Iraq threatens Kurds with military action

[Anthea]

After defying ISIS, 'Kurds aren't afraid of anything'

High-rise buildings surrounded by parks and villas pierce the skyline. Hotels and luxury cars dot the landscape. It would be easy to mistake this place for a neighborhood in uber-rich Dubai, but in fact it is downtown Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Ahmad, a taxi driver, motions proudly to signs of his city's rapid development. He points out newly-built bridges and luxury housing projects and gestures to the tarmacked roads and wide pavements.

"Look at all this," says Ahmad, his eyes aglow in the rearview mirror. "People wonder why we want independence from Iraq, but all you need to do is look around you. We are light years ahead of Baghdad."

For now, the Kurdish-governed northern Iraqi region remains an island of stability in war-weary Iraq. People in Irbil say this has come about despite the central government in Baghdad, not because of it.

Kurdish leaders accuse the central government of widespread corruption, paving the way to many of Iraq's security woes -- including the rise of ISIS.

One of the largest Kurdistan flags in Irbil can be found draped over a large, hollowed-out luxury tower block. Its development ground to a halt in 2014 after ISIS emerged in nearby areas, putting an end to a nearly 10-year economic boom in the region.

Call to arms for Baghdad

But while the overwhelming 'yes' vote in Monday's referendum on Iraqi Kurdistan's independence was a materialization of the dreams of many Kurds, for Baghdad and its allies in Iran and Turkey, it is a call to arms.

After issuing multiple condemnations in the run-up to the plebiscite, the Iraqi Parliament voted Monday to authorize the use of force against Iraqi Kurdistan. Baghdad has given the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) until Friday to hand over the airports it administers in Irbil and Sulaymaniyah.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared the referendum "null and void" and his army has been conducting joint military exercises with the Iraqi army on their shared border. Meanwhile, Iran has threatened to seal its border with Iraqi Kurdistan, and has already closed its airspace to flights to and from the region.

Both Turkey and Iran have restive Kurdish populations and fear that an independent Iraqi Kurdistan could galvanize their own nationalist movements.

And it's not just Iraqi Kurdistan's neighbors who are irked by the specter of secession. Stern warnings have also come from the United States, the United Kingdom and the United Nations Security Council, which all argue that the vote detracts from the fight against ISIS.

In both Syria and Iraq, Kurdish fighters have been instrumental in the campaign against ISIS, which has left the terror group on its last legs. And Iraqi Kurdish leaders say it is time to reap the fruits of their labor.

For Kurds, statehood has been over a century in the making. Their calls for a Kurdish nation were ignored in a 1916 British-French secret agreement, known as Sykes-Picot, that drew the boundaries of the modern-day Middle East.

In the final treaty marking the conclusion of World War I, the Allies dropped demands for an autonomous Turkish Kurdistan. Instead, the Kurdish region was divided up among several countries.

Party atmosphere at polls

Drumbeats about war fall on deaf ears in the capital of would-be independent Kurdistan.

At the supermarkets, there is no rush to stockpile supplies. Irbil's mayor even assured locals Tuesday that there was no cause for alarm because "we have enough food for the next six months."

When people flocked to the polling stations -- referendum officials say the turnout was 76% -- the atmosphere was more reminiscent of a party than a political event.

Voters, many of them decked out in colorful traditional clothing, compared the referendum to the "biggest Eid," a reference to an important Muslim holiday.

Six-year-old Hidad wears an oversized head-wrap and traditional sirwal, or baggy trousers. He sticks his palm out to present three black pebbles.

"Each pebble tells Iraq 'I divorce you,'" his father explains. In Islam, a marriage is considered dissolved when a man utters "divorce" three times in the presence of his wife.

"The people are happy, and the people are the ones who will determine their fate and will therefore bear the consequences," Aso Karim Mohamad, 64, tells CNN.

Mohamad is a former member of the Kurdish Parliament who fought with the Peshmerga, the fighting force of Iraqi Kurdistan, in the bloody decade leading up to the creation of the KRG.

In 1988, then-President Saddam Hussein's forces killed an estimated 100,000 Kurds and destroyed more than 4,000 villages.
"I voted in '92 for the first time for the first Kurdish Parliament after our intifada," he says, referring to the 1991 Kurdish uprising against Hussein. "My feeling is the same today ... this is a great day in my life."

For many of the people of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Peshmerga -- credited with being a driving force in the fight against ISIS -- are the very reason they are throwing caution to the wind.

"The Kurds aren't afraid of anything, because of the Peshmerga," Kafiah al Raouf Sadik, an educational official, tells CNN. "God willing, we will achieve our goals here."

Refugees vote for security

At the Hassan Shami refugee camp midway between Mosul and Irbil, the mood is different. The sun beats down on inhabitants who spend their days standing in long food lines and end them sleeping in tarpaulin tents typically shared with around five other family members.

