ERBIL, IRAQ: The United States has asked Iraq’s Kurds to postpone a referendum on the independence of their autonomous Kurdish region, planned for Sept. 25, the Kurdish presidency said.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made the request on Friday, during a phone call with the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani.
The US State Department said in June it was concerned that the referendum will distract from “more urgent priorities” such as the defeat of Daesh militants.
“On the issue of the postponement of the referendum, the President (Barzani) stated that the people of the Kurdistan Region would expect guarantees and alternatives for their future,” said the statement issued by the Kurdish presidency after Tillerson’s call, giving no further details on the Kurdish leader’s reaction to the US request.
The United States and other Western nations are concerned that the vote could turn into another regional flashpoint. Turkey, Iran and Syria, which together with Iraq have sizeable Kurdish populations, all oppose an independent Kurdistan.
US asks Iraq Kurds to postpone referendum — Kurdistan Presidency
US asks Iraq Kurds to postpone referendum — Kurdistan Presidency
Israeli settler attack injures Palestinian baby, five arrested
- The eight-month-old infant suffered “moderate injuries to the face and head” in the late Wednesday attack
- Israeli police said five suspects had been arrested for their “alleged involvement in serious, violent incidents in the village of Sair“
JERUSALEM: Israeli security forces announced on Thursday the arrest of five Israeli settlers over their alleged involvement in an attack on a Palestinian home that injured a baby girl in the occupied West Bank.
The eight-month-old infant suffered “moderate injuries to the face and head” in the late Wednesday attack, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
It blamed the attack on “a group of armed settlers,” accusing them of “throwing stones at homes and property” in the town of Sair, north of Hebron.
A statement from the Israeli police said that five suspects had been arrested for their “alleged involvement in serious, violent incidents in the village of Sair.”
Israeli security forces had received reports of “stones being thrown by Israeli civilians toward a Palestinian home,” adding a Palestinian girl was injured.
“The preliminary investigation determined the involvement of several suspects who came from a nearby outpost,” the statement said, referring to Israeli settlements not officially recognized by Israeli authorities.
All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal by the international community.
Some are also illegal under Israeli law, though many of those are later given official recognition.
Almost none of the perpetrators of previous attacks by settlers have been held to account by the Israeli authorities.
A Telegram group linked to the “Hilltop Youth,” a movement of hard-line settlers who advocate direct action against Palestinians, posted a video showing property damage in Sair.
More than 500,000 Israelis currently live in settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, as do around three million Palestinians.
Violence involving settlers has risen in recent years, according to the United Nations, and October was the worst month since it began recording such incidents in 2006, with 264 attacks that caused casualties or property damage.
The violence in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967, has surged since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, which triggered the Gaza war.
Since the start of the war, Israeli troops and settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, including many militants as well as dozens of civilians, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the Palestinian health ministry.
According to official Israeli figures, at least 44 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations in the same period.
