Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region, stated this week that the time for a referendum on independence has come. He has instructed the parliament to look at possible dates in the near-term to hold the referendum, and to work out the logistics of doing so. In his statement, Mr. Barzani emphasized that “If the Kurds expect others to hand them independence as a present they’ll never achieve independence. That right is there and the Kurds must seek and fulfill it.” President Barzani added that “It is not fair to discard the rights of the Kurdish people for political reasons or to appease others. Would they allow themselves to stop the rights of their own people? Kurdistan has every geographic, historic and human factor just as Scotland, Catalonia, Quebec and others do. The same way people in those places have the right to decide their future the Kurds too have that right and this is not open to argument….Now the time is ripe for the people of Kurdistan to decide their future through a referendum. The referendum does not mean an immediate declaration of a state but to know the opinion and desire of the people of Kurdistan which the Kurdish political leadership will implement at an appropriate time and circumstance.