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Senior Kurdish politician questions PM’s silence in the face of IS

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AZİZ İSTEGÜN/ ŞEYHMUS EDİS/ MARDIN

kurdish-mpA senior Kurdish politician of Turkey has criticized the government for avoiding speaking out against the massacres committed by the terrorist “Islamic State” (IS) in Iraq, maintaining that Turkey has been offering support to the terrorist organization.

Noting that the terrorist IS, which also recently launched a ferocious attack against Kurds in northern Syria, has now been attacking Yazidis in Iraqi Kurdistan, Ahmet Türk, co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Congress (DTK), said Turkey has had an important role in the increase of IS’s power in the region.

“A corridor was opened up through Turkey [for IS terrorists to enter Syria]. Armed ISIL
[the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, the former name of IS] militants can easily pass through Ceylanpınar, Kilis and Akçakale,” Türk, who is also mayor of Mardin, told Today’s Zaman.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu lashed out at those who claimed that Turkey has been supporting IS during an interview with the NTV television channel on Thursday, saying, “Anyone who says ISIL is being supported by Turkey is a traitor.”

Tens of thousands of Turkmens and Yazidis were recently forced to flee the religiously mixed towns of Zumar and Sinjar in Iraq to the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, while some residents remain trapped in an open rugged area. A UN statement said as many as 200,000 civilians — mostly Yazidis, a minority religious community — have fled to a nearby mountain but are surrounded by militants and are in danger.

Since IS terrorists captured Mosul in early June, which was the time they suddenly came to prominence in Iraq, at least 300,000 Turkmens have had to flee their homes under the IS threat.

Türk, who accused the government of turning a blind eye to IS activities, said: “The attitude [of the government] is that Kurds should not [be allowed to become] our neighbors. However, we know Turkey can only become an important actor in the Middle East when Kurds and Turks, who have a shared history of 1,000 years, embrace each other.”

Türk also criticized Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for not raising his voice against the IS massacres in Syria and Iraq. IS was not a well-known organization until a year ago when it started to fight against the Syrian regime. It is being questioned how this organization became strong enough to fight on two fronts, Syria and Iraq, within a year.

According to Türk, who is a senior figure in Kurdish politics, not just Turkey, but also Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are mainly responsible for the group’s swift growth in power in the region. Noting that everybody now understands how dangerous an organization IS is, Türk said armed IS terrorists have been going back and forth through the Turkish-Syrian border without any problems.

Türk, who noted that IS is an organization composed of terrorists from various countries, believes those who are against the gains Kurds have achieved in the past years have turned a blind eye to IS getting stronger. It is because Turkey does not want Kurds in northeastern Syria to acquire a state-like status that Turkey has been offering support to IS, Türk maintained.

Türk believes IS recently attacked Sinjar, a town in northwest Iraq near the Syrian border, not because Yazidis, who are ethnically Kurdish, live there, but based on strategic considerations. Türk said: “IS, which is getting stronger in Sinjar, can control the whole region up to Zaho and Duhok. It can also control Rojava, Syria’s Kurdistan. A joint struggle should actually be conducted to drive this terrorist organization out of the Middle East.”

Türk also drew attention to the contradiction in the attitude of Turkey which, while ignoring the plight of hundreds of thousands of Türkmens who have had to flee in the past two months from towns under IS threat, has been slamming Israel for its attack on Gaza. “Türkmens have been suffering from IS terrorism. Why is [Prime Minister Erdoğan] raising his voice [against IS]?” Türk demanded to know. Just this reality demonstrates that he [Erdoğan] is not sincere. When he defended Turkmen in the past, he did so to use that [argument] against Kurds [in Turkey].”

ISIL kills 15, abducts 300 Kurds in attacks on Kurdish towns in Syria

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TODAY’S ZAMAN / ANKARA

The al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) killed 15 Kurds, including seven children, in an attack on a village in northern Syria and 185841_newsdetailabducted 300 Kurds in a village close to Aleppo, according to news outlets.

