Kirkuk is Kirkuk!

Masoud Barzani's independence adventure, which has now turned into a kind of political suicide, has led to the formation of a very different alliance in the region. Essentially, it is always the most ideal outcome for the peoples and countries of the region to try to solve all their problems among themselves, leaving no room for external interventions. Under the AK Parti government, Turkey has always emphasized this kind of rapprochement. There is no problem that the countries of the region cannot solve among themselves through dialogue.

In the past these peoples lived among themselves in an environment of long-lasting peace and stability that cannot be compared with that of Europe. There is an atmosphere of culture and belief that makes this possible. This atmosphere is disrupted by interventions from outside. When the colonialist-occupier powers that designed this region at the end of World War I were dividing and fragmenting the countries, they also tried to sow irresolvable disputes among the peoples. Despite this, the factors that draw the peoples to one another are far stronger than the factors that push them apart.

Claims of ethnic or sectarian separation are definitely factors that distance these peoples from one another and dissolve their ties. In an era when the world is inclined toward integration and unification, national formations with an ethnic or sectarian emphasis are movements that run counter to the course of the world and stoke hatred and division, not peace and brotherhood. Turkey's opposition to Barzani's independence adventure is by no means a stance against the Kurds. It would be utterly wrong to understand it that way. In fact, the end of the adventure in question has itself shown how groundless, unnecessary and harmful such a demand or initiative was.

In the end, it was not only Barzani who lost. In fact everyone lost a little. Never mind those profit-and-loss calculations. What is at stake is the disruption of an atmosphere that was, for better or worse, continuing, the breaking of a vase. The distance produced by an avowed intention to separate, the sense of frustration that comes after chasing a dream, the betrayal that those who had set out on a task together inflicted on one another, the crisis of trust left behind, and now the overwhelming superiority and hostility that those who have taken on the duty of correcting this mistake have produced in excess of what that duty requires.

Perhaps the primary responsibility for all this lies with Barzani himself. But we must not ignore the existence of a politics that, partly by manipulating him, forced him and left him no choice into this process. We touched on this in this column before: In Iraq the central government failed to establish a neutral administration representing all the components of the country. It could embrace neither the Sunnis nor the Kurds, who are also Sunni.

In particular, the terrifying practices of the Hashd al-Shaabi units, which were formed against DAESH and to which the central government granted legal status, created among the Sunnis a serious distance and blood feud with the central government. The Iraqi administration's insistence on not giving the KRG its rightful share of the budget and its failure to fulfill its commitments also increasingly accelerated the Kurds' emotional break from Baghdad. It is a fact that the status of the Kurds in Iraq never became like that in Turkey.

The Baghdad administration was unable to embrace not only the Kurds but also the Sunni Arabs. There is a showing-off, a making-felt, of the absolute dominance of the Shia identity, and a reflection of this in all its political preferences and policies. The prevalence of red-green "Ya Hussein" banners and flags along the roadsides, in the squares and in the public buildings, in all public spaces in Baghdad and Basra, is in itself a clear reflection of violence against the Sunnis and of a sectarian preference. Such symbolic aggression has no place in the history of the region. It is a method of displaying power that is thoroughly parvenu. A way of display that contains not an atom of respect for the beliefs of the people it lives with and that harasses them.

Baghdad, Basra, indeed the whole of Iraq, are historically places where the most perfect experiences of multiculturalism were lived. That these cities today surrender to such a harassing approach does not bode well for the future of the region.

On the other hand, let us say there is some good in what has happened. Turkey's entering into an alliance with Iran and the Iraqi administration against Barzani's dangerous adventure does not mean approving this sectarian violence and harassment, which is no less dangerous.

While opposing Barzani, who ignored Kirkuk's multicultural structure and declared it exclusively a "Kurdish city," it is not possible to accept the approach of the Hashd al-Shaabi, who want to make Kirkuk exclusively a "Shia city." Kirkuk is exclusively neither a Kurdish city, nor an Arab city, nor a Sunni or Shia city, nor even a Turkmen city. Kirkuk is a city that houses all these elements, in which none tries to erase, harass or exclude the other. Kirkuk is Kirkuk.

In his speech in which President Erdoğan also drew attention with concern to the practices of the Hashd al-Shaabi in Kirkuk, the statement that "if these units also turn toward Sinjar and Makhmour, we will need to work differently with our interlocutors" must moreover be taken as a warning that is exactly on target.

Definitely, we must not close the field to external elements on the developments in the region, and we must see that it is more to the benefit of all of us to solve our problems among ourselves.

But in doing so, we must not forget, as parties, that our diversity, which comes from historical depth, passes through respect for one another and observing one another's rights.

In this vein, first and foremost Turkey will not allow the Kurds to be crushed by the Hashd al-Shaabi out of anger at Barzani.

The new alliance that Turkey has entered into with Iran and Iraq is, above all, aimed at observing and establishing these rights.