Show caption Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan region, casts his vote during last week’s referendum. Photograph: Feher/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock Opinion The Observer view on the Kurdish referendum The Kurds’ hunger for self-rule must not be denied by dark forces imposing their will on the region Observer editorial Sun 1 Oct 2017 00.05 BST Share on Facebook

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It can be argued that Kurdistan’s regional government (KRG) was ill advised to hold a referendum last week on creating an independent state. It may be the case that Masoud Barzani, veteran leader of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, is a foolish dreamer whose desire to bequeath a personal legacy has trumped common sense. It is conceivable that, had Barzani backed down, the government in Baghdad would have abandoned decades of hostility to Kurdish aspirations and entered into good-faith negotiations. This is the Middle East, after all. Anything is possible.

But the indisputable reality on the ground in Kurdistan is that the Kurdish people’s age-old yearning for unconstrained self-rule, free from interference by foreign powers, is unceasing and not to be denied. Dispassionate geopolitical calculations, blatant economic self-interest and justifiable concerns about international security fed the instinctive wish of the great powers to uphold the status quo. All the same, their instincts are wrong. Like any people conjoined by ethnic identity, land, language and culture, the Kurds have an inalienable right to determine their future path, in one direction or another. Last week’s successful democratic milestone should be celebrated, not decried.

Any suggestion that Barzani was out on a limb was comprehensively refuted by the referendum result. More than nine out of 10 voters backed independence; over 70% of the eligible electorate reportedly participated. Longstanding party political differences between Barzani and supporters of his main rival, Jalal Talabani, were set aside. Nor does there appear to be any misunderstanding among voters about what the vote means. Kurdistan is not suddenly going to declare UDI, unless forced to do so. But as Barzani stressed in a recent Guardian interview: “We are not a part of Iraq... We refuse to be subordinates.” His view has been confirmed. Baghdad has been put on notice.

Despite the fact it had years to consider how to react, Baghdad’s response has been, predictably, dangerously unwise. Instead of pursuing the sensible option and initiating talks with the KRG about how to handle a changed situation, Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister, resorted to a familiar mix of bluster and threats. Abadi reiterated his vow to return all Iraqi territory to Baghdad’s control, a vainglorious piece of rhetoric given Iraq’s inability to defeat Isis without international (including Kurdish) military support.

More seriously, Abadi has joined Turkey and Iran in attempting to blockade KRG territory, including the halting of international flights. The Iraqi leader has not ruled out sending troops to challenge Kurdish control of the disputed city of Kirkuk, which lies outside the KRG’s borders. Any such move would almost certainly involve the feared Iranian-armed Shia militias that helped liberate Mosul from Isis.

Indeed, this is the nub of the problem, as seen from Erbil. Abadi and his weak, Shia-dominated administration do little of significance without Iran’s prior agreement and Iran, with its own Kurdish minority to suppress, is no friend to the KRG. Now Abadi, an ostensible western ally, is again on the verge of inviting Iran in to help resolve an Iraqi problem. And Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, has foolishly given a virtual green light to Baghdad and Tehran by wrongly declaring both the referendum and its result illegitimate.

Amid all this ganging up on the Kurds, the chief gangster may be Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdoğan, a man with a Trump-like talent for making a bad situation worse. Since nearly losing power in 2015 thanks partly to a pro-Kurdish party, Erdoğan has stepped up a vendetta against the Kurdish populations of south-east Turkey and northern Syria remarkable for its reckless brutality and disregard for human and democratic rights. His vow to starve the landlocked Kurds, and block vital oil exports, may come to nothing. Or it may turn a simmering confrontation into a full-blown crisis.

A summit meeting between Iraq, Turkey and Iran to discuss how best to crush the uppity Kurds, mooted by Turkey’s prime minister, Binali Yildirim, should ring alarms bells in western capitals. So, too, should the involvement of Vladimir Putin, who agreed with Erdoğan in Ankara on Friday that the Kurds must be discouraged from making more “mistakes”. Russian oil companies have become leading investors in Kurdistan and Putin will want to protect their interests. But for him, the bigger priority is longer-term influence in Iraq and Syria, where American incompetence has created openings for an expansionist Moscow.