Kurdish referendum: Desire for independence reaches fever pitch as US and Baghdad wring their hands

Iraq’s Kurds are looking forward to Monday’s independence vote – but increasing unrest worries Baghdad and Washington, who fear it could sow new divisions and derail the fight against Isis

Locals in Kirkuk attend a rally in favour of a ‘yes’ vote in the upcoming Kurdish referendum (Reuters)

“So what do you think about Sinn Fein? About Wales and Scotland?” the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) official asks, looking over the paperwork that lays out this reporter’s Celtic roots.

He goes on to show an impressively detailed grasp of Irish politics. Many people in the KRG – the autonomous Kurdish area of northern Iraq – follow independence movements around the world very closely.

Their own chance for self-determination has been a long time coming: on Monday 25 September, the KRG’s residents will take part in a vote that is supposed to turn the KRG into an independent state.

The vote could have far-reaching implications for Iraq’s future. The central government has refused to recognise it as a legitimate vote; the US, fearing further rifts between Baghdad and Irbil, has pleaded with KRG President Masoud Barzani to delay it until Isis has been defeated in the country.

Last week, Iraq’s Supreme Court issued a ruling ordering the referendum’s suspension. There are growing fears that the likely ‘yes’ outcome will lead to violence between local Arab militias and the police.

None of that, however, has deterred Iraq’s 8.4 million Kurds, who are united in their excitement over the upcoming vote.

In Irbil this week, the capital of the KRG , there are even more KRG flags around than usual. The orange, white and green horizontal tricolour, with a bright yellow sun in the centre, is draped from practically every building.

Around the 7,000-year-old citadel, pick-up trucks carrying huge speaker systems blare out referendum slogans and Kurdish pop songs. Many children are decked out in traditional dress, as are members of the peshmerga, rifles swinging from their shoulders.

Every phone background is a flag with the number ‘25’, with a hand making the ‘V for victory’ sign superimposed on top of it. Every radio station plays repeats of President Barzani’s recent rallies.

Although they cannot vote, the many Syrian Kurds who live in the KRG are also wholly enthusiastic, hoping the result could set a precedent for their own dealings with President Bashar al-Assad’s government as the war next door winds down.

But for the local Arab population, the situation is not as straightforward. The area that the vote encompasses includes towns such as the multi-ethnic Kirkuk: an oil-rich province also claimed by Iraq’s Arabs.

If Kirkuk is a litmus test for what could happen in other areas that were narrowly dragged into the referendum vote, the signs so far are not good.

In the last few days, several violent incidents between Shia and Turkmen militias and Kurdish police in Kirkuk have been reported; rumours are swirling among Irbil’s large NGO worker population that the government may even close down Iraqi airspace.

Worried by the increasing unrest, evacuation plans have been put in place; staff have been told to work from home for the next few days and obey a curfew.

In Nineveh, the campaign to oust Isis from Hawija, one of its last strongholds in Iraq, has just got underway, the timing of which many Kurds have grumbled is a attempt by Baghdad to minimise the independence vote’s importance.

Baghdad, in turn, has accused the KRG of needless posturing over the non-binding vote, which it sees as an attempt to wrest control of Iraq’s oil away from the government and sow new divisions after Isis destabilised the already fragile peace.

The Kurds know that international support for the administration will wane once Isis is defeated; Mr Barzani himself has said in multiple interviews that the referendum is in no small part symbolic, showing Baghdad and the US that Kurdish co-operation cannot be taken for granted.

Whether the inevitable ‘yes’ result gives the Kurds greater bargaining power in Baghdad – or sparks regional conflict after the successful Arab-Kurdish cooperation to dislodge Isis from Mosul in July – remains to be seen. It could be a high price to pay.