Iraq’s Kurds said Sunday they will hold an independence referendum “whatever the risk and price”, despite threats of retaliation from the country’s central government on the eve of the vote.
Massud Barzani, the leader of oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan, said his people’s partnership with Baghdad had failed and that the plebiscite would proceed as planned on Monday.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, speaking on television soon after, threatened to take the “necessary measures” to protect Iraqi unity, and his government urged all countries to deal only with it on oil transactions.
At a news conference in Arbil, capital of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan in the north of the country, Barzani urged his people to turn out and vote.