Here is my best summary:

ANKARA—Since Monday, Turkish tanks have lined the nation’s main border crossing with Iraq’s Kurdish region. Their presence not only sends a clear signal of Turkey’s opposition to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) independence referendum, which is scheduled for tomorrow; they also serve as a first line of defense against possible instability caused by the vote, Turkish officials have said.Despite weathering fierce criticism from neighboring countries and the United States, Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, has vowed to push ahead with the vote, with only Israel voicing support among the international community. Over the last decade, Turkey and the KRG have fostered mutually beneficial ties, most notably with the construction of a pipeline allowing the landlocked Kurdish region to export oil across Turkish soil. For this reason, the concept of Kurdish autonomy anywhere in the region poses a very literal existential threat to the Turkish Republic.Kurds remain the Middle East’s largest stateless minority group. Nine elected officials from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) are currently imprisoned, and hundreds of Kurdish media outlets and NGOs have been shuttered, with their staff jailed on charges including “membership of a terrorist organization” and "threatening the indivisible unity of the state.”With no end to Erdogan’s ongoing post-coup purges in sight, Kurds in Turkey may be keen on using the Iraqi referendum as fodder for renewed autonomy campaigns within Turkey’s borders. Yet after the fall of Mosul and the eradication of ISIS militants from most Iraqi Kurdistan territories by Kurdish forces, Barzani may be trying to ride a wave of enthusiasm to finally achieve his goals. “This has been going on for nearly a century.”While the referendum poses significant risks for the region, Zaman said that Iraqi Kurdish officials might view the convergence of recent events as giving them their best shot at independence. In August, Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement, denounced the inclusion of Turkmen cities in KRG territories that would be annexed through the referendum, and threatened war on Iraqi Kurdistan if the vote went forward.Amed Dicle, a Kurdish journalist, told me that Turkish officials actually did little to protect Turkmen from ISIS attacks in recent years, and were only playing the “Turkmen card” to incite nationalist support for future military actions. “Turkey just uses them as an instrument.” The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment.While Turkey may well intervene in the Iraqi Kurdish referendum, several analysts said Erdogan would have little to gain from doing so. The Russian oil company Rosneft has also recently agreed to expand existing infrastructure to export natural gas from Iraq’s Kurdish region to Turkey and, potentially, Europe.“Turkey can, in the long run, position itself as a major beneficiary of this situation,” Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe who focuses on Turkish foreign policy, told me.

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