Syria rejects Iraqi Kurdish independence vote

Syria’s foreign minister says his country doesn’t recognize the Iraqi Kurdish referendum on support for independence from Baghdad, saying Damascus rejects any measure that could break up neighboring Iraq.

The Syrian state news agency SANA says Walid al-Moallem spoke on Sunday in New York. Syria has a large Kurdish minority that last week had its own vote as part of a move toward a federal system within Syria.

Syria, like Turkey and Iran, opposes the vote in Iraq, fearing that Kurdish communities within Syria might eventually do the same.

Al-Moallem described the Iraqi Kurdish vote as a “step that we do not recognize” and stressed that the government in Damascus only recognizes a “sole, united Iraq. He says: “We reject any measure that leads to dividing Iraq.”

— AP