MESOP NEWS FLASH : KURDISH REFERENDUM NO PROBLEM FOR EU !

EU parliament president says we need stability in Iraqi Kurdistan

MESOP NEWS  23 June 2017 – BRUSSELS,— Antonio Tajani, the President of the European Parliament, said on Thursday European countries need stability in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.Tajani, responding to NRT TV ahead of a European Council meeting in Brussels, said the referendum in the Kurdistan Region is an issue in Iraq and Europe wants stability in the region.

“This is not a problem for us, this is an internal problem of Iraq. We need stability in this region,” Tajani said when asked by the reporter on the EU’s reaction to a decision from Kurdish authorities to hold a referendum on September 25.The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, also told NRT the referendum in the Kurdistan Region will not be an “issue for the European Council today.”

EU heads of state and government arrived at the European Council on Thursday to discuss counter-terrorism and how to better combat radicalization. The Kurdistan Region’s political parties, not including the Change Movement (Gorran) and the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG), came to an agreement on June 7 to hold a referendum on the region’s independence on September 25, 2017.

The decision by Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s authorities has concerned Iraq, US, UK, EU, Russia, Germany, Turkey and Iran.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday that holding an independence referendum in the Kurdistan Region is “illegal” and that such a referendum requires a law to be created and adopted inside the Iraqi Parliament because the Iraqi constitution does not currently allow for the Kurdistan Region or other provinces to split from Iraq. www.mesop.de