Kurds Push for Independence From Baghdad as Contemptible US Pushes Back

Leaders from the semiautonomous Kurdish region in Iraq are in Washington this week telling the Obama administration that it must accept the fact that the Kurds are pursuing full independence, even if the U.S. prefers that they defer any such moves until the political situation in Baghdad is stabilized.

Kurds Push for Independence From Baghdad as Contemptible US Pushes Back HT_john_kerry_jef_140703_16x9_608

Kurds Push for Independence From Baghdad as Contemptible US Pushes Back HT_john_kerry_jef_140703_16x9_608

Fouad Hussein, chief of staff to the Kurdish president Massoud Barzani, told reporters Thursday that an independent Kurdistan will soon exist as a self-sufficient country or within a confederation with Baghdad, but that given the sectarian political divisions there as well as the recent incursion of the Sunni militant group ISIS, “Iraq” as a unified country exists in name only.

“If we can stay together it must be on the basis of the new reality. And new reality has to do with the fact that Kurdistan is now independent,” Hussein said, briefing reporters at the Kurdish Regional Government’s DC offices.

He also said that American officials with whom he and the Kurdish foreign minister Falah Bakir met so far have been very receptive to that message. The men convened with Secretary of State John Kerry Wednesday and were meeting with National Security Council officials at the White House Thursday.

Hussein painted Kurdistan as a self-sufficient oasis in an otherwise bleak landscape: the Kurds have their own army, the pesh merga, and the Kurdish oil supply allows them economic independence from Baghdad. Meanwhile, the Shiites maintain de facto control of Baghdad, which is in political shambles, and the rest of the country is under the thumb of ISIS.

So, he continued, the Kurds, which will soon hold a referendum on the question of independence, are willing to continue cooperating with Baghdad – but don’t need to.

“If they can further work together as two confederations, under the name of one country, that can be possible,” he said. “But if we cannot reach that understanding with them, then why we must go back to a failed state?”

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/07/kurds-push-for-independence-from-baghdad-as-us-pushes-back/

Kurds Push for Independence From Baghdad as Contemptible US Pushes Back

Kurds Push for Independence From Baghdad as Contemptible US Pushes Back

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