ERBIL () - President Masoud Barzani on Friday marked the ninth anniversary of the Kurdistan independence referendum with a message linking the 2017 vote to Kurdish history and the memory passed on to future generations.
"A vote for history, a memory for generations,"President Barzani said on Friday, Sept. 25, 2026.
His message came nine years after voters in the Kurdistan Region and Kurdistani areas outside the Region's administration went to the polls on Sept. 25, 2017, in a referendum on independence from Iraq. More than 92% of participating voters backed independence.
The referendum followed a June 7, 2017, meeting at which senior representatives of Kurdish political parties and the Kurdistan Regional Government, together with President Barzani and other senior officials, agreed to hold the vote and established a High Council to oversee the process.
The council brought together representatives from the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Kurdistan Islamic Union, Kurdistan Islamic Movement, Kurdistan Toilers' Party, Kurdistan Communist Party, Socialist Party and other political groups.
The Kurdistan Parliament approved the referendum by a majority vote on Sept. 15, while the Kurdistan Region's High Electoral and Referendum Commission was tasked with organizing and overseeing the ballot. The vote was held both in the Kurdistan Region and in Kurdistani areas outside the Region's administration.
According to referendum figures, 4,561,255 people were eligible to vote and 3,305,925 participated, putting turnout at more than 72%. Of those who cast ballots, 2,861,471, more than 92%, voted "Yes"to independence. The Kurdistan Region Presidency also records the result as more than 92% in favor.
Organizers presented the referendum as an expression of the Kurdish people's right to self-determination, rooted in decades of political struggle and conflict between Kurdish movements and successive governments in Baghdad.
Kurdish leaders at the time also pointed to recurring disputes with Baghdad, including disagreements over constitutional rights and the status of Kurdistani areas outside the Kurdistan Region's administration. President Barzani described the referendum as a decision belonging to the people of Kurdistan rather than to a single political party.
The campaign drew on memories of Kurdish suffering under successive Iraqi governments, including the Anfal campaign, forced displacement, the destruction of villages and the use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians.
The Iraqi federal government rejected the referendum and did not recognize its outcome. Relations between Baghdad and Erbil deteriorated sharply in the period that followed.
On Oct. 16, 2017, Iraqi forces and Popular Mobilization Forces advanced into Kirkuk and other Kurdistani areas outside the Kurdistan Region's administration. Peshmerga forces withdrew from several positions, while large numbers of Kurdish residents were displaced from some areas.
Those events became a major turning point in relations between the Kurdistan Region and the federal government and remain part of the referendum's political legacy.
Nine years later, photographs and memories from the referendum campaign and voting day continue to circulate among citizens, recalling the political moment of Sept. 25, 2017. President Barzani's anniversary message distilled that legacy into a brief reflection on the vote's place in history and the memory it leaves to future generations.
Report updated on Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, at 10:30am.
