Barzani: ‘An Independent Kurdistan is coming’

Kurdish leader says region will hold referendum after ISIS has been defeated

Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will hold a referendum on Kurdish independence once Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) extremists have been defeated, KRG President Masoud Barzani said May 6 at the Atlantic Council.

Barzani couldn’t predict when an independent Kurdistan would be born, but added: “Certainly an independent Kurdistan is coming.”

The Kurdistan region has long sought independence from Iraq. Barzani said getting to that goal is a “continuing process.”

“It will not stop. It will not step back… We want it to be not through violence, not through killing. We want it to be through peace and understanding and dialogue,” Barzani said at the event, which was co-hosted by the Atlantic Council and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), and moderated by William B. Taylor, Jr., USIP’s Acting Executive Vice President.

Barzani said the ongoing war against ISIS has delayed the referendum on Kurdish independence.

“It will take place when the security situation is better and when the fight against ISIS is over,” said Barzani, speaking in Kurdish through an interpreter. “The people of Kurdistan have to be given the opportunity to exercise the right to self-determination—for them to tell us and to tell the rest of the world what do they want, what are their dreams and aspirations.”

The Obama administration does not support the idea of Kurdish independence.

At their May 5 meeting with Barzani, US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden reaffirmed the administration’s “enduring commitment…to a united, federal, and democratic Iraq,” the White House said.

In his remarks at the Atlantic Council, Barzani said Iraq’s unity is “voluntary and not compulsory.”