Iraqi Vice President rejects UN-sponsored initiative on Kurd referendum

The Vice President of Iraq, Nouri Al-Maliki, rejected on Wednesday an initiative sponsored by the UN on the Kurdistan independence referendum, Anadolu has reported. Al-Maliki said that it contains “unconstitutional” paragraphs. The autonomous region of Kurdistan plans to hold a referendum over independence from Iraq on 25 September, a move rejected by Baghdad.

“We reject holding the referendum in Kurdistan and the disputed areas,” explained former Prime Minister Al-Maliki. “We refuse [to accept] its results and whatever they lead to since this explicitly violates the constitution.” The Kurdish authorities in Erbil, he added, have to abide by the Iraqi Supreme Court ruling and suspend the referendum.

Al-Maliki stressed the importance of dialogue to resolve any outstanding issues and called on all national groupings to make more efforts and intensify meetings in order to come up with a national initiative. This should be adopted by all parties and endorsed by the Parliament and the Council of Ministers, he insisted. “We appreciate the efforts of UN envoy to Iraq Ján Kubiš in this regard, but we categorically reject the internationalisation of the referendum crisis and attempts to abolish the national role.”

The UN, backed by Western countries including the US and Britain, proposed an alternative to the planned referendum last week in an effort to convince Kurdistan to postpone the poll. The international initiative called for unconditional dialogue between Baghdad and Kurdistan under the auspices of the UN to resolve the outstanding differences between the two sides. The Iraqi government rejects the referendum, saying that it is unconstitutional and does not benefit the Kurds politically, economically and nationally.

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