News / Interviews

Iraq’s KRG vote seriously undermined country's security: Expert

Friday, 20 October 2017 5:20 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 20 October 2017 5:22 PM ]

Members of the Iraqi government's Emergency Response Brigade stand guard at the Bai Hassan oil field, west of Kirkuk, on October 19, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

The referendum on independence held in Iraq's Kurdistan region last month has seriously undermined security there, prompting the central government to "re-establish law and order" after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) did not heed Baghdad's calls to annul the controversial vote, an expert says.

“Basically the whole idea is to re-establish the central government’s control and to reassert its authority and to re-establish law and order... which was seriously and dramatically threatened by the illegal, unconstitutional referendum that [Iraqi Kurdish leader] Massoud Barzani has personally pursued despite all the warnings,” Zayd al-Isa told Press TV in an interview on Friday.

Kurdish forces have been holding parts of Iraqi territory since 2014, when Daesh began an offensive across Iraq and the Kurds began fighting it and overrunning territory in the process.

The Baghdad government has long insisted that the Kurds pull out of the territories they had overrun. But the Kurdish fighters have refused. Ever since the referendum on secession in Kurdistan on September 25, the Iraqi government has lost patience, sending security forces to retake Kurdish-held areas.