Nasser Kandil wrote: Kirkuk

Kirkuk was the reason of the acceleration towards the referendum on the secession by Masoud Al-Barazani, where it is impossible to continue having control over it after the end of the war on ISIS without including it to the Kurdistan region, and it is impossible to achieve this inclusion through consent of Baghdad, because the separated Kurdistan cannot survive without it.
The inclusion of Kirkuk to the referendum and the insistence on its inclusion to the region have led to the end of the referendum which if it did not include Kirkuk and if did not include intentions to include it, the opportunities of its holding and defending would be greater.
The question posed by everyone was if the issue was practicing the right of self-determination, so why to include Kirkuk to the referendum and to deprive the non-Kurds from their right in self-determination by a referendum that is supposed to be organized by Baghdad as a federal government with the partnership of the government of the region and which its identity is disputed?
Why is the insistence on resolving the future of Kirkuk outside the negotiating framework which its implications have been disrupted by the referendum and why to include it by force?
The inclusion of Kirkuk to the referendum has been opposed by a long-standing Kurdish party as the National Union which was led till his death yesterday by the late Iraqi President Jalal Al-Talibani, it is the most influential party among the Kurds of Kirkuk.
Kirkuk seems to be the title of the settlement project for the retreat from the referendum after its failure in getting the necessary international and the regional support to proceed despite many promises.
The settlement of Kirkuk under a joint administration as presented by the Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi seems the first step which the acceptance of Al-Barazani of it means distracting the referendum which is valueless without Kirkuk, and the start of compromise solutions for the disputes issues between Erbil and Kirkuk, which seems that they are the issue of the French mediation under US-Russian support.