The Monday referendum confirmed the wide
expectation that the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq would be
moving towards secession from Iraq and independence.
The President of the KRG
Masoud Barzani
claimed the ‘yes’ vote on Monday’s as a personal victory. In a
televised speech, he called on Baghdad and “neighboring countries” to
respect the result of the referendum.
Turkey and Iran vehemently opposed the
referendum. The country is home to 16 million Kurds and has fought a war
with the secessionist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for 33 years.
On Tuesday, the Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called
the Kurdish referendum “null and void.” Erdoğan made clear that Turkey
will cut off the access of the KRG to the Turkish Mediterranean port of
Ceylan, disrupting the supply of 500,000-600,000 barrels per day (bpd)
of crude, and depriving the Barzani government of its main source of
revenue.
Meanwhile, OPEC has also announced it is
decelerating production while Iran may be facing some disruption of
supply by US sanctions. Brent oil prices climbed to a 26-month high on
Tuesday, September 26, 2017.
The security situation is unstable and potentially explosive.
On Tuesday, the Turkish and Iraqi
militaries were holding common exercises along the border with the KRG,
close to the town of Silopi. This is a region near the Syrian frontier,
which is controlled by the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units
(YPG). Turkey considers YPG an extension of PKK. However, it is also a
50,000-strong force that has been armed by Washington as the main thrust
of force in the campaign to take over Raqqa.
“If Barzani and the Kurdish Regional
Government do not go back on this mistake as soon as possible, they will
go down in history with the shame of having dragged the region into an
ethnic and sectarian war,” Erdoğan warned.
Analysts doubt that Turkey would risk a
full confrontation with the PKK and the KRG. However, the threat of
economic sanctions may be more credible, although it would come at a
significant cost for the Turkish economy. Turkey is a major investor in
the KRG and exports billions in goods and services to the region.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/kurdish-vote-secession-triggers-regional-volatility-beginning-oil/