Rudaw - A senior delegation of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) is set to visit Iran on Sunday to discuss bilateral relations and likely the Kurdish referendum that is scheduled to take place on September 25.

The visit comes after a PUK politburo meeting on Thursday that formed a delegation to visit regional countries to discuss the “referendum” among other issues.

Kosrat Rasul, deputy secretary general of the party, heads the delegation that also includes Mala Bakhtiar and Mahmud Sangawi, PUK politburo members as well as a number of other party officials.

Nazim Dabagh, the representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Tehran, told Rudaw that the visit is to discuss bilateral relations and the political situation in the region.

The planned referendum is also expected to be on the agenda.

“It is likely that they would also discuss the referendum. I have said this before, the Islamic Republic of Iran is for the territorial integrity of Iraq and they have always said that they will support any project but within the framework of the Iraqi constitution,” Dabagh said.

The visit is at the request of Iran, Dabagh added.

Iran has expressed its strong opposition to the Kurdish referendum, instead calling for a united Iraq.

The Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei told the visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in June that Tehran was opposed to the referendum.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran as a neighbor [to Iraq] is opposed to some murmurs of holding a referendum to separate part of Iraq and considers those who call for this issue to be opposed to the independence and identity of Iraq.”

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani also called the Kurdish vote “unacceptable.”

A PUK statement published after Thursday’s meeting read that the party would send delegations to meet with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Gorran (Change) Movement, the two biggest parties in Kurdistan.

It added that visiting KDP and Gorran is to “inform them about the PUK delegation's visit to regional countries that aims to discuss the referendum, the economic situation, the problem of stemming the water flow of the Little Zab River, and the lakes,” as well some other economic and commercial projects.

The delegation will return to Kurdistan on Tuesday, Dabagh said.

Iran finished construction of a dam on the Little Zab River in late June, reducing the flow of water significantly that initially left about 80,000 people in Kurdistan without drinking water.

Iran has since partially restored the flow of water, estimated to be less than 10%.