every day for the past week, Kurds have been buffeted by jarring new demands from outside their autonomous enclave to cancel the vote.
The White House has called the vote “provocative and destabilizing.” Brett H. McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the region, has described it as “a very risky process” with “no prospect for international legitimacy.”
The United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres, has warned that the vote would undermine the fight against the Islamic State, where Kurdish fighters, known as peshmerga, and Iraqi army units are part of the U.S.-led coalition.
The Kurds’ powerful neighbor, Turkey, is conducting tank drills on its border with Iraqi Kurdistan. Iran has vowed to block its border with the landlocked region if the vote proceeds. In response, some Iraqi Kurdish families have been stockpiling food and supplies.
The Iraqi government in Baghdad, faced with the possibility of losing a third of the country or the outbreak of a new civil war, has called the referendum illegal and unconstitutional. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said that Iraq is prepared to use military force if the referendum provokes violence.
So far, the Kurdish leadership has held fast, insisting that the referendum will proceed. But the Kurdish Regional Government said it is still talking to the United States and to Baghdad, seeking an ironclad guarantee of a future road map to independence.
Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. diplomat who is close to Kurdish leaders, said an 11th-hour deal was unlikely. “For the generation of leaders who were peshmerga, this is the end of their careers — this is their moment,” he said.