Considering the views of Scottish, NI, Catalan, Basque and other European nationalists, I think there needs to be a Europe-wide debate about what right people have to self-determination.
The position of territories like the Falkland Is, Gibraltar and British Virgin Islands should be made clear too. What about Kurdistan, Hong Kong and Taiwan?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_movements_in_Europe
Just when do a people have the right to self-determination? And should the whole country be polled or just the element that want independence?
The Kurdish regional President, M Barzani, asks: “Is it a crime to ask people in Kurdistan to express in a democratic way what they want to have for a future?”
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/iraqi-kurds-vote-independence-refe...
The US and UN are seen as condemning the referendum, quote:
Feisal al-Istrabadi, former Iraqi ambassador to the UN, said the Kurdish government risks throwing the region into turmoil for no clear gain.
"For the Turks and the Iranians, but particularly for Turkey, this [referendum] is an existential threat," he told Al Jazeera, speaking from Bloomington, Indiana. "How Turkey will deal with an independently Iraqi Kurdistan, but deny their own Kurds independence is a problem requiring Solomonic wisdom."
Unquote.
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Thank you for sharing. What is the relationship between this post and atheism?
I have fought with the Kurds. They have been terrorized by Syrians, Iraqis, and Turks for decades. They are a brave and honest people. The USA is only interested in keeping US bases in Turkey operational to counter Russian influence in the region. The Kurds should be independent. If the US would only understand that if they helped the Kurds create their own nation, the USA will be able to build a big military base there that will be more strategic and the Kurds are better friends and partners than the Turks.
But it is more complicated than I could ever relate here.
Turkey is becoming more and more a fundamentalist Islamic state and more and more friendly with Putin.
Syria is basically a Russian puppet state.
Iraq has become an extension of Iran and Iran is in league with Russia.
The US is desperately trying to hang on to influence in the area. The ironic thing is that the people of Syria, Turkey, Iraq are pro-American and anti-Russian. Only the governments of those nations are to a degree anti-American.
The Kurds have always been pro-western and very pro-American. They are progressive about rights for women, gays, individuals, which is why they are so at odds with the rest of the people in the region. They are not anti-Iseral. They don't harbor terrorists. They are pro-education.
The only problem that I have with Kurdish independence is that Manifort has interjected himself into the mix. He may be overtly working for Kurdish independence (that is what he is getting paid for) but you can rest assured that he is working for Putin.
And MCD there is no restriction of topic issues in this section of the forum.
I would add that the Allies promised Turkey during the 2003 Iraq intervention that the integrity of Iraq would be maintained and there would be no intention to create an independent Kurdistan.
Every case is different and has its own unique set of considerations, but I was looking for general principles. For instance, the independence of Catalonia would affect all the people of Spain and is against Spain's constitution. Does the principle of self-determination mean that the Spanish willingness to criminalise Catalans who want a referendum is wrong and the British approach to the Scottish question is correct? The British do not dispute the right of Wales or Scotland to independence, even though it would harm the UK as well as newly independent areas economically. People here ask why we would want to keep a section of the country within the nation against their will. It should be a political matter of voting; a simple question of where those populations see their own best interests.