Leader Barzani on referendum anniversary: What is sown today will be reaped tomorrow

Shafaq News – Erbil

“A homeland is not a map on paper but blood flowing in veins… what we plant today, we will harvest tomorrow,” the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani stated on Thursday, marking the Kurdistan Region’s 2017 independence referendum anniversary.

الوطنُ ليس خريطةً على الوَرَقِ، بل دمٌ يَسرى في العروق.ما تزرَعُە الیومَ ستَحصدە غداً.

— Masoud Barzani (@masoud_barzani) September 25, 2025

Kurdistan held the referendum on September 25, 2017, with 92% voting in favor of independence on a turnout of 72%.

Baghdad rejected the move as unconstitutional and imposed punitive measures. Turkiye and Iran also opposed the referendum, fearing it could fuel similar demands by their own Kurdish populations.

The Kurdistan Regional Government maintains that the referendum, whose results were later frozen, was a “democratic exercise to express the voice of a people subjected to decades of persecution.”