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'Israel encouraging apartheid in Iraq's Kurdistan'

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The Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s secession referendum continues to receive negative feedback from politicians and prominent figures across the Middle East. Secretary General of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has in his latest remarks slammed the vote as an Israeli plot to divide countries in the region. In a televised address from the Lebanese capital Beirut, Nasrallah said Tel Aviv is working on new ways to destabilize the region exactly when the days of Daesh terrorists in Syria and Iraq are numbered. 

Talking to Press TV, Richard Becker, an analyst with the ANSWER Coalition, agreed with Nasrallah and argued that the interests of Israel and imperial powers, the US in particular, necessitate hatching plots to divide independent states in the Middle East into small countries with obedient rulers.  

Washington’s strategy is to divide the people in the region along ethnic, religious or any lines that will result in the disappearance of powerful independent states, Becker noted.

“That is why Iraq is targeted. Iran is another and that is why Iran is targeted. Syria which is such a central state in the whole Middle East region has been targeted and is perhaps still being targeted for partition and for division. Again I want to emphasize that what the United States is undertaking in the region has nothing in common with the real interest of the people,” the analyst observed.

He further noted that Israel is overtly encouraging apartheid in other parts of the region, including Iraq' Kurdistan, without facing any opposition from the international community. 

“Israel has had no problem historically with the promotion of apartheid elsewhere. It was the closest ally of South Africa when the apartheid system existed,” Becker recalled.

Israel promotes the strategy of "people against people” which is the essence of apartheid, he added.

The Kurdistan Regional Government held a non-binding referendum on secession from Iraq in defiance of Baghdad’s stiff opposition on September 25. Kurdish officials said over 90 percent of voters said ‘Yes’ to separation from Iraq.

While much of the international community, including the UN, the European Union and Iraq’s neighbors, has opposed the referendum, Israel has been the only entity to openly come out in support of an independent Kurdish state, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backing "the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state” of their own.


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