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Tehran reiterates opposition to Kurdistan referendum

21 August 2017 15:38 (UTC+04:00)
Tehran reiterates opposition to Kurdistan referendum

By Trend

Iran’s Foreign Ministry, expressing its concerns for the “territorial integrity of Iraq,” has reiterated the country’s stance on a prospective referendum in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Following a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Auguest 16, the Chief of the Central Command of the Iranian Armed Forces, Mohammad Hussein Baqeri said that, both Iran and Turkey oppose a plan by the Kurdistan Region to hold the referendum, stressing that such a move would lead to tensions and conflicts in Iraq.

Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Bahram Qassemi, in a press conference in Tehran, has endorsed Baqeri’s statement as “precise and proper”, reported by Trend correspondent attending the event on August 21.

Qassemi’s remarks came in response to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Ministry of Peshmerga Aug 18 reply to Baqeri, saying that “no one has the right to speak on the region’s independence referendum except the people of the Kurdistan Region.”

“That is considered as a public intervention in the internal affairs of the Kurdistan Region,” the statement read.

On June 7 the Kurdistan Region has announced its plans to hold a referendum on the region’s independence on September 25 of this year. The announcement came following a meeting between the region’s political parties, excluding the Gorran Movement and the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG).

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