LONDON, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- The high voter turnout for elections in the semiautonomous Kurdish north of Iraq is a testament to the region's success, a British government minister said.
British Minister for the Middle East and Africa Alistair Burt said his government was able to confirm 73 percent of the eligible voters took part in Saturday's parliamentary elections in the Kurdish north.
"I encourage all those who were elected now to focus on the timely formation of a new government, in order to move smoothly in the new parliamentary term and to build on the significant achievements of the Kurdish region," he said in a statement Tuesday.
The Kurdish north has been relatively shielded from violence plaguing much of the rest of Iraq. Imad Ahmad, deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, said in a statement last week there were concerns about the violence in neighboring Syria.
Fawzia Yusuf, a Syrian Kurdish politician in the Kurdish government, told the BBC the region may be considering more autonomy.
"Our main goal will be to unify Kurdish opinion," he said in an interview published Saturday. "The second goal is to form a Kurdish national organization to take charge of diplomacy with the rest of the world. And the third goal is to make decisions on a set of common principles for all the Kurdish people."
