Kurds

Istanbul (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – After nearly five decades of armed conflict with the Turkish state, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has begun a symbolic disarmament process as part of ongoing peace efforts. On July 11, a ceremony was held in the Jasana Cave, located in northern Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah Governorate. Thirty PKK members, […]

Kurds

Syria integration deal with Kurds brings Relief after Days of bitter Violence wracks war-torn Country

The Conversation

By Rob Geist Pinfold, King’s College London (The Conversation) – The new Syrian government has signed a deal with to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia into the regime, in what is a big step towards uniting the fractured country. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) government has been struggling for legitimacy since it […]

Featured

Iraq’s Barzani hails Syrian Leader’s Assurances on future of Syrian Kurds

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The fall of the al-Assad regime in Syria has broached again the issue of the largely Kurdish Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and its relationship to the new government. Many Kurds are fearful for their future, as Euronews reports. The officers of the new government have said […]

Kurds

The self-governing Kurdish northeast of Syria comes under attack, with Country in Flux

The Conversation

By Pinar Dinc, Lund University (The Conversation) – After more than a decade of brutal civil war, it took Islamist militants just 11 days to sweep through Syria and topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The offensive, which has been driven by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has forced […]

Featured

Will Türkiye Stay Committed to the Kurdish Peace Process?

Volkan Isbasaran

(Istanbul: Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – On October 22, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, made an unexpected statement suggesting that Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), could be allowed to speak in the Parliament if […]

Iraq

The Kurdish Town of Kocho is the ‘Guernica’ of the 21st Century

Ibrahim Al-Marashi

( Rudaw.net) – A decade ago, on August 3, 2014, the Islamic State (ISIS) conquered the village of Kocho (Kojo) in the Sinjar (Shingal) area of northern Iraq. On August 15, it began massacring several hundred men and elderly women of the Yazidi community, an ethno-religious minority in Iraq and Syria, after they failed to […]

Kurds

Amid growing Tension between Russia, Iran and the US, Syria’s Kurds have been Sidelined

The Conversation

By Scott Lucas, University College Dublin | – In north-east Syria, the 12-year conflict is far from over. Russian fighter jets buzz US surveillance drones, threatening to bring them down. Iranian-backed militias occasionally fire rockets at US positions. The Assad regime maintains that it will “regain every inch” of Syria, ending Kurdish autonomy in the […]

Democracy

In a post-election Turkey, the country remains divided on political lines

Arzu Geybullayeva

Written byArzu Geybullayeva ( Globalvoices.org) -Showing up at a polling station, as one of the two presidential candidates, in a country-wide election with a pocket full of cash may not occur to leaders of democratic countries, but in Turkey, that is what the newly re-elected President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did on May 28. The incumbent […]

Featured

Turkey’s President Erdogan Says Swedish NATO Application out of Question after Qur’an burning in Stockholm

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Sweden can forget about membership in the 30-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Erdogan is demanding that Sweden cooperate with Turkey in repressing Kurdish activist expatriates in Sweden, all of whom he views as terrorists. He also says he is furious about the […]