The attack, in which 15 people were killed, is the latest in the ISIL offensive against Syrian Kurds during a six-month period in Rojava, the Kurdish name given to northern Syria, where the Kurds have gained the upper hand in control of the area in recent months.

There have been ongoing clashes for months between ISIL and Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD) — an offshoot of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — over control of several key towns in northern Syria along the Turkish border. During the clashes, the son of PYD leader Saleh Muslim was killed. However, the clashes have escalated in the past days between the PYD and ISIL for control of areas.

Kurds have gained considerable swathes of territory in Syria’s north as a result of fierce fighting with al-Qaeda-linked radical groups, tightening their grip on an area where they have set up autonomous rule.

The reports based the information on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a freelance photographer, who stated that the attack took place on Thursday at Tilleye, a village 100 meters away from the Turkish border, after militants stormed the village.

According to news reports, around 30 people were killed in the attack. The reports added that the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the armed militia of the PYD, came to the village in the early hours of Friday and clashed with the ISIL forces in order to gain control of the village.

“This village is known to be Yezidi. However, the village was evacuated due to the clashes and the YPG gained control of the village. Later on, the Arabs who fled from Aleppo settled in the village. They [ISIL] probably thought these Arabs were Yezidis,” said Muslim in an interview with the Turkish Hürriyet daily.

Muslim noted that Serekaniye was an area in which clashes between the YPG and ISIL frequently took place and that clashes between the two groups were still going on.

Last year, the PYD had seized control of Ras al-Ain following days of clashes with fighters affiliated with the al-Nusra Front. Ras al-Ain is part of Syria’s northeastern oil-producing province of Hasaka, home to many of the million-strong Syrian Kurdish minority. One Reuters photograph showed six bodies, including three young boys.

The attack is said to be retaliation for a recent PYD bomb attack near the ISIL-controlled Lazor Hotel located in the northern city of Raqqa, where ISIL has control. Sixty-seven people were killed in that attack.

Three hundred Kurds were abducted by ISIL during the al-Qaeda-affiliated group’s recent raid on Al-Bab village in Syria’s Aleppo province. Recently, Kurdish residents of the town of Al-Bab and surrounding villages stated that they were deeply concerned about deadly fighting among rival opposition groups and about a takeover by al-Qaeda groups. Al-Bab, which is close to Ceylanpınar, a town in Turkey’s southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, is a multiethnic town home to Kurds, Arabs, Christians and Turkmens.

According to reports, on Thursday night members of ISIL raided the town and carried out an identity check of residents there. After the identity check, the group abducted 300 people and left the town.

According to Al Jazeera, those abducted were all Kurds and that the place where they were taken was unconfirmed.

The PYD leader had previously accused Turkey of having a hand in the atrocities committed by extremist groups fighting against the regime in Syria. Ankara has denied the claims several times, saying it will not take part in the ongoing fighting in Syria.

Muslim later said Ankara’s policy towards radical groups changed after Syria’s extremist groups started to pose a threat to the security of Turkey and it cut support to al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria. “Moreover, international pressure has also contributed [to the change of policy on radical groups],” Muslim added.

Identity crisis among Kurdish Yazidis in Armenia

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By Deniz Serinci 

YEREVAN, Armenia,— In the small Caucasian country Armenia there is a dispute over the identity of the area’s Yazidis, a religious minority found only among the Kurds, thorough kurdsworld644history mistakenly believed to be “devil worshippers” and persecuted for some of their beliefs.

Last week Yazidis in Armenia held a protest in front of the UN Office in Yerevan against the recent attacks on Yazidis in Iraq. The protest was led by The Yezidi Union in Armenia, which are known for sharing the view that Yazidis have no connections to Kurds. The approximately 40,000 Yazidis came to Armenia as refugees from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century and are the largest minority group in the mainly Christian country.

