ERBIL: Iraq’s Kurds said on Friday a referendum on independence will go ahead despite warnings internationally that a vote in favour of secession could trigger conflict with Baghdad at a time when the fight against the militant Islamic State group is not yet won.

The Kurds have played a major role in the eight-month-old US-backed campaign to defeat the hardline insurgents in the Nineveh province around their de-facto capital Mosul.

Baghdad’s Shia-led government has rejected any move by the mostly Sunni Muslim Kurds to press unilaterally for independence, insisting that any decision about the future of the country should involve all its other parts.

But Hoshiyar Zebari, a former Iraqi foreign and finance minister and now a senior adviser to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani, said the decision to hold the vote on Sept 25 was irreversible.

“We crossed the Rubicon with that decision, there is no going back,” he said.

However, the expected “yes” vote would simply strengthen the Kurds’ hand in talks with Baghdad rather than leading automatically to a break from Iraq, nor would an independent Kurdistan annex the oil-rich region of Kirkuk and three other disputed regions in Kurdish-controlled territory, he said.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2017