Kurdish leader Barzani to step down

Arbil : Massud Barzani, the president of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, told a closed-door session of parliament yesterday he was stepping down amid the fallout from a controversial independence referendum.

Also yesterday, the Kurds agreed to surrender to Iraqi forces the strategic border post of Fishkhabur, through which pass oil export pipelines to Ceyhan in Turkey.

“After November 1, I will no longer exercise my functions, and I reject any extension of my mandate,” the 71-year-old Barzani said in a letter read out to parliament in the Kurdish capital Arbil, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

“Changing the law on the presidency of Kurdistan or prolonging the presidential term is not acceptable,” said the architect of the September 25 independence vote, which led to the Kurds losing to Baghdad’s forces disputed territory and oilfields to which they had laid claim.

“I ask parliament to meet to fill the vacancy in power, to fulfil the mission and to assume the powers of the presidency of Kurdistan”, said the letter.

Barzani said he would “remain a peshmerga” (Kurdish fighter) and “continue to defend the achievements of the people of Kurdistan”.

Barzani’s letter was sent to parliament to decide on the provisional redistribution of the presidency’s powers until a presidential election, for which a date has yet to be fixed.