Kirkuk inhabitants cannot be forced to join region – Barzani

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: North Iraq Kurdistan Region‘s President, Massoud Barzani, has said on Tuesday that “nobody has the right to impose joining a Kurdistan Region or a refusal to join it on inhabitants of Kirkuk city, pointing out that his people would “lean to a referendum by the Kurdistan people, if the issue won’t be settled according to the Iraqi Constitution”. “Nobody has the right to impose a certain solution on the inhabitants of Kirkuk, as they constitute the side that would decide  the type of solution; if they decide to join Kurdistan Region, that would be a very good decision, and if they don’t, that is their decision,” Barzani said in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA). “The problem of the areas-in-conflict can be settled according to the Constitution; we shall strive to the end to achieve a solution, according to the Constitution,” Barzani noted. “If these issues cannot be settled according to the Constitution, we shall pass the issue on to the Kurdistan Parliament, to conduct a referendum by the people of Kurdistan, and commit ourselves to the decision made by our people,” he continued. “It was a big mistake for Baghdad to treat the problem,” Barzani noted. “Losing loss of time will not settle the problem; it is better for everybody in Iraq to settle the issue in the soonest possible time,” he stressed. Commenting on the problem of Iraq‘s Vice-President Tareq al-Hashimy, Barzani said, “it is necessary that his case be settled with wisdom and urgency, or else a loophole would be created in relations among Iraq‘s Shiites and Sunnis, which would impact the general situation in Iraq“. “Hashimy’s case is two sided; a judicial siede which should be resolved by the Judiciary to decide and everybody should respect its decision, provided that both trends are not mixed up,” Barzani said. “I will try, alongside the President and other Iraqi leaders, to find a political solution for the problem,” Barzani commented.