Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered his gravest threat to date after balloting began, hinting at a shutdown of oil exports that the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government relies on for revenue. Turkey also announced joint military exercises with Iraq, while Iran called the vote “illegal and illegitimate” and said it had closed its borders with the Kurdish region at the request of Iraq’s government, according to Bloomberg.
“Let’s see where the regional government of northern Iraq will flow its crude oil, through which channels and where it sells it from now on,” Erdogan said in Istanbul on Monday. The president also hinted at cross-border military operations: “We may arrive one night, suddenly.”
The ballot is taking place in three provinces ruled by the KRG in northern Iraq as well as in disputed areas around the oil hub of Kirkuk. It asks one question -- “Do you want the Kurdistan region and the Kurdistani areas outside the region’s administration to become an independent state?” -- and their answer is almost certain to be “yes.” Voting ends at 6 p.m. local time.
Though that outcome wouldn’t automatically trigger secession or even immediate demands for it, the repercussions would be felt far beyond Iraq and have the potential to open up yet another Middle East conflict. More than 30 million Kurds are dispersed across the borders with Syria, Iran and Turkey, which face secessionist movements among their Kurdish own minorities.
‘Injustice’
“We lived for this day,” Majda Mohammed Ali, a 60-year-old civil engineer, said as she left a polling station in Erbil, which was covered with flags and banners on a public holiday for the vote. “We don’t want our children to suffer the injustice that we did.”
The Iraqi Kurds’ president, Massoud Barzani, told a press conference on Sunday that their partnership with Iraq had failed. He called for calm and said he was ready for “very long” talks with the government in Baghdad -- possibly lasting years -- on issues from borders to oil exports and water once votes have been counted. Iraq has declared the vote unconstitutional.
“The risk of confrontation is big, and nobody will benefit from a new round of war,” said Kawa Hassan, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the EastWest Institute in Brussels. It would have been better for the Kurds to enter into negotiations with Baghdad, as proposed by the U.S. and the United Nations, than to hold the vote, he said.
Proud to cast my vote earlier this morning and partake in this historic day, the day of the #KurdistanReferendum pic.twitter.com/aDP16ZQiud
— Masoud Barzani (@masoud_barzani) September 25, 2017
More than 98 percent of Iraqi Kurds voted for independence in a 2005 referendum, though it was arranged by activists without official approval and did not result in statehood.
‘Not Now’
Some analysts have suggested Barzani is more interested in forcing the Iraqi government to resolve long-standing arguments over territory and oil revenue than pursuing a complete split. Kurdish businessman Shaswar Abdulwahid Qadir, who has led a “Not for Now” campaign against the referendum, says it’s being held to distract from domestic problems, including dire economic conditions caused by the plunge in crude oil prices and an influx of refugees fleeing Islamic State.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi made the same arguments in a televised speech Sunday. Kurdistan’s troubles are a result of corruption and mismanagement, and the referendum will only exacerbate them, he said, adding his government would take steps to protect Iraqi unity.
The Kurds, which make up about one-fifth of Iraq’s 38 million people, have longstanding grievances against the government in Baghdad. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against them, displacing or killing countless members of the community. The enclave won a large degree of autonomy under the post-Saddam Iraqi constitution adopted in 2005, and nationalism has deepened since Kurdish troops, known as peshmerga, scored battlefield successes against Islamic State and brought the city of Kirkuk under their control.
Turkey fears the independence vote could set back its own campaign to stamp out a Kurdish insurgency it’s been battling for three decades. It’s also worried about a military response from Baghdad, which in turn could trigger an exodus of Iraqi Kurds toward Turkey.