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Iraq’s central government in Baghdad ordered the country’s Kurdish region to hand over all border crossings and airports to federal government control late Sunday night, hours before the region is set to carry out a controversial referendum on support for independence.

The referendum is set to be held Monday in the three provinces that make up the Kurdistan region as well as dozens of towns and villages that are disputed, claimed by both Baghdad and the country’s Kurds, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The Iraqi government “requests neighboring counties and the countries of the world to deal with the Iraqi federal government exclusively (with regards to) ports and oil,” read a statement from the prime minister’s national security council released Sunday night.

Earlier Sunday, the Kurdish region’s president Masoud Barzani pledged the vote would be held despite pressure from Baghdad and the international community. He said that while the referendum will be the first step in a long process to negotiate independence, the region’s “partnership” with the Iraqi central government in Baghdad is over.

Barzani detailed the abuses Iraq’s Kurds have faced by Iraqi forces, including killings at the hands of former leader Saddam Hussein’s army that left more than 50,000 Kurds dead.

“Only through independence can we secure a future where we will not have the past atrocities,” he said.

Pressure from Baghdad and the international community to call off the referendum has mounted over the past week.

In an address on state television Sunday evening, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi repeated his call for the vote to be canceled.

“The map of Iraq is suffering attempts at division and tearing up of a united Iraq. Discrimination between Iraqi citizens on the nationalist and ethnic foundation exposes Iraq to dangers known only by God,” al-Abadi said from Baghdad. Baghdad, the United States and the United Nations have all voiced strong opposition to the vote, warning it could further destabilize the region as Iraqi and Kurdish forces continue to battle the Islamic State group.

Turkey renewed a bill on Saturday allowing the military to intervene in Iraq and Syria if faced with national security threats, a move seen as a final warning to Iraqi Kurds.

Also Sunday, Iran closed its airspace to flights taking off from Iraq’s Kurdish region following a request from Baghdad. Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard also launched a military exercise in its northwestern Kurdish region, in a sign of Tehran’s concerns over the vote.

Iranian Kurdish lawmakers condemned the independence referendum in a statement Sunday and insisted that Iraq maintain its territorial integrity, reported Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.

At the Irbil press conference, Barzani said he was unaware that Iran had closed its airspace, but that it was Iran’s “own decision.” The leader also confirmed that there had been shelling along Iran’s border with the Kurdish region.

Barzani addressed concerns that Turkey would shut its border with the Kurdish region following the vote, saying he hoped Turkey would leave the crossing open.

“There will be no benefit for either side,” he said of potential border closures.

Despite fears in disputed territories — Iraqi territory claimed by both the Kurds and Baghdad — Barzani said he didn’t expect violence to follow the vote, explaining that Iraq’s military and the Kurdish fighters known as the peshmerga have “good coordination in the war against terror.”

The peshmerga forces have been instructed not to respond to “provocations,” in Kirkuk, Barzani added.

Associated Press writer Susannah George in Irbil, Iraq, and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

Another setback to Dick Gephardt, Turkish GOV. lobbist

LOS ANGELES – In yet another setback to Dick Gephardt – a former U.S. legislator turned lobbyist for Turkey – the Port of Oakland will not be renewing its six-figure lobbying contract with Gephardt Government Affairs, according to the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region’s Bay Area chapter.

Former House Democratic Majority Leader Dick Gephardt serves as a registered foreign agent for Turkey and Ankara’s point person in obstructing American condemnation and commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. Last month, the Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region (ANCA-WR) praised the City of Los Angeles and its political leaders for moving to end a contract worth over $850,000 with Gephardt Government Affairs for advocacy work it was conducting on behalf of Los Angeles World Airports.

