In northern Iraq, celebrations are under way following the referendum victory on Kurdish independence. Baghdad: “You have 72 hours to reverse course.”
Two days after the referendum on independence in Kurdistan, the final figures have yet to be announced. Nevertheless, the president of the autonomous region within Iraq, Massoud Barzani, has declared that the "yes" vote prevailed, stating that the population has chosen to "open a new era".
The Kurdish leader addressed the public from his palace on the heights of Erbil, which — in the independence supporters' intentions — should become the capital of the new state. He began by congratulating the population on the high voter turnout, then recalled the episodes of oppression and violence that have marked the history of Iraq's Kurds.
Nevertheless, he spoke with both the Kurdistan flag and the Iraqi flag at his side: a clear conciliatory signal directed at the Baghdad government, with which he said he wished to "resolve problems through negotiation", with a view to establishing a "good-neighbourly relationship". Nothing is known, however, about the process that should lead to the region's independence. The conditional tense is also obligatory, because Barzani's "overtures" do not appear to have made any impression on Iraqi Prime Minister al-Abadi. On the contrary, the latter responded to the Kurdish regional president with extreme firmness.
On Tuesday afternoon, the head of government issued an ultimatum to the Kurds: "You have 72 hours to hand back to the federal authorities control of all border crossings and all airports in the autonomous region." Al-Abadi himself, however, also addressed a message to "Iraqi Kurdish brother citizens", not immediately acting on his own parliament's request to send the army in at once, although a joint exercise was launched between pro-government forces and Turkish forces near the Habour border crossing, controlled by the Kurds on the Iraqi side.
Turkey itself, in fact, is firmly opposed to the creation of an independent state: for Ankara, Kurdistan would represent a nation in the hands of organisations considered terrorist. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accordingly warned Barzani: "Put an end to this adventure, which can only end badly", threatening to "turn off the oil taps, which will wipe out their revenues. They will end up without even enough to eat." The Turkish leader even evoked the "risk of an ethnic war".