The UN Security Council has said it fears that the lives of these refugees may fall into limbo.

"Council members note that the planned referendum ... could detract from efforts to ensure the safe, voluntary return of over three million refugees and internally displaced persons," the Security Council said in a news release.

But camp manager Twana Anwar tells CNN he doesn't think their work will be affected: "I'm not pessimistic ... Humanitarian efforts should go on as normal."

The refugees here are mostly Arab, all survivors of ISIS, and they were invited to vote in Monday's referendum by the Kurdish charity group that controls the camp.

"People voted for Kurdistan, they voted for security," says Abu Ali, standing among a crowd of men who gather around the CNN team near the camp's entrance.

"I lost everything, my car, my house. What should one do?" the refugee from the destroyed town of Rabia asks. "I hold Baghdad's government responsible for what happened to me. Security, security, security. People want security."

Another Arab who works in the camp, Abu Mohammad, is an employee with the central government in Baghdad, but says he voted in favor of independence.

"If the Baghdad government were my dad, I would still vote against him," he says, sweat streaming down his face.

'We want safety'

Further into the camp, an elderly man named Abu Raed huddles with his friends under the bottom of a water tank dressed in Arab robes, seeking respite from the scorching sun.

He explains that the war with ISIS robbed him of all that he owns. "I'm an old person and after all I've been through I'm tired of life," he says. "It's a sin to say I want to die but I'm tired of life."

"After we saw ISIS, from what should we be afraid?" asks Um Mohammad, a Turkmen mother-of-four who lost her husband during her family's escape from ISIS.

A kite flies high over the camp, perhaps a better symbol than any other of the refugees' escape from ISIS -- like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the militant group had banned kite flying.

Upon closer inspection, it turns out the kite was constructed from a plastic bag and sticks by Waddah, aged nine.
"We were under ISIS for two-and-a-half years," his father Salhab Hussein explains.

"The children played indoors ... this is why we voted for Kurdistan ... We don't care who rules over us -- Kurd, Arab or Turkmen -- as long as they give us safety."

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/27/middl ... index.html

[Anthea]

Iraq Escalates Dispute With Kurds, Threatening Military Action

The Iraqi government escalated its confrontation with its northern Kurdish region on Wednesday, threatening to send troops and seize oil fields there and taking steps to shut down international flights to and from the region.

The moves came in retaliation for a referendum on Monday in which the region, Iraqi Kurdistan, voted decisively to seek independence from Iraq. Kurdish officials announced Wednesday that nearly 93 percent of voters approved the referendum, which aims to create an independent state for the Kurds, an ethnic minority in Iraq.

Iraq’s Parliament asked the country’s prime minister on Wednesday to deploy troops to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, one of several disputed areas held by Kurdish troops but claimed by Baghdad, and to take control of all oil fields in the Kurdish region.

A decision to send troops would be up to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. He gave no public indication of his intentions on Wednesday, except to say he wanted “no fighting among the people of the country.”

He also sent a delegation from the Iraqi military to Iran to “coordinate military efforts,” a military statement said.

Iraq has called the vote illegal and has vowed to ignore the results. The vote has also provoked the Kurdish region’s two powerful neighbors, Turkey and Iran.

All three countries have been conducting military exercises near the border of Iraqi Kurdistan this week.

Iraqi troops, including Shiite Muslim militias incorporated into Iraq’s armed forces, are already in the Kirkuk area. While the city is controlled by Kurdish forces, Iraqi troops are fighting the Islamic State as part of an American-led coalition about 40 miles southwest of the city.

Kurdish troops known as pesh merga seized Kirkuk in 2014, when the Iraqi Army fled an assault by militants there.

The inclusion of Kirkuk and other disputed areas in the referendum enraged the Iraqi government, which interpreted the move as a land grab. Baghdad has accused the Kurds of illegally selling Iraqi oil from the Kirkuk oil fields through a pipeline that runs into Turkey.

The Kurdish independence challenge is the latest crisis to rock Iraq in recent years. The country was controlled by Saddam Hussein’s regime until 2003, when the American invasion helped set off a brutal civil war and years of wrenching upheaval.

Just three years ago, Iraq lost a third of its territory to Islamic State militants. Now that the Islamic State is finally being driven out, Iraq is faced with losing a third of its territory and access to areas with oil and natural gas if Kurdistan breaks away.

Beyond the threats of military action, Iraqi authorities have struggled to come up with any meaningful punishment for the Kurds for carrying out the referendum. But with its move to shut down flights to the landlocked region, Iraq seems to have found a weak point.

