Iraq Kurds await backlash after ‘vote’

Bloomberg

Millions of Iraq’s Kurds voted in an historic referendum on independence on Monday, defying the dire warnings from neighbors as well as the government in Baghdad—who must now decide how far to retaliate to an expected landslide in favour of secession.
Though the ballot was limited to areas under the control of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, the repercussions will be felt farther afield. More than 30 million Kurds are dispersed across the borders with Syria, Iran and Turkey with separatist ambitions of their own. Brent crude climbed to a two-year high on Monday amid concern that a backlash against the vote may disrupt Kurdish oil supplies.
Iran and Turkey will likely unveil more measures “hitting diplomacy, business and trade,” Anthony Skinner, a director with UK-based forecasting company Verisk Maplecroft, said. The threat of military action will continue, though any armed intervention remains unlikely unless sectarian violence breaks out, he said. The ballot took place in three provinces ruled by the KRG in northern Iraq as well as in disputed areas around the oil hub of Kirkuk. Early counting of 300,000 ballots showed more than 93 percent in favour of independence, the Kurdish Rudaw news service reported on Tuesday. Kurdish officials said 3.9 million people were registered to vote.
‘Instability, Hardships’
US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement the vote would “increase instability and hardships for the Kurdistan region and its people,” and called for all sides to “engage constructively in a dialogue to improve the future of all Iraqis.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted at a shutdown of oil exports the KRG relies on for revenue; Iran called the vote “illegal and illegitimate” and closed its borders with the Kurdish region at the request of Iraq.
In Baghdad, parliament approved draft legislation ordering the closure of borders with Kurdistan, the return of disputed oil fields and the deployment of troops
to areas under Kurdish control since the IS offensive of 2014.
“Let’s see where the regional government of northern Iraq will make its crude oil flow, through which channels, and where it sells it from now on,” Erdogan said in Istanbul. The president also hinted at cross-border military operations: “We may arrive one night, suddenly.”
The Iraqi Kurds’ president,
Massoud Barzani, said before the vote that their partnership with Iraq had failed.
He called for calm and said he was ready for “very long” talks
with the government in Baghdad—possibly lasting years—on issues from borders to oil exports and water once votes have been counted. Iraq has declared the
vote unconstitutional.