During a visit, Aziz Tamoyan, the director of the Yezidi Union in Armenia, told Rudaw:
“We are not Kurds. They speak Kurdish, we speak Ezdiki. They come from the Middle East, Yazidis come from the ancient Babylonians.”

Tamoyan showed the Union’s newspaper “Yezidikhaya” which on the front page write “My nation is Yezidi, my language is Ezdiki and my religion is Sharfadin”, a term for the belief. In 2002 the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia at the request of a group of Yazidis of Armenia, headed by Tamoyan have recognized Yazidis as a separate ethnicity and their language as Ezdiki. This is now taught in Armenian universities, where ‘Kurdish’ and ‘Ezdiki’ are taught as different languages.

In addition they have their own flag, consisting of a white and red color, and a yellow sun. The flag is similar to the Kurdish flag, but missing the green color, as this color in their opinion symbolizes Islam.

Kurdologist Garnik Asatrian from Yerevan State University supports the Yezidikhaya project’s denial of being Kurdish, although disagreeing voices refer to the fact that Ezdiki sounds just like Kurmanji-Kurdish.

“Yazidis and Kurds are completely different ethnic identities. Language is not a decisive criterion, some people in Africa speak English, but has nothing to do with British,” Asatrian told Rudaw.

However, the Yezidikhaya project is not, condoned by academic specialists on Yazidis outside of Armenia, who say that Yazidis speak Kurmanji Kurdish and belong essentially to Kurdish culture.

Philip G. Kreyenbroek is professor and director of Iranian Studies at University of Göttingen and told Rudaw:

“Obviously the Yazidis are Kurds. Their common language, including that of their sacred texts, is Kurmanji Kurdish, and they originate in the Lalish area in Northern Iraq.”

He says the denying of being Kurdish is due to the Armenian genocide in 1915 during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, in which the Kurdish Hamidiyye regiments played an important role in killing Armenians.

Barzoo Eliassi, researcher at University of Oxford, agrees with Kreyenbroek.

“There are no doubt Yazidis are Kurds. Kurdishness is not a homogenous category. Turks and some Kurds were involved in genocidal acts against the Armenians in 1915. So for Yazidis, to avoid being Muslim and Kurd, mean avoiding double stigmatization in the Armenian context,” he told Rudaw.

Matthias Bjornlund, a Danish historian and author to books about Armenia, believes Yazidis in Armenia feel a need to distance themselves from Non-Yezidi Kurds, some of which helped to carry out the genocidewAgainst Against Armenian in 1915. After the Nagorno-Karabakh war 1991-94 between the Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis Yazidis once more felt pressure to appear loyal.

“The war has contributed to an increasing number of Yazidis in Armenia saying they are ‘pure’ Yezidi, rather than Kurds, because it is less controversial and not associated with Islam,” Bjornlund told Rudaw.

Titale Kerem is editor of the newspaper Riya Taze, the world’s longest-lived Kurdish newspaper, founded in Armenia in 1932. He describes himself as a “Kurd by ethnicity and Yezidi by religion”.

“Of course we are Kurds. We speak Kurdish. However many Yazidis hold grudges due to past massacres against them by non-Yezidi Kurds and therefore will not be associated with them,” he told Rudaw.

Aziz Gerdenzeri is a Yezidi Book Author, theater writer and doctor, born in Georgia, but lived for many years in Armenia and Central Asia. He believes that some Yazidi groups after political events have begun to consider the word “Kurd” as synonymous with “Muslim” and therefore reject a relationship with the Kurds.

“Yezidi and Kurds are one and the same nation. We have the same language, history and traditions. But due to historical massacres against Yazidis, people perceive the word ‘Kurd’ as ‘Muslim’,” he told Rudaw.

Outside Armenia most Yezidi associations do not share their views of their co-religionists in the Caucasian country. Chairman of Ezidi Culture Association in Denmark, Yilmaz Yildiz is questioning why generations of Yazidis have fought side by side with Muslim Kurds as Kurdish partisans, Peshmergas in Iraq, Turkey and Syria if they themselves were not Kurds.

