Two boards to be formed prior to Kurdistan independence referendum: Official
Fadhil Mirani, secretary for the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Baghdad (BasNews) Kurdistan Region will run its independence referendum in 2017 and to set the stage for the survey two boards will be formed, said the secretary for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) politburo.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday in Erbil, Fadhil Mirani said one of the boards will attend to the internal preparations in Kurdistan for the referendum.
He added the second board will act as an executive one working with the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Mirani spoke at the conference following a meeting of the politburos of the two major parties in Kurdistan, KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which was chaired by KDP and Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani.
“For the referendum we do not ask for the permission of anyone but our nation,” Mirani said, stressing running the referendum does not mean that Kurdistan will declare independence right away after the referendum.
Prior to Tuesday’s convention, joint delegations from PUK and KDP met with Baghdad authorities and leaders from the political parties as well as the foreign diplomats in Kurdistan to discuss the efforts for running the referendum.
The reports of those meetings were discussed in Tuesday’s meeting and were valued “positive”, Mala Bakhtiyar, a PUK leader who attended Tuesday’s meeting, told the reporters.