ERBIL, Iraq — Kurds across northern Iraq lined up Monday morning to vote in a referendum on whether to seek independence for an autonomous Kurdish region that has yearned for nationhood for more than a century.
Baghdad government says unilateral moves for independence unconstitutional two days after Kurds announce referendum.
Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi said in April he respected the Kurdish right to vote on independence, but didn't think the timing was right [Reuters]
Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region has called a referendum on independence to be held on Sept. 25, an official said on Wednesday, moving ahead with a plan for full statehood that is likely to be opposed by Baghdad.
Hemin Hawrami, assistant to Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, tweeted: “big news. Kurdistan Referendum for independence is on 25/9/2017.”
Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority has won government approval to create their first political party, with the nascent entity getting the chance to run the upcoming elections slated for early 2018.
What is happening today in Iraq and Syria is due to decades of conflict between two major axes, Iran and the Arabs. It began with the 1979 Iranian revolution, and continued with threats to export the revolution throughout the region, and with the Iran-Iraq war that lasted eight years. Things only calmed down for two years, then Iraq invaded Kuwait, triggering international intervention.
Iraq has approved measures requested by the International Monetary Fund to unlock loans that should help the country overcome a cash crunch caused by declining oil revenue, a senior government official said.
The agreement, reached last month between Iraq and the IMF, "is on track", Mudher Salih, an adviser on financial policy to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, told Reuters late on Sunday.
A group of Iraqi lawmakers announced their withdrawal on Saturday from a session of parliament aimed at selecting a replacement for the speaker, apparently leaving it without the necessary quorum.
Najaf / NINA / The leader of the Sadrist movement called to determine timeframe for forming technocrat government, stressing the continuing sit-ins and emphasized on the protesters to abide by the commandments, which were issued to them.
Muqtada al-Sadr warned of economic disaster in the event of failure to respond to the demands of the protesters and all the Iraqi people, calling to activate dialogue in the political disputes, accusing political leaders of the three presidencies what he called "ignoring reality during recent meetings."
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets of Baghdad for the third week in a row to demand a political overhaul.
Gathering on Friday in the capital, protesters heeded a call to gather by powerful Shia cleric Muqtada al- Sadr, who is pressuring the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to push on with a plan to form a cabinet of independent ministers.
Baghdad – On Tuesday evening, the head of Irada Movement, MP Hanan al-Fatlawi called on the Iraqi government to act to stop the US House of Representatives’ vote on a law dealing with the Sunnis and the Kurdish Peshmerga as “two separate entities.”
