A dream come true for Iraqi Kurdistan people

kirkuk — For Iraqi Kurds, the purple finger tip is a badge of honour, a sign that they have voted in Monday’s referendum on independence for the autonomous northern region.

“If I had 20 fingers, I would have voted 20 times for my state,” Ibtissam Mohammed, 45, says in the city of Kirkuk where control is disputed between the Kurds and the federal government in Baghdad.

She donned traditional Kurdish dress before casting her vote at a school in the city centre, and proudly shows journalists her inkstained finger.

The Kurds say that historically Kirkuk belongs to them, arguing that the late dictator Saddam Hussein chased them out and replaced them with Arabs. But for the Kurds who now share Kirkuk with Arabs and Turkmen, Monday was a day which saw their community charged with enthusiasm.

Kurdish voters dream that the state for which they have fought for nearly a century will finally be born.

Tawana Abd Eddine, 33, a member of the Assayesh Kurdish security forces, says he voted “for a state, for a better future and better security”. “Everyone dreams of having their own homeland,” he adds.

For Nouzad Hamid, draped in the red, white and green Kurdish flag with its golden sun, “tomorrow the sun will shine, and it will be the dawn of a new life for the Kurds and the whole population of Kirkuk”.

Few people slept the night before the vote as convoys of cars cruised the streets, loudhailers urging voters to turn out in force for the “historic referendum”.

Kurdish leader Massud Barzani on Sunday said the partnership with Baghdad had failed and called on his people to make their preference known in the ballot box.

“I have been waiting for this day since I was born. This is another birthday for me. This is a new day for me. I feel like I am born now,” says 22-year-old architecture student Sammy Abderrahman after voting. “My grandmother couldn’t come here actually because she is very sick. She told me: ‘you have to say yes!’ because my uncles died for this day. How can I say no for the independence of Kurdistan?” —

AFP Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani casts his vote iat a polling station near Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. —

An Iraqi Kurdish boy holds a Kurdish flag at a stadium in Arbil being used as a polling station as voters cast their ballots in the Kurdish independence referendum — AFP

Reuters A woman casts her vote in Kirkuk on Monday. —