Michael Totten is turning into one of my favourte reads. I really recommend his site if only for the pictures!!!
Three major obstacles to independence remain. The first is Iraqi Kurdistan’s relationship with Turkey. That relastionship is bad but improving despite the Turkish military’s well-publicized threats to invade Northern Iraq to eject the (Turkish) Kurdistan Worker’s Party, the PKK, from using Iraqi soil to launch attacks against military and civilian targets in Turkey. Relations between the (Iraqi) Kurdistan Regional Government and the Turkish government have quietly improved at the same time. Iraq’s Kurds genuinely want a civil relationship with Turkey because they can’t safely declare independence without it.