Masoud Barzani, the president of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), is scheduled to deliver a speech in the Kurdish parliament about the recent developments in Iraq.
“Barzani talked to Youssef Muhammad (the Kurdish Parliament speaker) and said he will be in parliament on Thursday and will speak about the current situation in Iraq,” BasNews quoted Kamaran Subhan, Muhammad’s press secretary, as saying.
A source in the Kurdish parliament, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said that Barzani will deliver a ‘historical’ speech about Kurdistan’s future, the news agency reported.
In an interview with the state-run British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Tuesday, Barzani said that measures are being taken for holding a referendum on Kurdistan’s future within months.
“Independence is a natural right of the people of Kurdistan, all these developments confirm that, and from now on we won’t hide that the goal of Kurdistan is independence,” Barzani said.
The development comes as tensions have been ratcheted up between Kurdistan’s regional leaders and the central government in Baghdad. The Iraqi government has repeatedly slammed the Kurdistan region for exporting oil without Baghdad’s consent. Baghdad says it has the sole right to export the country’s crude, but the Kurds say they are entitled to market the resources of their own region. This is while, under the Iraqi constitution, any oil contract must be approved by Baghdad and its revenues sent to the treasury.
Violence in Iraq escalated after militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took control of Mosul on June 10, which was followed by the fall of Tikrit, located 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
The ISIL has vowed to continue its raid toward Baghdad.
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