Kurds are committed to helping build a new Iraqi government, but the chief of staff to the Kurdish regional president says that if things aren't in order within three months, Kurdistan may secede.
Haider al-Abadi took over as Iraq's prime minister earlier this month, and Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to Kurdish Regional President Massoud Barzani, says they are willing to give Iraq's new leader a chance.
"He needs the Kurds to be with him," Hussein said Wednesday on CNN's
"The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. "We will help him. We are going to be part of his new process in Baghdad."
The Kurds have a common enemy in the Islamic State (ISIS), which has taken over a large part of northern Iraq, and the Kurdish military has carried much of the load fighting ISIS on the ground after U.S.-armed Iraqi forces laid down their weapons and ran as ISIS approached earlier this year.
Hussein told CNN that ISIS must be cleared from the country, but if that effort fails there is likely to be split countries of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
"If he cannot manage it in the next three months, Iraq will be a different Iraq," Hussein said.
The Kurdish people would decide by referendum whether to form their own country, he said.
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