Iraq's supreme court Monday ordered the suspension of a September 25 referendum on the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, as legal and political pressure mounted on the Kurds to call off the vote. With just a week left before polling, the court said it "has issued the order to suspend organising the referendum set for September 25... until it examines the complaints it has received over this plebiscite being unconstitutional".
Court spokesman Ayas al-Samouk told AFP it had "received several complaints", as a parliamentary source said at least eight lawmakers had called on the court to intervene on constitutional grounds. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said it had also filed a complaint against the referendum in the oil-rich autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq on constitutional grounds. There was no immediate reaction from Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani, who called the referendum and has so far resisted pressure from Baghdad and Iraq's neighbours Turkey and Iran, as well as from the United States and its Western allies, all of which oppose the poll.
A Kurdish delegation is expected on Tuesday for talks in Baghdad, while Abadi has left for New York to attend the UN General Assembly. Britain's Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said he would try to persuade Barzani at a meeting later Monday in the Kurdish capital of Arbil. "I will be this afternoon in Arbil to tell Massud Barzani that we do not support the Kurdish referendum," he said at a press conference in Baghdad. "We are committed to the integrity of Iraq. We are working with the UN on alternatives to this referendum," he said before leaving for the northern city. The United States and other Western nations are backing a UN-supported "alternative" plan for immediate negotiations on future relations in exchange for dropping the referendum.