Tag Archives: Independence

Barzani vows to press on with Kurdish referendum, defying Iraq parliament

Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani sits with Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim (R) during his visit in Kirkuk, Iraq September 12, 2017. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed

By Ahmed Rasheed and Raya Jalabi

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq’s Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani vowed on Tuesday to press ahead with a referendum on Kurdish independence on Sept. 25 despite a vote by Iraq’s parliament to reject the move.

Earlier the parliament in Baghdad authorized the prime minister to “take all measures” to preserve Iraq’s unity. Kurdish lawmakers walked out of the session before the vote and issued statements rejecting the decision.

Western powers fear a plebiscite in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region – including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk – could ignite conflict with the central government in Baghdad and divert attention from the war against Islamic State militants.

Iraq’s neighbors – Turkey, Iran and Syria – also oppose the referendum, fearing it could fan separatism among their own ethnic Kurdish populations.

“The referendum will be held on time… Dialogue with Baghdad will resume after the referendum,” Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said in a statement on his ruling party’s official website after the vote.

Barzani told a gathering of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen in Kirkuk that the referendum was “a natural right”, according to a tweet from his aide Hemin Hawrami. Barzani also said Kirkuk should have a “special status” in a new, independent Kurdistan.

Iraqi lawmakers worry that the referendum will consolidate Kurdish control over several areas claimed by both the central government in Baghdad and the autonomous KRG in northern Iraq.

“UNCONSTITUTIONAL”

“This referendum lacks a constitutional basis and thus it is considered unconstitutional,” the parliamentary resolution said, without specifying what measures the central government should take to stop Kurdistan from breaking away.

Mohammed al-Karbouli, a Sunni Muslim lawmaker, said: “Kurdish lawmakers walked out of (Tuesday’s) session but the decision to reject the referendum was passed by a majority.”

A senior Kurdish official dismissed the vote as non-binding though an Iraqi lawmaker said it would be published in the official gazette after approval from the Iraqi presidency.

The KRG has said it is up to local councils of disputed regions in northern Iraq to decide whether to join the vote.

Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city, voted last month to participate in the referendum, a move that stoked tensions with its Arab and Turkmen residents, as well as with Baghdad.

Kurdish peshmerga forces took control of the Kirkuk area and other areas claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurds after Islamic State militants overran about a third of Iraq in 2014 and Baghdad’s local forces disintegrated.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the Kurds were continuing to “illegally export” Kirkuk’s oil, and he called for urgent talks.

“I call upon the Kurdish leadership to come to Baghdad and conclude a dialogue,” Abadi said.

A Kurdish delegation met officials in Baghdad for a first round of talks in August concerning the referendum. An Iraqi delegation was expected to visit the Kurdish capital of Erbil in early September for a second round of talks, but the visit has yet to happen with less than two weeks before the vote.

Kurds have sought an independent state since at least the end of World War One, when colonial powers divided up the Middle East after the collapse of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire and left Kurdish-populated territory split between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Raya Jalabi; Writing by Ulf Laessing and Raya Jalabi; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Independence push threatens Hong Kong’s autonomy, says Beijing official

FILE PHOTO: A rainbow arches over Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour June 19, 2012. REUTERS/Bobby Yip/File Photo

HONG KONG (Reuters) – The legal chief of Beijing’s representative office in Hong Kong said on Saturday growing calls for independence could make the territory’s current “one country, two systems” constitutional framework unsustainable.

Chinese leaders are increasingly concerned about a fledgling independence or secessionist movement in the former British colony of Hong Kong, which returned to mainland rule in 1997 amid promises of wide-ranging autonomy including judicial independence under the formula of “one country, two systems”.

The unusually strong comments by Wang Zhenmin, an official at the Central Liaison Office, China’s top representative office in Hong Kong, came ahead of the 20th anniversary of the handover of power to China.

Hong Kong will be on high alert ahead of the July 1st celebrations when President Xi Jinping is widely expected to attend the swearing in of leader elect Carrie Lam.

Speaking at a seminar in the territory, broadcast on local cable television, Wang attacked the separatist movement and said Hong Kong must act to defend China’s sovereignty.

“The more Hong Kong fails to actively defend (China’s) sovereignty, national security and development interests in accordance with the law, the more wary the country will be about Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and the ‘two systems’. There would be less room for its autonomy,” Wang said.

He said Beijing was also “disheartened” at the prospect separatists might enter the Hong Kong establishment or education system.

“If the two systems have been severely disrupted or even been used to damage one country, (China) will feel very unsafe…If one’s own existence has become a problem, no nation will continue the arrangements of ‘two systems’,” he said, according to footage of the same speech carried on government funded RTHK.

China has promised Hong Kong’s capitalist system would remain unchanged for 50 years, but it has not made clear what will happen in 2047. Some in Hong Kong fear Beijing may look to impose mainland rule on the territory before then.

Last year, China’s parliament intervened in a Hong Kong court case by passing a ruling on the Basic Law, as the territory’s mini-constitution is known.

It was one of Beijing’s most direct interventions into Hong Kong’s legal and political system since the 1997 handover.

Wang previously said on Friday that Hong Kong should have “respect and awe” for China’s system, to which it would have to adapt, government funded RTHK reported on Friday.

(Reporting by Michelle Price; Additional reporting by Venus Wu and Julie Zhu; Editing by Ros Russell)

In a letter to UK PM May, Scotland’s leader demands independence vote

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon attends Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britain March 29, 2017. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne

LONDON (Reuters) – Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday formally demanding that she allow a second referendum to be held on Scottish independence ahead of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

The results of the June Brexit referendum called the country’s future into question because England and Wales voted to leave the EU but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.

On Tuesday, Scotland’s devolved parliament voted to hold a referendum on secession in 2018 or 2019, but the UK government in Westminster must give its approval before any such poll can he held.

May has already said it is not the right time for another referendum, having only just formally begun the complex two-year divorce talks between the UK and its 27 EU partners.

Scots rejected independence in a 2014 vote by 55 to 45 percent, but Sturgeon says the situation has changed because of Brexit.

In her letter, Sturgeon said she wished May well in negotiations with the EU, but added it seemed inevitable the outcome would leave the UK outside the European single market

“In these very changed circumstances, the people of Scotland must have the right to choose our own future – in short, to exercise our right of self determination,” she wrote.

“I am therefore writing to begin early discussions between our governments to agree an Order under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 that would enable a referendum to be legislated for by the Scottish Parliament.”

Sturgeon said she agreed with May that it would be wrong to hold a referendum immediately but that it should take place after the terms of Brexit were agreed and a future trade deal with the EU was struck, something May envisages before March 2019.

“There appears to be no rational reason for you to stand in the way of the will of the Scottish Parliament and I hope you will not do so,” Sturgeon said.

A spokesman for May said the UK government would respond in due course but ruled out discussions on a second secession vote.

“At this point, all our focus should be on our negotiations with the European Union, making sure we get the right deal for the whole of the UK,” the spokesman said.

(Reporting by Michael Holden and Kylie MacLellan; editing by Stephen Addison)