Iraqi Kurdistan Region will hold a referendum on independence in 2017, and will establish two special boards to prepare for the procedure, the secretary of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) politburo said on Tuesday as cited by the Kurdish Basnews website.
One of the boards will be tasked with internal preparation for the vote, while the second will act as an executive body and cooperate with the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Fadhil Mirani told reporters at a press conference after the meeting of the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) politburos.
Mirani stressed that the announcement does not mean that Kurdistan would proclaim independence shortly after the vote, but stressed that the regional authorities "do not ask for the permission of anyone but our nation” to hold the referendum, the media added.
In late March, Hemin Hawrami, a senior assistant to Iraqi Kurdistan’s President Masoud Barzani told reporters that Barzani had informed UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres about the referendum on gaining independence from Iraq "at the earliest time."
The Kurdistan Regional Government is the official ruling body of the predominantly Kurdish autonomous region of Northern Iraq, referred to as Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan. In July 2014, President Massoud Barzani (Prime Minister Mechervan Barzani’s uncle), who has been heading Kurdistan’s regional government since 2005, announced that Iraq’s Kurds were to hold an independence referendum. But the security situation forced these plans to be postponed, as Islamic State was gaining ground in the region.
In February 2016, however, President Barzani once again voiced the desire to hold a referendum on a Kurdish state in northern Iraq, raising tension with Baghdad, which is against secession. Despite the goodwill Kurdish forces have gained in the international community since they joined the battle against ISIS, it is unlikely their independence claims will see much support, as major powers in the region have historically opposed Kurdish aspirations for independence, especially neighbouring states with large Kurdish minorities of their own.
