Baghdad, Sep 25 (IANS) Iraqi Kurds started casting their ballots in a controversial independence referendum on Monday as tensions began to escalate between the country’s largest ethnic minority and the government in Baghdad.
Voting got underway at 8 a.m. and will end at 6 p.m. The first results will be out within 72 hours, reports CNN.
Voters must respond with either a “yes” or “no” to the question of whether they want the region to become an independent state. The question has been translated into Kurdish, Arabic, Turkmen and Assyrian.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) which administers a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq says the referendum will give it a mandate to achieve independence from Iraq.
Ballot boxes were spread throughout Iraq’s Kurdish regional areas, in addition to the city of Kirkuk — a flashpoint claimed by both the KRG and the Iraqi government.
On Sunday, Iran closed its air space to the autonomous Kurdistan region after issuing several condemnations against the vote.
Both Iran and Turkey have sizable Kurdish minorities and fear a vote for independence in Iraq might galvanise movements in their countries, CNN reported.
As polls opened on Monday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling the vote “illegitimate, null and void”.
The ministry also warned that it would take legal measures to prevent “radical elements and terrorists” from attempting to exploit the situation to target its national security.
The US, UK and the UN have also warned the KRG against holding the referendum, citing fears that it could detract from the campaign against the Islamic State (IS) terror group.
The Kurdish diaspora began electronic voting on September 23. According to the Electoral Commission, some 150,000 Kurds will vote from abroad.
Iraqi Kurdistan has enjoyed considerable autonomy since the early 1990s, a status bolstered in the 2005 constitution that defined Iraq as a federal state.