Iraqi aviation authorities notified foreign airlines on Wednesday that it would cancel all permits to land and take off from two international airports in the Kurdish region as of Friday afternoon. The action followed an ultimatum by Prime Minister Abadi on Tuesday for Kurdistan to surrender control of its two international airports or face a shutdown of international flights.

The Kurdish Regional Government said Wednesday that it would refuse to hand over the airports. The region’s transportation minister, Mawlud Murad, called the Iraqi ultimatum “political and illegal.” He said the airports were critical to the American-led coalition’s fight against Islamic State militants.

Kurdish officials had planned to send a delegation to Baghdad on Wednesday to discuss the issue, but the offer was rebuffed.

On Wednesday night, Mr. Murad said that the Kurdish government had agreed to hold talks with Iraq about placing Iraqi government observers at its airports.

There was no immediate public response from the Iraqi government, but Mr. Abadi, speaking to Parliament earlier, said Iraq would not negotiate with the Kurds unless they annulled the results of the vote.

He said he had warned the Kurds “of the consequences of the crisis with Kurdistan.”

“The preservation of the security of the citizens of the country is our priority,” he added.

At least six airlines — three Turkish companies, the Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines, Royal Jordanian and Egypt Air — started notifying passengers on Wednesday that they were canceling regularly scheduled flights from the airports in Erbil and Sulaimaniya.

Baghdad can make good on its threat because the Iraqi civil aviation authority oversees all airports in the country, including the two international airports in the Kurdish region.

The threat to cancel landing and takeoff permits would force international airlines to cancel flights to those airports because insurance risks would be too high, according to Robert W. Mann Jr., a former airline executive who is now an industry consultant.

“The issue turns on which entity controls Kurdish region airspace and airports,” Mr. Mann said. “Unless and until the autonomous region is given that control, Iraq controls and can ban, blockade or embargo air service to airports under its control, much as Qatari airports have been embargoed or blockaded by nearby nations. Faced with such a restriction, most commercial airlines would comply, in part due to warnings by their insurers.”

The Turkish Consulate in Erbil said that Turkish airlines were working to increase their seat capacity in an effort to get all passengers out of the Kurdish areas before the flight ban took effect on Friday afternoon.

Without international flights, getting in or out of Kurdistan would require going through Turkey, Iran, Syria or Iraq, where there are also threats of a blockade.

The Iraqi Parliament urged the government on Wednesday to close off its land border with Kurdistan.

For years, the Kurdish authorities in Erbil have controlled their own borders with Turkey and Syria. Mr. Abadi has demanded that all borders return to full Iraqi central government control by Friday.

Turkey’s customs minister, in remarks carried by Turkish state television, said that the main land border crossing between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurdish region remained open, although he would not say for how long that would remain the case.

Turkey is the largest trade partner with Iraqi Kurdistan, and the road border is used for much of the cargo trade. Turkey also is the transit country for the oil pumped out of areas controlled by the Kurdish authorities to the world market.

Turkey and Iran have opposed the referendum and any moves toward Kurdish independence, fearing unrest by their own Kurdish minorities.

Kurdish authorities in Erbil announced on Wednesday that 92.7 percent of those who went to the polls on Monday had voted for Kurdish leaders to seek independence.

About 72 percent of 4.6 million registered voters cast ballots, with about 2.9 million voting yes to independence and about 224,000 voting no, the Kurdish Independent High Electoral Referendum Commission reported.

The referendum does not automatically trigger a declaration of independence but sets in motion a series of moves toward the establishment of a Kurdish state. The most important one of those may be negotiations of a separation with Iraq, which Iraq has refused.

American officials opposed the vote because they feared it would destabilize Iraq, stir ethnic conflict and undermine the American-led coalition.

Kurdish pesh merga fighters have played a central role in the coalition’s operations against the Islamic State militants, fighting alongside Iraqi Army units.
The Kurdish region’s president, Massoud Barzani, pushed for the referendum in hopes of obtaining a strong public mandate for eventual independence that he could use to begin negotiations with Baghdad.

Kurds have been celebrating since Monday evening, setting off fireworks, honking horns and affixing flapping red, white and green Kurdish flags to their automobiles. Government billboards promoting Monday’s independence vote were still in place on Wednesday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/worl ... -iraq.html

[Benny]

Airports in Erbil and Sulimainya are apparently to be shut down partially by Iraq government:


http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/28/middl ... index.html

A nice evening to you all,
Benny

[Anthea]

There is NOT a single Kurd anywhere who has not had family members or friends arrested, tortured, raped or killed by the various governments of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey

Sadly there are a few well paid Kurdish traitors who collaborate with various oppressive governments - but it is not unusual for some vile lowlife to turn upon those they are supposed to be helping - it even happened in France during WW2

Though there are some dishonorable Kurdish leaders who do the bidding of the slave masters but the heart of Kurdistan can never be bought

Do what they may Kurdistan will be FREE