On 25 September, the residents of Kurdish-controlled areas inside Iraq will have the opportunity to vote in a referendum on their preference for the future of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), a semi-autonomous region within Iraq's current borders.
Here are some of the things you need to know:
.
Ethnicity: Kurds (Kurdish people)
1.the Kurdish people are the 4th largest Ethnic group in the Middle East with over 30 million population.
2.the Kurdish people have four(4) territories in Four different countries
a.Iraq Kurdistan
b.Turkish Kurdistan
c.Syrian Kurdistan
d.Iranian Kurdistan.
the 4 territories are all together called the Greater Kurdistan.
3.the 4 territories have been fighting for independence since the day of Ottoman Empire.
4. the territory that is set to vote on referendum tomorrow is the Iraqi Kurdistan (Kurdish people of Iraq)
5.Iraq Kurdistan is A semi- autonomous Region of Iraq
6.the Government of Iraq Kurdistan is called the "Regional Government of Kurdistan"
7.Military: The Iraqi Kurdistan has a formidable Military force called the "Peshmerga" (meaning 'before dealth')
Peshmerga forces are responsible for defending the land, people and institutions of Iraqi Kurdistan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshmerga
8.the Capital City of Iraqi Kurdistan is Erbil
9.It has its own parliament, based in the capital city of Erbil,
10.the Iraq's Kurdistan region's President is Massoud Barzani
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Kurdistan
Ist pic: Map of Iraq Kurdistan
2nd pic: Kurdish Peshmerga military force

11.They are mostly Sunni Muslims
12.Today, depending on which country they find themselves in, the Kurds are subject to a complex web of adversaries, allegiances and internal divisions.
In Turkey and Iran, they face discrimination and their organizations have been blacklisted as terrorists. In Iraq and Syria, however, they have proved among the most effective fighters pushing back ISIS, and they have received the backing of the Pentagon in both arenas.
While the situation in Syria is far more messy, in Iraq the Kurds have established their own semi-autonomous region. Iraqi Kurdistan is an oil-rich province that encompasses one-third of the country and has emerged as the most secure area in an otherwise chaotic state.
13.They accuse the central government of violating its constitutional obligations toward them and withholding their share of the federal budget.
14.the Kurdish Regional Government’s (KRG) demands – such as oil revenue sharing, the status of security forces, and Kurdish institutional autonomy
15.On 7 June 2017, Kurdish President Masoud Barzani announced that the referendum would take place on 25 September 2017
16.the legality has been rejected by the federal government of Iraq

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Kurdistan_independence_referendum_2017
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The referendum ballot asks: "Do you want the Kurdistan region and the Kurdistani areas outside the region's administration to become an independent state?"
Being that the majority of voters in the balloted areas are ethnic Kurds with a strong history of seeking self-determination, the result will almost certainly be a Yes.
However, no matter what the residents of Kurdish-controlled areas decide, the referendum has no immediate administrative effects.
There is no mechanism for a part of Iraq to secede from the country, so the referendum will not trigger a "Kexit" the same way that the recent UK referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union triggered "Brexit".
One may well ask, why then are they holding a vote and why now?

Referendum rationale

]Domestic politics in Kurdistan has certainly shaped the timing of the referendum.
The KRI's president Massoud Barzani has exceeded his term in office and wants to symbolically begin the process of independence before he steps down during the next KRI elections, scheduled for 1 November.
Another reason for the referendum is to create a fresh mandate for the Kurds to get international backing for an eventual negotiated exit from Iraq and the declaration of a new UN-recognised state, probably within the next five to 10 years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-41239673

Opposition to referendum
1. Turkey
2.Iran
3.Iraq
4.Syria
5.UN
6.UK
Reasons
1.Baghdad is vehemently opposed to the vote, which has also alarmed neighbouring Turkey , which has a large Kurdish minority. Iran and Syria also worry that the vote will encourage secessionist ideas among their own Kurdish minorities.
Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
warned Ankara will consider imposing sanctions on the Kurdish region of northern Iraq over the referendum,
2.Tehran(Iran) and Ankara(Turkey) fear the spread of separatism to their own Kurds.
3.they fear that the New country will serve as An Operating Base for their own Kurds who are also fighting for Independence.
4.the United States and Britain who fear it could distract from the war on Islamic State militants should it lead to unrest in disputed areas like multi-ethnic oil-rich Kirkuk.
5.The UN Security Council has warned of the potentially destabilising impact of a planned referendum on independence for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
The 15 member states said Monday's non-binding vote could hinder efforts to counter so-called Islamic State (IS) and help displaced Iraqis return home.
It called for "dialogue and compromise" between the Kurdistan government and the central government in Baghdad.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/barzani-kurd-region-poll-occur-opposition-170922220609585.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41359361

the Regional Government of Kurdistan how ever have insisted that they will hold the Referendum tomorrow regardless of what the opposition think
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Barzani on the Kurdish referendum: 'We refuse to be subordinates'

