Uncertainty prevails in northern Iraq as KRG vote draws near

A sense of uncertainty looms as the Kurdish Regional Government is expected to organise a controversial referendum opposed by the central Baghdad government in northern Iraq on Monday.       

The KRG has said the vote is intended to rally support for a legitimate mandate to achieve independence for its autonomous territory from Iraq through dialogue with Baghdad and neighbouring powers Turkey and Iran.     

Ankara and Tehran are worried an independent Kurdish region could provide safe havens to terror groups such as the PKK and that the vote could revive the separatist aspirations of their own Kurdish populations.  

The United States has also warned against the referendum as conflict expected after the vote could impact Iraq's DC-backed push against Daesh in the country.    

While KRG has in its control three provinces – Dohuk, Erbil and Sulimaniyeh – in northern Iraq, the region represents a picture of both hope and fear as the day of the referendum draws near.

War games

Iranian forces have launched war games in an area near the border with Iraq's Kurdistan region, Iran's state media reported on Sunday, a day before an independence referendum is to be held in the region.

State broadcaster IRIB said the exercises – part of annual events held in Iran to mark the beginning of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq – are centred in the Oshnavieh border region.

The war games will include artillery, armoured and airborne units, IRIB reported.

However, a Kurdish party has accused Iran of bombing the mountainous border regions of northern Iraqi city in Erbil.

According to the official website of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Iranian artillery units were constantly bombing villages, including "Gundejor, Alane, Kunere, Dinoy Gewre, Berde Zerde" near Balekayeti and Haci Omeran.

No information was provided whether artillery fire led to any human loss.

TRT World’s Nicole Johnston reports on the referendum.

Not bowing to pressure?

Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish region since 2005, has resisted calls by Turkey, United Nations, the US and Britain to delay the referendum.

Turkey's parliament ratified a motion on Saturday to extend for another year approval for the deployment of Turkish troops in Iraq and Syria, two days before the Kurdish Regional Government's planned referendum on independence from Iraq. 

Neighbouring Turkey is holding army exercises on the Iraqi border to underline its concerns that the referendum could fuel separatism among its own Kurds. 

Turkey's parliament ratified on Saturday a motion to extend for another year approval for the deployment of Turkish troops in Iraq and Syria. 

But Hoshyar Zebari, a senior adviser to Barzani, struck a defiant tone, saying: "This is the last five metres of the final sprint and we will be standing our ground."

The US embassy in Iraq cautioned its citizens that there may be unrest during a referendum on support for the independence.

"In particular, US citizens should avoid travel into and within territories disputed between the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and the Government of Iraq," the travel warning said.

Raising risk of conflict

Many Kurds see the vote, though non-binding, as a historic opportunity to achieve self-determination a century after Britain and France divided the Middle East under the Sykes-Picot agreement. That arrangement left 30 million Kurds scattered over Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

Zebari said delaying the vote for negotiations with Baghdad without also securing guarantees that it could then be held on a binding basis would amount to "political suicide for the Kurdish leadership and the Kurdish dream of independence."

The referendum raises the risk of ethnic conflict in the oil city of Kirkuk, which lies outside the recognised boundaries of the Kurdish region and is claimed by Baghdad. Its population includes Arabs and Turkmen but it is dominated by Kurds.

Turkey has long claimed a special responsibility in protecting ethnic Turkmen.