ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) — Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said on Sunday (October 29) the he would give up his position as president on November 1, after an independence referendum he championed backfired and triggered a regional crisis.
In his address, his first since Iraqi forces launched a surprise offensive to recapture Kurdish-held territory in mid-October, Barzani vigorously defended his decision to hold the September 25 voting, saying its results can never be erased.
Barzani added that followers of rival Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, who died in early October, had been guilty of “high treason” for handing over the oil city of Kirkuk to Iraqi forces without a fight two weeks earlier.
Speaking with Kurdish and Iraqi flags behind him, the Kurdish leader criticized the United States for allowing Abrams tanks supplied to Iraqi forces to fight Islamic State militants to be used against the Kurds. He said American weapons were also used in attacks by Iranian-backed paramilitaries.
He added that the Iraqi offensives and the refusal of the Iraqi government to agree to dialogue vindicated his view that government in Baghdad no longer believes in Kurdish rights.
The address followed a letter he sent to parliament in which he asked members to take measures to fill the resulting power vacuum.
