Turkiet varnar för Ankaras svar på folkomröstningen

An independence referendum for Iraqi Kurdistan has been scheduled to be held on 25 September 2017. The result will be binding for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), but its legality has been rejected by the federal government of Iraq. It was originally planned to be held in 2014 amidst controversy and dispute between the regional and federal governments. Longstanding calls for Kurdish independence gained impetus following the Northern Iraq offensive by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in which Baghdad-controlled forces abandoned some areas, which were then taken by the Peshmerga and controlled de facto by the Kurds. The referendum was announced and delayed on several occasions as Kurdish forces co-operated with the Iraqi central government for the liberation of Mosul, but by April 2017 it was being seen as happening some time in 2017. On 7 June 2017, President Masoud Barzani held a meeting with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), the Kurdistan Islamic Movement (KIM), the Kurdistan Communist Party, the Kurdistan Toilers Party, the Kurdistan Toilers and Workers Party, the Kurdistan Development and Reform Party, the Erbil Turkmen List, the Iraqi Turkmen Front, the Turkmen Development Party, the Armenian List in the Kurdistan Parliament, the Assyrian Democratic Movement and the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Popular Council, where the independence referendum was confirmed to be held on 25 September 2017. The Iraqi government declared victory over the Islamic State in Mosul on 10 July 2017.