Kurd legislature rejects Iraq resolutions

President authorized to protect Kurdish areas

ERBIL, Oct 1, (Agencies): The Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament on Saturday rejected the resolutions taken by Iraq’s Council of Representatives against the region in retaliation of the independence referendum it held on Monday.

Closing all border crossings is not in the power of the federal government in Baghdad, a Kurdish MP said, urging the implementation of the outcome of the public vote that covered Kurdistan and the “disputable areas.” The Kurdish parliament welcomes any step to enhance dialogue with Baghdad, he said.

The legislature of the northern Iraqi region held a session today to discuss the steps of the Iraqi government and parliament regarding the plebiscite.

It voiced utter rejection all the Iraqi parliament’s decisions saying: “The referendum of the Kurdistan region is legal according to the Iraqi Constitution.” Another Kurdish parliamentarian urged the neighboring countries

to respect the laws of the region, and the international community to respect the decision of the Kurdish people.

Meanwhile, the parliament authorized Kurdish President Masoud, also Commander in Chief of the armed forces (Peshmerga), to make the necesEarlier

sary arrangements to protect the Kurdish areas exposed to threats.

The Iraqi parliament earlier issued a host of resolutions, including committing Prime Minister Haider AlAbadi to seize control of the Kurdish Erbil and Sulaymaniyah airports, and to close border crossings between the region and neighboring countries.

More than 92 percent of the people in Kurdistan voted in favor of independence from Iraq.

Meanwhile, the powerful Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Saturday that an Iraqi Kurdish independence vote marked a first step towards the partition of the Middle East, warning that this would lead to “internal wars” and must be opposed.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Iran-backed group, said events in northern Iraq, where Kurds overwhelmingly voted for independence on Monday, were a threat to the whole region and not just Iraq and neighbouring states with Kurdish populations.

“It will open the door to partition, partition, partition,” Nasrallah said. He added that “partition means taking the region to internal wars whose end and time frame is known only to God”.

Nasrallah noted that his group’s arch enemy Israel had come out in support of Kurdish statehood and described the referendum as part of a US-Israeli plot to carve up the region.

The United States came out in opposition to the vote, along with major European states and neighbouring countries Turkey and Iran. The government of Syria, where Kurdish groups have established autonomous regions, also opposed the referendum.

Nasrallah was speaking to supporters on the eve of Ashura, when Shi’ites commemorate the slaying of the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein, at Kerbala in 680 AD.

Hezbollah, a political and military movement, is a major player in the Syrian conflict, where it has deployed thousands of fighters in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Hezbollah fighters are currently fighting along with other Iran-backed militias and the Syrian army against Islamic State militants in eastern Syria.

“DAESH is at its end. It is a matter of time in Iraq and Syria,” Nasrallah said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.