BAGHDAD, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Wednesday urged the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) to cancel the results of the independence referendum before holding dialogue to resolve the crisis.
"We want Kurdistan region to cancel the outcomes of the referendum if they want to start talks with Baghdad, which must be under the roof of the constitution," Abadi said in his speech to the Iraqi parliament.
Abadi also said that his duty is to defend the unity of Iraq according to the constitution, while pledging to impose the federal authority into Kurdistan region.
"We won't deviate from the constitution, which has supremacy over all authorities, and our national duty to defend Iraq and its unity," Abadi told the lawmakers.
For its part, the Iraqi parliament reconfirmed its package of measures adopted on Sept. 25 against the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan over its controversial independence referendum held on Monday.
The final results of the referendum released Wednesday showed that 92.73 of the voters voted in favor of Kurdish region's independence from Iraq.
The Iraqi parliament reiterated its authorization to Abadi as the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces to redeploy troops on all the disputed areas outside the Kurdish region, including Kirkuk.
The ethnic Kurds consider the northern oil-rich province of Kirkuk and parts of Nineveh, Diyala and Salahudin provinces as "disputed areas" and want them to be incorporated into their Kurdish region. This has been fiercely opposed by the Arabs, Turkmens and by the central government in Baghdad.
The parliament demanded the federal government regain control of Kirkuk oil fields and other oil fields in the disputed areas to be run by the federal Oil Ministry.
It voted to block all the border crossings which are outside the control of the federal authorities, and call on the neighboring countries (Turkey and Iran) to help the Iraqi government block the crossings.
It also voted in favor of a recommendation to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to ask other countries which have consulates in the Kurdish region to close their offices, it added.
The independence of Kurdistan is opposed not only by the Iraqi central government, but also by most other countries, because it would threaten the integrity of Iraq and undermine the fight against Islamic State (IS) militants.
Iraq's neighboring countries, especially Turkey, Iran and Syria, fear the Iraqi Kurdish independence move would threaten their territorial integrity, as a large population of Kurds live in those countries.
