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Barzani: Iraq Failed to Maintain Partnership with Kurds | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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FILE PHOTO: Iraqi Kurdish regional President Masoud Barzani speaks during news conference with Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), in Baghdad, Iraq, September 29, 2016.


Erbil– The head of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Masoud Barzani, reiterated his adherence to hold an independence referendum on September 25, noting that Iraq “has failed to maintain a true partnership with the Kurdish people.”

During a meeting on Wednesday with Kurdish Muslim clerics in Erbil, Barzani said: “The Kurds have long tried to establish a federal state in Iraq,” adding that since 2003, the Iraqi government has violated around 55 articles of the Constitution, which was adopted by the people.

He also stressed that Kurdistan would never represent part of Iraq, “if Baghdad continues to violate the Constitution,” revealing that in 2004, the proportion of Kurds in the Army was 40 percent, while “today it is zero”.

“The independence referendum is not the property of one person or one party, but belongs to the people of Kurdistan and all the Kurdish parties,” Barzani said, adding that “the Kurdish people have been subjected to genocide since the establishment of the Iraqi state in the 1920s.”

Meanwhile, Barzani’s media advisor, Kifah Mahmoud, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the Kurdish leader has stressed that the decision to hold the referendum was not biased or personal, in reference to those who claim that the decision was solely made by the president and the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Mahmoud pointed out that Barzani “realizes the important role of religious scholars in support of the independence referendum, which is equal to the role of media, teachers in schools, and politicians.”