Barzani adviser: Kurdish secession is inevitable

Amid rising regional tensions and global opposition, Iraqi Kurds voted in a controversial secession referendum in September, setting off a chain of events that resulted in a military disagreement between Erbil and Baghdad.

Central authorities troops fleet regained retain an eye on of Kirkuk, house to bigger than 1000000 folk and the hub of a important oil-producing train. Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew from the metropolis, which had been in their retain an eye on since 2014, and authorities troops also pushed the Peshmerga out of Nineveh and Diyala provinces.

Baghdad has since deployed troops alongside the semi-self reliant plan’s borders, in a plug Kurds dispute as unconstitutional.

Kifah Mahmoud, an Iraqi Kurdish political analyst and aged Kurdish President Masoud Barzani’s media adviser, spoke with Al Jazeera in regards to the ongoing battle and the closing fate of Iraq’s Kurds.

Al Jazeera: What are the difficulties you face as Masoud Barzani’s adviser?

Kifah Mahmoud: On a interior most level, I attain now not consult with fascinating times as difficulties. Rather, I would bid my job entails a quantity of strain from the media for a total lot of causes.

We’re on a customary foundation asked to give interviews, and at some level of these media appearances, now we hold to preserve a obvious legend and level of debate. President Barzani is a nationwide leader, and for years he managed to be an influential resolve every locally and internationally.

Al Jazeera: Given the hot backlash – every locally and internationally – attain you personal that it used to be too soon to preserve a referendum on Kurdish secession?

Mahmoud: Moderately the contrary. Of route, I feel we hold been very powerful delayed in our resolution to preserve out a referendum on secession. Individually, I had been advocating and combating for this step since the US toppled [late Iraqi] President Saddam Hussein’s regime help in 2003.

This step will deserve to hold been taken straight after April 2003, pretty than having gone to Baghdad to barter. We’re mild paying the worth for opting to barter.

Al Jazeera: What are the important challenges facing the Kurdish plan now that the oil-rich metropolis of Kirkuk has been retaken by the central authorities?

Mahmoud: Kirkuk aren’t gone forever. For bigger than four decades, Saddam Hussein’s authorities and his predecessors tried to interchange the metropolis’s demographics, but it used to be reclaimed by the Kurds in a matter of four hours.

Among our marvelous challenges on the 2nd is Baghdad’s lack of faith in the vitality of debate, and its inclination to take care of the Kurdish ask thru military force. This has been the case with old governments as effectively, but they fell, and we remained.

Al Jazeera: What are the important new interior divisions at some level of the Kurdish parliament which will hinder seemingly negotiations?

Mahmoud: The Kurdish parliament is now not divided; it’s miles on the total practising democracy by the mere indisputable truth that it’s miles facing staunch opposition. The actual fact that most occasion has its opinions and views, whereas various events also hold their opposing positions, shows a healthy and various process adopted by the regional parliament.

Al Jazeera: Raise out you hope to gaze a winning Kurdish secession in the approach future?

Mahmoud: Independence is a idea that stems from the minds and hearts of the Kurdish folk. Manifesting this on the ground has advance in the shape of policies pushed by the parliament and the Kurdish judicial body. The idea is a fact that can perhaps well now not be disputed amongst any Kurd in the [Iraqi] plan.

If there is one element that the Kurdish folk and the authorities aren’t in sync with – I would bid it’s miles merely the approach of executing this, or perchance a matter of timing. I’m optimistic since the referendum proved the need of the Kurdish folk and their resolution to form secession a fact.

Al Jazeera: On your knowing, what steps can hold to the central authorities in Baghdad undertake transferring forward?

Mahmoud: This day, the central authorities does now not hold powerful of a ramification, rather than to bound up the dialogue process and stop its punitive measures towards the Kurdish folk. It also needs to drag out its armed troops from alongside the Kurdish plan’s borders, as their presence has violated various articles of the structure.