Masoud Barzani, right, president of Iraqi Kurdistan, seen here with Iraq's Kurdish president Fuad Masum, pushed for the Kurdish independence referendum despite opposition from the government in Baghdad and most of the international community. Shwan Mohammed / AFP
Masoud Barzani, right, president of Iraqi Kurdistan, seen here with Iraq's Kurdish president Fuad Masum, pushed for the Kurdish independence referendum despite opposition from the government in BaghdaShow more

Kurdish independence bid undoes goodwill earned in fight against ISIL



When Iraqi forces swept into Kirkuk on Monday, wresting control from the Kurdish peshmerga who had seized the city in 2014, it was a stunning rollback of Kurdish territorial expansion, and a spectacular defeat of Kurdish aspirations for independence.

The Iraqis followed up their success the following day by moving into peshmerga-held territory all along the border of the autonomous Kurdish region. When the dust settled, it was clear that Kurdish president Masoud Barzani's attempt to leverage the Kurds' high international standing into an independent Kurdistan had failed.

Faced with this disastrous setback, Mr Barzani and his allies unconvincingly tried to portray the Kurds as victims of Iranian aggression. In truth, the Kurdish push for independence that kicked off the Iraqi advance was marred by naked expansionism based on flimsy justifications and dubious methods that contrasted sharply with the image the Kurds had crafted during three years of fighting ISIL.

To the West, the Kurds became the poster boys of the war on ISIL. The Kurdish autonomous region was seen as a stable, modern, democratic and tolerant oasis in a country torn apart by a vicious sectarian conflict.

It was an image their leaders cultivated carefully and used to their advantage. Mr Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in particular came to see the war as an opportunity.
Soon after Iraqi forces retook the city of Mosul from ISIL after nine months of bitter fighting, putting an end to the existential threat the terror group posed to the country, Mr Barzani went ahead with a controversial referendum on independence from Iraq.

The referendum was greeted with enthusiasm by most of the roughly five million Kurds in the autonomous region. The Kurds had suffered grievously at the hands of the Saddam regime, and an independent Kurdistan has been the dream of Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria for generations.

Mr Barzani hoped that a favourable result would boost his hand in negotiations with Baghdad over secession, and convince the international community of his cause.

The referendum was held on September 25, and official results showed that 93 per cent of participants had voted "yes" on independence.

It seemed that the people had spoken; who would now want to deny the Kurds their own country?

Almost everyone, it turned out.

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Read more: 

Iraqi Kurdistan welcomes Baghdad's dialogue initiative to resolve conflict 

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Fearing that an independent Iraqi Kurdistan would embolden their own Kurdish minorities, Turkey and Iran condemned the referendum from the outset and immediately began to work with Baghdad to rein in the Kurds. The United States and European powers also stressed that they wanted to maintain Iraq's territorial integrity.

The central government was now free to turn the screw on the hapless Kurds. Calling on the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) to renounce the referendum, Baghdad enforced a ban on international flights from Kurdish airports and threatened to close the land borders.

But there was more to come. Baghdad's fury centred on the KRG's decision to include in the referendum vast swathes of territories that were claimed by both the Iraqis and Kurds, and which had fallen to the Kurds during the war on ISIL, or through previous land grabs. The main bone of contention was the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which the peshmerga had seized after the Iraqi army fled in 2014.

The Kurdish claim to Kirkuk is rooted in history, but is legally spurious. Situated outside the autonomous zone, it lies on sovereign Iraqi territory and is ethnically mixed, with Arab, Kurd and Turkmen inhabitants.

The Kurds say the ethnic composition of Kirkuk, and of the other disputed territories, was altered by the Arabisation policies of Saddam Hussein, and that the city should be considered Kurdish regardless of the current population mix.

Iraq's 2004 constitution addresses Saddam's ethnic tinkering: Article 140 of the constitution calls for a reversal of Kurdish expulsion from the disputed territories, followed by a census, and a referendum to decide whether they should fall to the Kurdish region. But these measures were never implemented, and there is no clarity over the ethnic composition in those areas, nor the desire of their populations to join the Kurdish region, lets alone an independent Kurdistan.

September's referendum cannot be seen as valid expression of the popular will in Kirkuk and other disputed areas. The voting process was not transparent, with reports suggesting that people were strong-armed into voting "yes", and that multiple votes were cast by proponents of independence.

Since the referendum results were not clearly broken down by area, it is not known how the disputed territories voted.

To pander to US fears of a growing Iranian influence in the Middle East, the KDP and the media outlets it controls released a slew of statements and reports purporting that the Iraqi forces deployed were almost exclusively Shiite militias, who are controlled by Iran.

But the suggestion that the move on the disputed areas was an Iranian takeover is a red herring. The Hashed Al Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Units, do indeed have close ties to Iran, and divided loyalties. But they have been part of the Iraqi forces that defeated ISIL in three years of hard fighting, and were acting in conjunction with special forces and army units, and under the strict instructions of Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi.

The truth is more inconvenient for the Kurds: President Barzani overplayed his hand by calling the referendum. He misjudged the reaction of longtime allies such as the US and Turkey. By reaching for territories that the Kurds have no legal claim to, he undermined the standing they gained for their part in defeating ISIL. By prompting Baghdad to take resolute action on the disputed territories, he plunged the Kurdish region into deep crisis, creating internal rifts that will poison Kurdish politics for years, and make independence more unlikely than ever.

Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

Our legal consultants

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

Company profile

Name: Infinite8

Based: Dubai

Launch year: 2017

Number of employees: 90

Sector: Online gaming industry

Funding: $1.2m from a UAE angel investor

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
Sector: Water technology 
 
Number of staff: 22 
 
Investment raised: $4 million 
Analysis

Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more

WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?

1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull

2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight

3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge

4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own

5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed

Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
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  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
How to invest in gold

Investors can tap into the gold price by purchasing physical jewellery, coins and even gold bars, but these need to be stored safely and possibly insured.

A cheaper and more straightforward way to benefit from gold price growth is to buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Most advisers suggest sticking to “physical” ETFs. These hold actual gold bullion, bars and coins in a vault on investors’ behalf. Others do not hold gold but use derivatives to track the price instead, adding an extra layer of risk. The two biggest physical gold ETFs are SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.

Another way to invest in gold’s success is to buy gold mining stocks, but Mr Gravier says this brings added risks and can be more volatile. “They have a serious downside potential should the price consolidate.”

Mr Kyprianou says gold and gold miners are two different asset classes. “One is a commodity and the other is a company stock, which means they behave differently.”

Mining companies are a business, susceptible to other market forces, such as worker availability, health and safety, strikes, debt levels, and so on. “These have nothing to do with gold at all. It means that some companies will survive, others won’t.”

By contrast, when gold is mined, it just sits in a vault. “It doesn’t even rust, which means it retains its value,” Mr Kyprianou says.

You may already have exposure to gold miners in your portfolio, say, through an international ETF or actively managed mutual fund.

You could spread this risk with an actively managed fund that invests in a spread of gold miners, with the best known being BlackRock Gold & General. It is up an incredible 55 per cent over the past year, and 240 per cent over five years. As always, past performance is no guide to the future.

The White Lotus: Season three

Creator: Mike White

Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell

Rating: 4.5/5

Skewed figures

In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458. 

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

At a glance

Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

 

Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year

 

Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month

 

Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30 

 

Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse

 

Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth

 

Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances

The 12 Syrian entities delisted by UK 

Ministry of Interior
Ministry of Defence
General Intelligence Directorate
Air Force Intelligence Agency
Political Security Directorate
Syrian National Security Bureau
Military Intelligence Directorate
Army Supply Bureau
General Organisation of Radio and TV
Al Watan newspaper
Cham Press TV
Sama TV

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The Greatest Royal Rumble card as it stands

The Greatest Royal Rumble card as it stands

50-man Royal Rumble - names entered so far include Braun Strowman, Daniel Bryan, Kurt Angle, Big Show, Kane, Chris Jericho, The New Day and Elias

Universal Championship Brock Lesnar (champion) v Roman Reigns in a steel cage match

WWE World Heavyweight ChampionshipAJ Styles (champion) v Shinsuke Nakamura

Intercontinental Championship Seth Rollins (champion) v The Miz v Finn Balor v Samoa Joe

United States Championship Jeff Hardy (champion) v Jinder Mahal

SmackDown Tag Team Championship The Bludgeon Brothers (champions) v The Usos

Raw Tag Team Championship (currently vacant) Cesaro and Sheamus v Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt

Casket match The Undertaker v Chris Jericho

Singles match John Cena v Triple H

Cruiserweight Championship Cedric Alexander v tba

The biog

Prefers vegetables and fish to meat and would choose salad over pizza

Walks daily as part of regular exercise routine 

France is her favourite country to visit

Has written books and manuals on women’s education, first aid and health for the family

Family: Husband, three sons and a daughter

Fathiya Nadhari's instructions to her children was to give back to the country

The children worked as young volunteers in social, education and health campaigns

Her motto is to never stop working for the country

'Ghostbusters: From Beyond'

Director: Jason Reitman

Starring: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace

Rating: 2/5

Chatham House Rule

A mark of Chatham House’s influence 100 years on since its founding,  was Moscow’s formal declaration last month that it was an “undesirable
organisation”. 

 

The depth of knowledge and academics that it drew on
following the Ukraine invasion had broadcast Mr Putin’s chicanery.  

 

The institute is more used to accommodating world leaders,
with Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher among those helping it provide
authoritative commentary on world events. 

 

Chatham House was formally founded as the Royal Institute of
International Affairs following the peace conferences of World War One. Its
founder, Lionel Curtis, wanted a more scientific examination of international affairs
with a transparent exchange of information and ideas.  

 

That arena of debate and analysis was enhanced by the “Chatham
House Rule” states that the contents of any meeting can be discussed outside Chatham
House but no mention can be made identifying individuals who commented.  

 

This has enabled some candid exchanges on difficult subjects
allowing a greater degree of free speech from high-ranking figures.  

 

These meetings are highly valued, so much so that
ambassadors reported them in secret diplomatic cables that – when they were
revealed in the Wikileaks reporting – were thus found to have broken the rule. However,
most speeches are held on the record.  

 

Its research and debate has offered fresh ideas to
policymakers enabling them to more coherently address troubling issues from climate
change to health and food security.   

 
Indoor Cricket World Cup

Venue Insportz, Dubai, September 16-23

UAE squad Saqib Nazir (captain), Aaqib Malik, Fahad Al Hashmi, Isuru Umesh, Nadir Hussain, Sachin Talwar, Nashwan Nasir, Prashath Kumara, Ramveer Rai, Sameer Nayyak, Umar Shah, Vikrant Shetty