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Iraqi Kurdistan Referendum 

October 2, 2017 
by Emin Ozmen 
On September 25, 2017, several million Kurds took to the polls to vote in a landmark independence referendum almost a hundred years in the making. Having been denied statehood since the redrawing of Middle Eastern borders at the end of World War I, the Kurds are often viewed as the world’s largest ethnic group without a permanent nation state. The move towards independence could come at a high political cost for semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan - Iraq and Turkey have both threatened a military response to the vote. But none of this seemed to dampen the spirits of Iraqi Kurds, who took to the streets in celebration of the historic day.

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