Mustafa Barzani

These days there is a single item on the agenda of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq: The Sept. 25 independence referendum. KRG President Masoud Barzani has started a public relations campaign. On the one hand, he is making visits, and on the other, he is frequently giving interviews, cultivating the "no retreat from the referendum" perception.

No party has the "sole right" to decide the future of the city of Kirkuk, Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of northern Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said April 5, while Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared that political differences should be resolved - and national unity maintained - within a "constitutional framework."         

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to abandon its claims over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, stressing that ties between Ankara and Arbil could be damaged if it insists on efforts to annex the multiethnic city.

We are face-to-face with a brand new crisis, as if there was a shortage of tension in the region. Kurds in the Kirkuk Provincial Council have voted to raise the flag of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) along with Iraq's flag over state buildings in the province. Now - as expected - all hell is let loose.

Turkey has expressed its disapproval of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) bid to hold a referendum for independence, warning about the spillover effect of such a move on regional countries, in reaction to KRG President Massoud Barzani's announcement for a poll to this end. 

Today's Iraq is one of the countries that have emerged at the end of the 400-year-old Ottoman Empire rule after the First World War. 

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has criticized the Kirkuk governorate's decision to fly the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) flag on state buildings on official state days.

Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) President Massoud Barzani's visit to Turkey last week created a minor controversy amid Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli's fury over the KRG flag. Bahçeli described the KRG flag as a "rag" and condemned the raising of "the so-called flag" in Ankara during Barzani's visit.

Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani was in Turkey on Feb. 26 and 27 for meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım. Barzani's visit followed his meeting with Yıldırım in Germany on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has replied to Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli's harsh criticism of the government's warm ties with Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Massoud Barzani.