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Kirkuk: Pentagon jubilant as Iraq & Kurds prepare tug of war over oil city

305 views · Published 10 October 2017 · 5:11 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Public Enquiry · 2017 · News & Politics

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Kirkuk: Pentagon jubilant as Iraq & Kurds prepare tug of war over oil city

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/9/27/16374148/kurdish-referendum-vote-independence-oil-iraq-baghdad

Iraq’s Kurds just voted to secede. Here’s why that could cause a new civil war.

The historic Kurdish independence referendum, explained.

Updated by Elizabeth Winkler  Sep 27, 2017, TWEET

Travel through northern Iraq and you’ll notice something strange. Most of the flags aren’t Iraqi ones; they’re the red, white, green, and yellow flag of the Kurds, who have long sought to carve out a new nation of their own there.

With the eyes of the world focused on North Korea, the Kurds have just taken a large — and very dangerous — step in that direction by overwhelmingly approving a referendum on formally declaring independence from the Iraqi central government in Baghdad. Qubad Talabani, deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), called it a “historical day” for Kurds.

The referendum isn’t binding, and there’s no sign that the US-backed government in Baghdad has any intention whatsoever of acting on it. In a televised speech on Sunday, just one day before the referendum vote, Iraqi Prime MinisterHaider al-Abadi called the vote “unconstitutional” and declared that Baghdad “will not recognize its outcome.”

Still, the mere act of holding the vote risks a new rupture between the Kurds and the Iraqi government — one with a real risk of actual fighting between the two sides.

On September 18, seven days before the referendum, Iraq’s supreme court ordered the Kurds not to hold the vote. But Kurdish leaders ignored the order, holding the vote not just in Kurdish areas but also in the “disputed territories” that have significant numbers of both Arabs and Kurds. That means the Kurdish government in northern Iraq is making a bold play for power in areas still bound to Baghdad.

Iraq’s neighbors are not pleased either. Iran has built close ties to Baghdad, and worries that an independent Kurdistan would weaken Iraq and potentially encourage separatist movements among its own Kurdish minority of about 8 million Iranians. An independent Kurdistan could also become a military hub for Western forces on Iran’s doorstep.

Turkey, which has waged a bloody decades-long war against its own Kurdish separatists, has called the inclusion of the disputed territories a “grave mistake.”This spells trouble for the Kurdish government in Erbil: Turkey is the only gateway for the export of Kurdish oil to international markets. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to choke off Kurdistan’s lifeline.

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