Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday that Israel was taking no action to help the Iraqi Kurds achieve independence, but added that a Kurdish national state is becoming a fact.
“The future of Iraq is dependent on the people who live there, and that Israel has no intention to of intervening in favor of any particular group,” Lieberman was quoted by the Foreign Ministry's website as saying.
However, he added that a “Kurdish national state is becoming fact.”
Liberman’s remarks came one day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has voiced support for Kurdish statehood, which contradicts with the U.S. preference to keep Iraq united.
Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog earlier on Monday lashed out at the Israeli premier for supporting Kurdish statehood. "With these statements, Netanyahu pours oil on the fire of a conflict Israel is not a party to it," Herzog, the leader of the Labor Party, told Israel Radio.
Militants affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized vast swaths of in northern Iraq, raising fears that they might set sight on the capital Baghdad next.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces took the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which has been long disputed between the Baghdad government and the Kurdish-run Irbil administration in northern Iraq, earlier this month after Iraqi security forces withdrew as the ISIL militants drew close to the city.
Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, said a plebiscite will be held in Kirkuk to determine in which administration it will be incorporated.
Barzani added that the ongoing crisis in Iraq is Baghdad's fault and that the central government should reconsider its policies.
"The Kurdish administration does not have to pay the price for Baghdad's wrong policies," he said. "Terrorists have become a neighbor of the Kurdish region due to Baghdad's ruined policy. But the Peshmerga will continue to protect our borders."
By Turgut Alp Boyraz
englishnews@aa.com.tr
www.aa.com.tr/en