Exclusive: Iraq’s Kurdish leader tells the Guardian why the independence vote is so vital, and how he will defy global opposition
Martin Chulov and Paul Johnson in Erbil, northern Iraq
Friday 22 September 2017 10.40 BST
Last modified on Friday 22 September 2017 22.00 BST
Iraq’s Kurdish leader, Masoud Barzani, is on the edge of defying overwhelming international opposition to take the Kurds to a landmark referendum he says will end the region’s role in a broken, sectarian Iraq, and pave the way to independence.
Speaking days before the ballot, scheduled for Monday, Barzani said the majority of the global community had underestimated the determination of the Kurds. It had also, he claimed, made a miscalculation in believing that his intention to hold the ballot was a “pressure card” designed to draw concessions, rather than a tangible first step towards a long-held goal of sovereignty.
“From world war one until now, we are not a part of
Iraq ,” he said. “It’s a theocratic, sectarian state. We have our geography, land and culture. We have our own language. We refuse to be subordinates.
“The parliament in Baghdad is not a federal parliament. It’s a chauvinistic, sectarian parliament. Trust is below zero with Baghdad,’ Barzani said at his presidential palace in the mountains beyond Erbil – the ruined city of Mosul 50 miles away, a border with Iran to the east, and Syria and Turkey to the west.
Barzani: ‘Is it a crime to ask our people to express themselves over their future?’ Photograph: Azad Lashkari/Reuters
The language coming from Baghdad in the south has been equally forceful, predicting violence if the referendum goes ahead. And Haider al-Abadi, the Iraqi prime minister, says that if that happens, military intervention will follow .
Barzani, a slight figure walking with a sway and invariably clad in the studied simplicity of khaki, has led the Kurds of Iraq for 12 years, the last two as a de facto president of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north of post-Saddam Iraq. His burden, and his cause, throughout a lifetime as a revolutionary, then statesman, has been to transform aspirations into sovereignty. Ranged against him – for now at least – is the rest of Iraq, the US, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UK, France, the European Union and the Arab League. In favour is Israel, a declaration he could probably have done without.
The vitriol between Baghdad and Erbil has a real manifestation on the ground. As part of the post-Iraq war settlement, the Kurdistan region was guaranteed annual injections of money from central funds, but that agreement collapsed amid a row over oil receipts.
Now, at first sight, there is a mass of construction work in and around the city, which is home to 850,000 people. Up close, the view is different: stalled construction, immobile cranes, the skeletons of half-finished skyscrapers sending out the message: no money. A debt of at least $20bn (£14.7bn) and fickle revenue stream add little comfort.
Along streets festooned with independence flags, past cars bearing posters and the ubiquitous image of Barzani, through three reinforced barriers, and three sets of armed guards, the Guardian is shown into Barzani’s conference room, ushered into the same seats occupied in recent weeks by the US defence secretary, James Mattis, and secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and General Qassem Suleimani of Iran - and by the UK defence secretary, Michael Fallon, only 24 hours before. All of them told him: don’t do it.
A Kurdish boy sells banners supporting the referendum in Erbil. Photograph: Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters
But for 71-year-old Barzani, who has led the Kurdistan Democratic Party since 1979, having succeeded his father, it may be now or never.
Barzani has been fired by a sense of purpose ever since he joined the Peshmerga at the age of 16: “There are so many of us who have fallen and given their souls for this fight.”
Now, with the anticipated fall of Isis, he has another card to play.
“In 2015 I told President [Barack] Obama ... that the partnership with Iraq had failed. At the time we agreed to concentrate on the fight against Isis, so we left it at that.
“Is it a crime to ask our people to express themselves over what they want for the future?” asked Barzani. “It was surprising to see the reaction from the international community. Where is your democracy now? Where are the UN charters? Where is the respect for freedom of expression? After the big sacrifice of the Peshmerga and breaking the myth of Isis, we thought they would respect this right.”
Barzani appeared rattled by the intensity and volume of the opposition to the ballot. On Thursday, Washington released the latest of three increasingly strident statements condemning the poll. Iran and Turkey fear for regional stability and for how an almost certain win in Iraq would galvanise Kurdish minorities in their own countries, as well as Syria.
Syrian Kurds
Ethnic Turkish Kurds
Iraqi Kurds
Ethnic Iranian Kurds
Turkey
Iran
Raqqa
Aleppo
Kirkuk
Syria
Iraq
200 km
200 miles
The multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk, which has been fought over by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen throughout the ages, and controlled by the Kurdistan regional government for the past three years, has been included in the referendum . The move led Suleimani and Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of Iraq’s Shia militia, to threaten military force to retake the city.
The Iraqi government continues with its message that the referendum is in breach of the constitution and a potential trigger for the breakdown of the country, which was declared independent in 1932 when the post-Ottoman British mandate officially ended. To that charge, Barzani argued Iraq was a consequence of the Sykes-Picot document of 1916, a secret British-French carve-up which delineated borders: “The work of officials with a pencil and map.”
Barzani said he had been given no reason to change his mind, or the date, insisting that all offers put to him had centred on reverting to negotiations with Baghdad, which have repeatedly failed in the 14 years since the ousting of Saddam Hussein.
He said the referendum was a means to an end “but not the end itself”, and that post-referendum negotiations with Baghdad and regional partners could start within the next two years.
Asked what would be required for a postponement, Barzani said it would only be the offer of a UN mandated solution, with a prescribed agenda and timeline.
“Why would we enter into an open agenda, not knowing the alternative? We are not going to do that. It would need a real agenda, with a specific timeframe and the supervision of Unami [UN assistance mission in Iraq].
“Baghdad must come forward with a concept on how we can negotiate, being two good neighbours, within a timeframe.”
An Iranian Kurdish woman takes a selfie with a man at a gathering near Erbil to urge people to vote in the referendum. Photograph: Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images
The referendum ballot asks: “Do you want the Kurdistan region and the Kurdistani areas outside the region’s administration to become an independent state?”
It sets no pathway towards sovereignty and has no administrative mechanism for any immediate changes to dealings between Baghdad and Erbil.
Attempting to allay fears that the referendum would set a dangerous precedent by creating a de-facto partition of Iraq along ethnic lines, Barzani said: “This would be a nation state, not built on one ethnic group. It would be based on citizenship.”
And with that the president is off: there are more rallies to address, more envoys to confront.
There was a last-minute boost: an appearance in Sulaimaniya alongside Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, the wife of Jalal Talabani, the stricken leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the second clan-based party in the Kurdish north, which, after some ambivalence, has fallen in behind the referendum. The appearance offers a rare moment of unity before the ballot.
But there are dark warnings from some long-time observers of the Kurds’ struggle towards statehood. “They want to become a second Israel,” said one. “But they could become a second Palestine.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/22/masoud-barzani-on-the-kurdish-referendum-iraq-we-refuse-to-be-subordinates

