BAGHDAD — The man who led an independence push for the Kurdish region of Iraq for more than a decade announced on Sunday that he would quit as president. The move is the latest fallout from an independence vote that many Iraqi Kurdish leaders now see as a catastrophic blunder costing them their economic and political self-reliance.

Massoud Barzani, the region’s president since 2005, made the announcement in a bitter speech, his first public response to the sustained retaliation from the Baghdad government after the Sept. 25 referendum.

Mr. Barzani did not apologize for the vote, which was opposed by Washington and most international leaders.

He blamed what he called treason by fellow Kurds and the fickleness of his American allies who helped train and equip his security forces for the downturn of Kurdish fortunes. He said that despite leaving the presidency, he was not resigning from politics, and he vowed to stay active in pushing for Kurdish statehood.