UN chief: Northern Iraq vote would detract from Daesh fight

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres talks at a press conference at the Aleppo Elementary school run by UNRWA in Beit Lahia, Gaza on 30 August 2017 [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Sunday that a planned 25 September independence referendum in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region “would detract from the need to defeat” Daesh and to reconstruct regained territories.

“The Secretary-General respects the sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of Iraq and considers that all outstanding issues between the federal Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government should be resolved through structured dialogue and constructive compromise,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

“The Secretary-General calls upon the leaders across Iraq to approach this matter with patience and restraint,” he said.

Read: Daesh attack forces Iraq forces to retreat

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.