Kurds stick with independence vote, 'never going back to Baghdad': Barzani
Maher Chmaytelli

FILE PHOTO: Iraq's Kurdistan region's President Massoud Barzani speaks during his meets with clerics and elders from the cities of the Kurdistan region in Erbil, Iraq August 9, 2017. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq’s Kurds will go ahead with a referendum on independence on Monday because partnership with Baghdad has failed, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani said on Sunday.
Iraq’s Kurds will seek talks with the Shi‘ite-led central government to implement the expected ‘yes’ outcome of the referendum, even if they take two years or more, to settle land and oil sharing disputes ahead of independence, he told a news conference in at his headquarters near the KRG seat, Erbil.
“We will never go back to the failed partnership” with Baghdad, he said, adding Iraq had become a “theocratic, sectarian state” and not the democratic one that was supposed to be built after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi made a televised address on Sunday about the referendum that his government opposes as anti-constitutional. The vote, he said, '‘could lead to ethnic divisions, exposing (the Iraqis) to disastrous dangers that only God knows.‘’
Barzani dismissed the concern of Iraq’s powerful neighbors, Iran and Turkey that the vote could destabilize the region, committing to respecting the laws on international boundaries” and not seek to redraw region’s borders.
Iranian authorities stopped air traffic to the international airports of Erbil and Sulaimaniya, in Iraqi Kurdistan, on a request from Baghdad, Fars News Agency said.
”Turkey will never ever tolerate any status change or any new formations on its southern borders,“ Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Sunday. ”The KRG will be primarily responsible for the probable developments after this referendum.‘’
Barzani said Ankara '‘won’t benefit‘’ economically should it close the border with Iraqi Kurdistan.
Tehran and Ankara fear the spread of separatism to their own Kurds. Iran also supports Shi‘ite groups who have been ruling or holding key security and government positions in Iraq since the 2003 U.S-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein.
Barzani said the Kurds will '‘keep extending their hand‘’ to Iran and Turkey, even if the two countries do not reciprocate, adding that he did meet recently in the Kurdish region with Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qassem Soleimani who came to convince him to delay the vote.
The KRG has resisted calls to delay the referendum by the United Nations, the United States and Britain who fear it could distract from the war on Islamic State militants should it lead to unrest in disputed areas like multi-ethnic oil-rich Kirkuk.
“Only independence can reward the mothers of our martyrs,” Barzani said, reminding the international community of the role played by the Kurds in the war on Islamic State militants.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who control Kirkuk were given instructions not to respond to any provocation meant to disrupt the vote, but they will defend the region if attacked from outside, he said, adding that he does not expect armed clashes with Baghdad.
He expected the strong reactions of the international community opposing Kurdish independence '‘not to last forever‘’ after the vote is held. ``Only through independence, he said, we can secure our future.‘’
Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Toby Chopra and Jane Merriman
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-kurd-referendum-barzan/kurds-stick-with-independence-vote-never-going-back-to-baghdad-barzani-idUSKCN1BZ0LC?il=0&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social

Seun mynd44 lalasticlala Ishilove etc

Some people reabout to get dumped after haven serving their purpose and re no longer needed, these countries listed in that locale would never cede an inch their territories for one "mumu" to be formed country... They ve been used by the US in prosecuting the war in Syria as an ally and as an aside,Americans re very good at duplicity.....

When is Biafran referendum coming??