So much for the Kurdish independence dream.

So much for the Kurdish independence dream. HT: UskowiOnIran.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on June 23, part of a diplomatic drive aimed at preventing the country from splitting apart.

Kerry was to meet leaders of the three-province Kurdistan region, after holding talks in Baghdad the day before with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other politicians from across the political and religious spectrum.

"The Secretary's visit will be very important both to confer with the Kurdish leadership and also encourage them to play a very active role in this government formation process, including choosing a very strong president who can represent both Kurdish interests but also Iraqi interests," said a senior U.S. State Department official who briefed reporters.

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Kurdish President Massoud Barzani in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour gave his strongest-ever indication that Iraqi Kurdistan would see formal independence from the rest of Iraq.

“Iraq is obviously falling apart,” Barzani said. “And it’s obvious that the federal or central government has lost control over everything. Everything is collapsing – the army, the troops, the police.”

“We did not cause the collapse of Iraq. It is others who did. And we cannot remain hostages for the unknown.

“The time is here for the Kurdistan people to determine their future and the decision of the people is what we are going to uphold

“Now we are living [in] a new Iraq, which is different completely from the Iraq that we always knew, the Iraq that we lived in ten days or two weeks ago.”

“After the recent events in Iraq, it has been proved that the Kurdish people should seize the opportunity now – the Kurdistan people should now determine their future.

“I will ask him, ‘How long shall the Kurdish people remain like this?’ The Kurdish people is the one who is supposed to determine their destiny and no one else,” Barzani said. Barzani also called on Maliki to step down.

“(The) situation has been very complicated. And the one who’s responsible for what happened must step down.” Amanpour asked if Barzani meant Prime Minister al-Maliki.

“Of course. He is the general commander of the army. He builds the army on the ground of personal loyalty to him, not loyalty to the whole country. And he monopolizes authority and power. He led the military, and this is the result,” Barzani said.

The Peshmerga have recently taken control of Kirkuk, and this is what Barzani said on that issue.

“We never had any doubt at any time that Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan.

“For the last ten years, we have been waiting to have (the constitutional) article applied (to determine Kirkuk’s future), but we haven’t seen any seriousness from the central government. And since we have new developments in Iraq now, this is what brought about the new situation with Kirkuk coming back to Kurdistan.

“We haven’t done this referendum yet, but we will do and we will respect the opinion of the citizens even if they refuse to have Kurdistan as an independent state,” Barzani said.


 Update: Obama and his BFF Erdogan have 'sealed' Kurdish independce plans


 Turkish PM Erdoğan and US Vice President Biden agree on unified government in Iraq

Biden also spoke with Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, a Sunni, regarding the developments in Iraq. Bahrain, like Iraq, is a majority-Shiite country. The White House says Biden and the king agreed Iraq’s leaders must set aside sectarianism to confront the ISIL threat.

“I think the only hope to keep the country together is probably through a confederation of three different regions,” Kirkuk provincial Governor Najm al-Din Karim told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “This is actually what Biden suggested in 2004, and everybody thought he was breaking up Iraq, but that’s the only way and he was right.”

In that scenario, he insists, Kirkuk’s residents would choose to be part of the Kurdish region.

“The people of Kirkuk will vote for a place [where] there’s peace, where they can have services,” he says.

“They know the Kurdistan region is where they can get these things.”

Part of Kirkuk’s allure lies in the vast oil reserves in the province.

Karim will not be drawn on the future of the reserves, saying it is an issue to be worked out later, but Kurdish residents of Kirkuk are less equivocal.

“The rights to Kirkuk’s oil are shared between the Kurdish government and the central government, but the government abandoned the situation, abandoned the region and abandoned the people,” says 28-year-old construction worker Ithar Subhan.

“They lost their rights [to the oil] when the Iraqi army left, when they failed to carry out their duties.”