https://www.mesop.de/2012/09/25/barza...for-kurdistan/

ERBIL, Sep. 25 (AKnews) – President of Kurdistan Region Massoud Barzani has said Kurdistan will not seek separation from Iraq as the Iraqi government sticks to the Constitution, but will maintain the right to choose whether to separate if otherwise happens.

Barzani was speaking at the Centrist Democratic Conference in Rome, Italy, on Friday where he said: “As long as Iraq adheres to democracy and to the agreed constitution, we find ourselves glad to be a part of the federal system,”. However, if the Iraqi government “chooses to abandon the principles of the Constitution and heads again toward authoritarianism and exclusion in decision-making, we as the people of Kurdistan will not and cannot tolerate living in a dictatorship again. In this case, the people of Kurdistan will have to exercise their free right to make a choice”.