KURDISH DELEGATION HEADS TO BAGHDAD TO PRESENT 'CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS'

KURDISH DELEGATION HEADS TO BAGHDAD TO PRESENT 'CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS'

SULAIMANI — Senior Kurdish officials from the High Referendum Council are set to visit Baghdad in the next two days where they will present a set of the central government’s“constitutional violations,” which they say left the Kurdistan Region with no choice but to announce independence, a council member said.

“The main topic to discuss with Baghdad will be the referendum on independence,” Vian Dakhil, a parliamentarian and member of the High Referendum Council told Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency. “We will tell Iraqi officials that the Kurdistan Region has decided to hold the referendum for independence.”

Dakhil said the alleged harm to the Kurdistan Region from Baghdad’s failure to abide by more than 51 articles of the Iraqi constitution will be presented during a meeting with Iraqi officials.

There are representatives of minority parties among the Kurdish delegation to visit Baghdad, including Dakhil from the Ezidi community, Romeo Hakari from the Chaldean and Assyrian communities as well as Majid Bazrgan from the Turkmen community.

Members of the High Referendum Council met on Saturday (August 12) in Erbil for talks on the upcoming official visit to Baghdad. The council does not include representatives from the Change Movement (Gorran) and the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG).

The council is also expected to separately hold meetings with the American and British embassies as well as a set of other foreign embassies for talks on the referendum.

The Kurdistan Region declared on June 7 a plan to hold a referendum on the region’s independence this year on September 25. The announcement came following a meeting between the region’s political parties, not including the Change Movement (Gorran) and the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG).

(NRT)