On February 24, 2015 the ANCA-Bay Area chapter wrote to the newly inaugurated Mayor of Oakland Libby Schaaf to express concerns about the Port of Oakland’s relationship with Dick Gephardt. The letter was addressed to the Mayor of Oakland because she is responsible for nominating all seven members of the Board of Port Commissioners, which controls the Port of Oakland. In their correspondence to Mayor Schaaf, the ANCA-Bay Area Chapter respectfully requested that the Mayor move to immediately end the contractual relationship between the City of Oakland (through the Port of Oakland)and Gephardt Government Affairs, based on that firm’s work, as a paid foreign agent of the Republic of Turkey, to deny the Armenian Genocide and prevent the proper commemoration of this crime against humanity. The letter to Mayor Schaaf, in part, asserted that “It is our understanding that Gephardt Government Affairs, as a matter of public record, has enjoyed a six-figure contract ($160,000 a year) with the Port of Oakland. We appreciate that this contract was not granted during your term in office. However, we do find it unacceptable that the City of Oakland – which is home to a longstanding Armenian American community – the majority of whom have family who were either murdered or brutalized during the Armenian Genocide – has had a contractual relationship with a lobbying firm that profits from genocide denial. Such a relationship clearly falls far short of the humanitarian and ethical standards of the City of Oakland.”

“Dick Gephardt’s unethical work in denying the Armenian Genocide makes his firm persona non grata here in the State of California,” remarked ANCA-Western Region Chair Nora Hovsepian. “Thanks to the great work of our ANCA chapters in Los Angeles and the Bay Area – Gephardt and his firm are beginning to pay a real price for their denial of the Armenian Genocide. As far as the ANCA is concerned, no public agency in the United States and especially in the State of California, should be spending taxpayer dollars on an unethical lobbying outfit that makes money denying the murder of 1.5 million human beings,” Hovsepian emphasized.

Earlier this month, the Gephardt firm signed a new lobbying deal with the Republic of Turkey in which it will be paid $1.7 million from March through December 2015 to actively deny the Armenian Genocide, among other activities. Dick Gephardt has made a name for himself on Capitol Hill by trading on his congressional connections for his work on behalf of the Republic of Turkey. As documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (which regulates the lobbying activity of those who advocate on behalf of foreign interests in the United States) reveal, Gephardt himself has had to disclose the fact that he acts on Turkey’s behalf as an ardent opponent of legislative efforts to fully recognize the Armenian Genocide.

New York Times writer and author of “This Town” Mark Leibovich outed Gephardt in 2013 for his hypocrisy on the Armenian Genocide. In a television interview later that year, Bill Moyers asked Leibovich about Gephardt’s stand on the Armenian Genocide. “In the House [of Representatives] he [Gephardt] had supported a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide of 1915. When he left Congress he was paid about $75,000 a month to oppose the resolution,” Moyers commented. Leibovich responded by sharing, “Yes. I guess the word genocide goes down a little easier at those rates.” Also in 2013, Christopher Buckley, the son of William F. Buckley, wrote a review of “This Town” in The New York Times in which he cited Gephardt’s genocide denial efforts. “There are a number of sanctimonious standout “formers” in Leibovich’s Congressional hall of shame, but just to name a few exemplars who gleefully inhabit ethical no-worry zones and execute brisk 180-¬degree switcheroos on any issue, including the Armenian genocide, so long as it pays: Dick Gephardt…”

In his most recent anti-Armenian actions on Capitol Hill, Dick Gephardt aggressively lobbied against H.R. 4347 in the 113th Congress, a House measure to return Christian churches in Turkey to their rightful owners. Last year he also did the bidding of his lucrative Turkish Government client by fighting against a U.S. Senate resolution on the Armenian Genocide. Despite Gephardt’s opposition, the Armenian Genocide bill advanced in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April of last year was ultimately adopted by the full committee by a vote of 12 to 5.

The move by the ANCA-WR to seek termination of LAWA’s contract with Gephardt and to ensure that his contract with the Port of Oakland was not renewed coincides with the launch of a nationwide campaign by a coalition of Armenian American groups, including the ANCA, to pressure Gephardt, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Dickstein Shapiro, LLC), Greenberg Traurig, Alpaytac, and LB International to stop advancing the Turkish  Government’s Armenian Genocide denial agenda or face public scrutiny  and protest. The effort was launched this past January with over 200  letters sent to Turkey’s lobbying firms and the top businesses, universities, and NGOs who use their services, urging them to promptly drop their association with Turkey’s genocide denial or end their relationships with these public relations firms. Among those receiving letters were PepsiCo, TIME Inc., Amazon, and the Chrysler Corporation, in addition to many others.

The Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region is the  largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination  with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the  Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country,  the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.

Baghdad orders Kurdistan region to hand over borders, ports

USA: Port of Oakland Refuses to Renew Turkish Gov. lobbyist Gephardt Contract