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Iraqi Kurdish leader to step down over fallout from independence poll Iraqi Kurdish leader to step down over fallout from independence poll
(about 1 hour later)
Masoud Barzani, the president of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, has told a closed-door session of parliament he in stepping down over the fallout from a controversial independence referendum. Masoud Barzani is to step down as Kurdish president after the contentious independence referendum he called backfired spectacularly, with the Kurds of northern Iraq stripped of a third of their territory and facing ongoing attacks by Baghdad.
“After 1 November , I will no longer exercise my functions, and I reject any extension of my mandate,” the 71-year-old said in a letter read out to MPs in the Kurdish capital, Erbil, a copy of which was obtained by Agence France-Presse. The veteran Kurdish leader told a parliamentary sitting in Erbil on Sunday that he would not re-contest the presidency and asked for his powers to be dispersed. His decision comes six weeks after the poll, which returned a 93% yes vote but immediately prompted recriminations from neighbouring states and a rival political bloc.
“Changing the law on the presidency of Kurdistan or prolonging the presidential term is not acceptable,” it said. “I ask parliament to meet to fill the vacancy in power, to fulfil the mission and to assume the powers of the presidency of Kurdistan.” The move had been expected ifollowing the ballot, which rather than strengthen the Kurdish hold on northern Iraq has left it splintered, with officials scrambling to avert the imminent loss of their last remaining revenue streams – border crossings to Syria and Turkey through which the regions oil is exported.
Barzani was the architect of the independence vote on 25 September, which led to the Kurds losing disputed territory to which they had laid claim to Iraqi forces. Barzani said his position would become vacant on 1 November, after which parliament will redistribute his powers. The Kurdish prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, is expected to be handed some of the presidency’s duties, with the rest to be contested among senior officials.
Barzani also said he would “remain a peshmerga among the ranks of the people of Kurdistan” and “continue to defend the achievements of the people of Kurdistan.” After the poll, Iraqi Kurdistan lost oil-rich Kirkuk to military forces sent by Baghdad, which had been angered by the contested city and other disputed territories being included in the referendum.
The parliamentary session was held behind closed doors on Sunday because of the sensitive questions that would be discussed, its members said earlier. Officials in the Iraqi capital saw the move as an annexation of the city, the fate of which has been contested over centuries. Military units and allied militias quickly seized oil fields and other strategic sites, turning off overnight more than half the Kurdish region’s revenues and leaving it with little hand to play in negotiations.
Officials from Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic party (KDP) had told journalists before the session that the letter to be read out would announce he was stepping aside. Since then, central government forces have pushed further into disputed areas, reverting the boundaries of the Kurdish north to those it held in 2003, and sharply exposing both its military and political limitations as it calls for internationally brokered dialogue to end the crisis.
The Iraqi military and Shia-led units have continued to stalk two border crossings that account for almost the entirety of the region’s revenues. Talks between Erbil and Baghdad over the weekend centred on the central government taking control of the border posts, which would mean all revenues from the oil trade being centrally marketed with Erbil taking a cut.
The loss of remaining revenues would be a crippling blow to Erbil, the power base of the Barzani clan and the seat of power in the fractured Kurdish north, which has been blockaded by Turkey, Iran and Baghdad after the poll.
Erbil’s friends and foes alike had strongly opposed the holding of the referendum leaving Barzani isolated before it was held and marooned ever since. The military capitulation of Kurdish forces sent to defend Kirkuk followed an intra-Kurdish split, led by senior members of the rival Talabani base in Sulaymaniyah, which saw forces loyal to it flee as Iraqi units attacked.
Iran played a prominent role in the recapture of the city, with the omnipresent general Qassem Suleimani marshalling militia forces who fought alongside the Iraqi Army. Before the attack on Kirkuk, Suleimani twice visited Erbil in failed attempts to have the poll cancelled.
“Suleimani wants to turn Masoud back into the leader of the clan for defying him,” one regional official said. “He is not going to take his foot off his neck.”
Leaders in Erbil have proposed suspending the results of the referendum, but that has been rejected by those who opposed it, who have instead called for the results to be declared null and void.