Israel tells U.S. Kurdish independence is 'foregone conclusion'

Israel told the United States on June 26 Kurdish independence in northern Iraq was a "foregone conclusion" and Israeli experts predicted the Jewish state would be quick to recognise a Kurdish state, should it emerge.

Israel has maintained discreet military, intelligence and business ties with the Kurds since the 1960s, seeing in the minority ethnic group a buffer against shared Arab adversaries.

The Kurds have seized on recent sectarian chaos in Iraq to expand their autonomous northern territory to include Kirkuk, which sits on vast oil deposits that could make the independent state many dream of economically viable.

Washington wants Iraq's crumbling unity restored. On June 24, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Iraqi Kurdish leaders and urged them to seek political integration with Baghdad.

Kerry discussed the Iraqi crisis with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Paris on June 26. "Iraq is breaking up before our eyes and it would appear that the creation of an independent Kurdish state is a foregone conclusion," Lieberman's spokesman quoted him as telling Kerry.

A day earlier, Israeli President Shimon Peres had a similar message for U.S. President Barack Obama, who hosted the dovish elder statesman at the White House.

Briefing reporters, Peres said he had told Obama he did not see unifying Iraq as possible without "massive" foreign military intervention and that this underscored Kurdish separation from the Shiite Muslim majority and Sunni Arab minority.

"The Kurds have, de facto, created their own state, which is democratic. One of the signs of a democracy is the granting of equality to women," Peres said.

He added that neighbouring Turkey appeared to accept the Kurds'...