JEDDAH: Kurdish leaders will decide in the next two days whether to postpone this month’s controversial independence referendum, a leading political figure from Irbil told Arab News on Sunday.
A Kurdish delegation will travel to Baghdad to assess what is on offer from the Iraqi government. “Only after studying the various options will the Kurdish leadership be able to make a decision on postponing it,” former MP Mahmoud Othman said.
“There are ongoing contacts between the Kurdish leadership and Baghdad and we will see final results in the next two days.
“With so much pressure from Baghdad, the US, Turkey and Iran, it will not be easy to go ahead with the vote. The Kurds will have to rethink their position.”
Othman dismissed a proposal on Saturday by Iraqi President Fuad Masum, himself a Kurd.
“Nobody listens to him,” he said. “His is a ceremonial position. He does not carry weight. The real power and decision-making is with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi.”
He said the Kurds were in a difficult position and the leadership was to blame for not having studied the pros and cons before deciding to go ahead with the referendum.
“They did not anticipate the massive opposition to the referendum decision; they should have thought about how the major countries would respond. Obviously the Kurdish leadership did not do that.”
Othman said the Kurdish people were all in favor of the referendum. “Now, if the vote is canceled, the people will be demoralized and that is why I say the leadership should have thought about all this beforehand.”
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet Al-Abadi this week to discuss their concerns about the referendum.
Turkey, the US and other Western powers have advised authorities in the semi-autonomous region to cancel the vote, worrying that tensions it would generate might be an unwelcome distraction from the war on Daesh in Iraq and Syria.
With the largest Kurdish population in the region, Turkey also fears that a “Yes” vote would fuel separatism in its southeast, where militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have waged an insurgency for three decades.
Ankara and Baghdad have the same view of the referendum, Erdogan said before leaving for New York to attend the UN General Assembly.
“We will have a meeting with Mr. Abadi in the United States, and from what we can see our goal is the same. Our goal is not dividing Iraq,” he said.
Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said on Friday the referendum would go ahead as planned on Sept. 25. Erdogan said the Turkish government had therefore brought forward planned national security council and Cabinet meetings to Sept. 22, after which Turkey would announce its position on the issue.
Turkey has good relations with Barzani’s administration, founded on strong economic links and shared suspicions of other Kurdish groups and Iraq’s central government.
The Kurdish Regional Government, led by Barzani’s KDP party, exports hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day via Turkey to world markets.
Kurdish leaders will decide on referendum in two days, Arab News told
Kurdish leaders will decide on referendum in two days, Arab News told
Trump warns Iran of ‘very traumatic’ outcome if no nuclear deal
- Speaking a day after he hosted Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said he hoped for a result “over the next month”
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump threatened Iran Thursday with “very traumatic” consequences if it fails to make a nuclear deal — but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was skeptical about the quality of any such agreement.
Speaking a day after he hosted Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said he hoped for a result “over the next month” from Washington’s negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program.
“We have to make a deal, otherwise it’s going to be very traumatic, very traumatic. I don’t want that to happen, but we have to make a deal,” Trump told reporters.
“This will be very traumatic for Iran if they don’t make a deal.”
Trump — who is considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East to pressure Iran — recalled the US military strikes he ordered on Tehran’s nuclear facilities during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in July last year.
“We’ll see if we can get a deal with them, and if we can’t, we’ll have to go to phase two. Phase two will be very tough for them,” Trump said.
Netanyahu had traveled to Washington to push Trump to take a harder line in the Iran nuclear talks, particularly on including the Islamic Republic’s arsenal of ballistic missiles.
But the Israeli and US leaders apparently remained at odds, with Trump saying after their meeting at the White House on Wednesday that he had insisted the negotiations should continue.
- ‘General skepticism’ -
Netanyahu said in Washington on Thursday before departing for Israel that Trump believed he was laying the ground for a deal.
“He believes that the conditions he is creating, combined with the fact that they surely understand they made a mistake last time when they didn’t reach an agreement, may create the conditions for achieving a good deal,” Netanyahu said, according to a video statement from his office.
But the Israeli premier added: “I will not hide from you that I expressed general skepticism regarding the quality of any agreement with Iran.”
Any deal “must include the elements that are very important from our perspective,” Netanyahu continued, listing Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for armed groups such as the Palestinian movement Hamas, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“It’s not just the nuclear issue,” he said.
Despite their differences on Iran, Trump signaled his strong personal support for Netanyahu as he criticized Israeli President Isaac Herzog for rejecting his request to pardon the prime minister on corruption charges.
“You have a president that refuses to give him a pardon. I think that man should be ashamed of himself,” Trump said on Thursday.
Trump has repeatedly hinted at potential US military action against Iran following its deadly crackdown on protests last month, even as Washington and Tehran restarted talks last week with a meeting in Oman.
The last round of talks between the two foes was cut short by Israel’s war with Iran and the US strikes.
So far, Iran has rejected expanding the new talks beyond the issue of its nuclear program. Tehran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, and has said it will not give in to “excessive demands” on the subject.
