 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are going to discuss about the Kurdish referendum which has been carried out by Barzani's in region Iraq and to discuss the issue we are joined by Ily Trinche, Prabir Purghast. So, Prabir, this referendum has taken place. Is it actually going to result in declaration of independence and what are the reactions of the involved countries in the area? Again, two sets of questions. One is, is it going to lead to a declaration of independence? Now, there are two elements to it. One is, is it a legitimate referendum because the Barzani government, the Barzani was a president in 2008 and this is the five-year term. So, 2013, this term should have ended. The elections should have taken place. The Kurdish parliament, which is really a regional parliament, extended it by another two years. 2015, it should have actually formally ended, after which it has not been again extended. So, essentially his presidency could be considered not legitimate. That is one part of it. So, is it a legitimate referendum at all? Secondly, without the consent of Iraq, which after all it is a part of legally, is there a legal referendum possible to be held by not even a fully legitimate government, shall we say, of the Kurdish region? So, these are the two illegitimacies as it were of the referendum itself. It is an enabling provision for Barzani to bargain with, if he wants, with Iraq. It is also for Iraq to consider whether he will accept this referendum or not and we will come to that in a minute. But he has not declared Barzani and his group has not declared independence. They have got 92% votes. For all those who cast votes, obviously, largely were in favor of independence. But he hasn't declared independence. So, we shouldn't take the referendum as a given that this is automatically led or will lead to independence. That is one part of it. The second question that you raised, what are the response of the countries? Clearly, none of the countries in that region want an independent Kurdistan. How homogeneous are the codes in that area? Open question. There are 28 million codes in that region. The largest, about 12 to 14 million really are in Turkey. Others, I think the next largest is Iran, then Iraq and about 2 million in Syria. So, this is the total of 28 million in the region. They are not homogeneous in terms of either religion or in terms of the language they speak. There is an ethnic identity of being Kurds. That's what unites them. This is the recognition with which Ocalan, who is now in prison in Turkey, he had said we should look for soft borders, autonomy and not look for now national identity and central determination in terms of the Kurdistan. That's been Ocalan's position and that's something the PKK has been following, though they have now come again into an almost virtual stage of civil war in Turkey. Barzani is only one part of it. He has been an old CIA asset. The Peshmerga were built by Israel to fight against Iraq and Israel had not really forgiven the Iraqis during the 48 war having defeated them. The Iraqi brigade there did defeat his really forces at that point of time or the Zionist forces at that point of time. So, they were really itching for a fight and they found Kurds in Iraq to be a vehicle for that. The Peshmerga were built on that basis. The whole geopolitical politics in that region has changed. It was earlier the Shah of Iran who was supporting the Peshmergas. It was CIA of course and Israel who were the main people who were involved in all of this and that was an anti-Bathist Iraq operation that they were doing. Now as I said the things have changed. In the realignment that has taken place while Turkey and Iran may be on the opposite sides but given what has happened in the region they are not as opposed to each other as they were. Saudi Arabia has emerged as a new pole and the Americans are no longer the best friends of the Turks after the kind of coup attempt that was there in Turkey. With this realignment Turkey was the firmest backer of the Barzani's. He was training their people, he was training their army, he was allowing oil to pass through. Turkey also sees the threat of a Kurdish state coming up in the region because then the PKK's demand for an independent autonomous region or independence would then be a threat to Turkey. So Turkey has come down very heavily. They haven't stopped things from the moving of the border but they have come heavily. They've stopped flights to Erbil so have certain other countries. The flights to Erbil have stopped. They are threatening to stop the flow of both food as well as oil. Certainly they can stop oil. The financial transactions are going to be hit. Already Bank of Iraq has said that they will not accept transactions for Kurdistan. So Erbil which is where the center of the Barzani clan today is, is coming under attack of this kind, isolation of this kind. With all the surrounding states having declared they will not accept independent republic of Kurdistan in Iraq which Barzani is a referendum was, doesn't look likely that this is going to be easy without any external shall we say access to the world. How much the Americans and the Israeli, the Israelis have declared open support for Kurdish region particularly the Barzani's who are their old allies. Their entire Peshmerga as I told you was built by the Israeli Mossad and the Israeli forces. So how much Israel can play is an open question. They don't really have any easy access to the region. Americans yes, they would have access to air but how much they want to invest and alienate Turkey completely still a major NATO power is something we have to see. So I don't see this going anywhere except isolation for Barzani externally but it could help him to retain control over rest if Kurdish republic, rest if Kurdish people in the region who are not happy with the fact that they have a illegitimate president holding on to power without local sanction. So probably as you have pointed out the reactions of different countries and what it is going to lead to how are things going to change in Iraq and Syria and since there's a lot of fighting going on the Free Syrian army there what will be reaction of Bashar al-Assad government regarding it what is going to happen there? Well the major element now is the collapse of the ISIS which is also making the Kurds react in different ways because as it vacates the area who's going to grab it is really also the issue. So if you remember when the ISIS attacked the Sinjar mountainous regions and this is this was a really something which is a real big blot on Peshmerga literally either we drew or ran away whichever way you look at it and it was actually the PKK, YPG fighters who came in that region to the defense of the Yazidis that who are not really fully in that sense of Kurdish identity but ethnically maybe considered Kurdish but have different religious beliefs than either Sunnis or Shias. So all of this saw actually only PKK and the YPG come to the defense. The Peshmergas ran away or withdrew from the area. Now Peshmergas or the Barzani clan's relationship the ISIS seems to have been very much of a hide and seek one. They have not engaged them they have not fought against them and it would also seem to indicate that the Americans wanted ISIS to grab territory in that part to put pressure at the time on the Iraqi government which they felt was too getting too close to Iran and also of course put pressure on Bashar al-Assad who they wanted to depose or wanted the regime change. So you see tension growing between the Kurdish forces as well as the Syrian army and the Americans have seemed to be playing a game of trying to get the oil to the Kurdish groups which in which case they can exercise an indirect control over that. It's also very similar in Iraq the question is who now gets Kirkuk? Who is once the ISIS falls? Who takes that region's oil is also the reason Barzani would like to flex his muscles. So this is one part of it. I think this is something that we have to see how it develops. I have till now believed that the YPG has been playing a very careful game of calibrating how much it opposes the Syrian government and how much it opposes the Russian forces and how much it recognizes that without some amount of shall we say negotiations with the Syrian government it cannot face the Turks alone and clearly the Turks are the major enemy because YPG is very close to PKK if not really a part of it. So given that equation I do not believe that the Syrian Kurdish forces will behave the way Barzani forces will. Barzani has a stake only in the oil and the loot of the region for personal gains. So that's been the problem there. How much the Kurdish population will support Barzani is a bigger issue for me and will they be able with opposition that Iraq is now going to place be able to continue to expand and take over the oil-rich areas which are with ISIS till now that's something we have to see. The fall of Masul is the Iraqi army which has played a role and it's clear that they have been the primary forces fighting the ISIS and when ISIS is fallen whether the vultures of the Barzani clan will try and take over the oil wealth without fighting from the ISIS is really the question that we have to see and that's the larger geopolitical stake that is there in the fall of ISIS and attempts by Barzani to expand shall we say his share of the oil wealth.