The Provisional Government of Ezidikhan—the self-declared autonomous homeland of the Yazidi people in northern Iraq—has issued a statement flatly rejecting a political deal cut between Baghdad and Kurdish authorities in Irbil to hand control over the claimed territory of Ezidikhan to the Kurdistan Regional Government. Said Ezidikhan Prime Minister Waheed Mandoo Hammo in the July 27 statement: "The Yezidi people reject the Iraq government’s attempt to install the Kurdish Regional Government as the military and political authority over the nation of Ezidikhan without our consent. The Ezidikhan Provisional Government is the sole, legitimate government representing the peoples of Ezidikhan. No decisions regarding the political, economic or strategic actions [of] the nation of Ezidikhan can legitimately be made without our free, prior and informed consent."
Hammo also stressed that "Ezidikhan will not deal with the Iraqi government unless and until it conducts new elections since it is obviously an illegitimate government lacking any authority to govern." (Ezidikhan.net)
The territory of Ezidikhan is centered around the town of Sinjar, which was outside the territory of the KRG before it was taken by ISIS in August 2014, but was liberated from ISIS by KRG Peshmerga forces together with a Yazidi militia in November 2015.
A schoolhouse in the village of Kocho near Sinjar has been converted into a museum documenting the genocide Yazidis suffered at the hands of ISIS. (Rudaw)
Map: Ezidikhan.net