“The Yezidi are and have been part of the Kurdish resistance movement throughout Kurdistan, simply because they consider themselves indigenous Kurds and are part of the Kurdish community. When Saddam Hussein killed Yazidis during Anfal, it was because of their Kurdish identity and not because they were Yazidis. When he burned their houses and gave their land and villages to the Arabs, it was because they were Kurds,” Yildiz told Rudaw.

“If they Yazidis are not Kurds, why do we talk the same language as all other Kurds? Why do we not have our own common language?” he added.

 

Deniz B. Serinci, a freelance Danish professional journalist. You can visit his official website at: www.serinci.dk.

 

 

The Road from Diyarbakir: A Call to Deepen Kurdish Commitment to Genocide Justice

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By on May 13, 2014

BERLIN, Germany (A.W.)—On May 10, a conference on “The 1915 Genocide: Collective Responsibility and Roles; Kurdish, Armenian, Assyrian Relations” was held in Berlin. It brought together two generations of Kurdish intellectuals to berlinde-soykirim-konferansi-300x189discuss inter-communal relations before and after the genocide and the responsibilities of Kurds in the process and conciliation and making amends.

Armenian Weekly Editor Khatchig Mouradian delivered the following speech, in Turkish, calling on Kurdish opinion-makers and politicians to expand and deepen their role in bringing justice to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

For the Turkish version of the speech, click here.

***

I pass through Diyarbakir on all my trips to Turkey.

In January 2013, I was scheduled to speak at a conference in Ankara dedicated to Hrant Dink, and once again I decided to first make a stop in Diyarbakir.

It was Jan. 17 when I landed in Diyarbakir. Some of you here will remember that day. Hundreds of thousands had gathered for the funeral of activist Sakine Cansiz and her comrades.

As I stood in the crowd listening to the speeches, my mind wandered from Dersim to Diyarbakir to Ankara…

Two days later, in Ankara, I delivered my first speech in Turkish.

I started like this:

How did Turkish come to me?

I did not learn it to add one more foreign language to my CV.

Turkish came to me the day I was born. I had not asked for it, yet I could not reject it, either.

It came to me in the voice of my grandmother.

For you, Turkish is the mother tongue. For me it’s my grandmother’s language.

My grandparents survived the genocide and ended up in Lebanon with practically nothing. They rebuilt their lives from scratch, and gave my parents the gift of life.

And when I was born, they gave me one of the few things they were, in fact, able to bring with them from Kilikia: the Turkish language.

For you, Turkish is the language of parental love.

For me, it is the burden of death and dispossession.

My Turkish has memories of death and dispossession from Adana, Kilis, Konya Eregli, and Hasanbeyli. The villages and towns of my grandparents.

And today, for the first time, I speak that language from a podium.

Today, for the first time, I return that gift of death and dispossession to the lands it came from…

At the end of the speech, I said:

But asking others to open their eyes and acknowledge the suffering of Armenians can never be enough.

What is necessary is justice.

So today, I return the language of death and dispossession to you.

And instead, in the name of my grandparents, Khachadour and Meline Mouradian, Ardashes and Aghavni Gharibian, I demand a language of justice.

Today, as we discuss “The 1915 Genocide: Collective Responsibility and Roles,” I once again think about the funeral and my speech. And my mind wanders from Dersim to Diyarbakir to Ankara. Because I believe the road to justice passes through Diyarbakir.

can hear the sound of justice, albeit faint, in the ringing of the Sourp Giragos Church bell, in the voices of Islamized Armenians learning the Armenian language, and—sometimes—in the statements of Kurdish leaders.

And that sound must be amplified, so that it reaches Van, Hakkari, Şırnak, Dersim, Batman, Bitlis, and Ağrı.

And eventually Ankara.

Let us not talk about brotherhood and peace. I am tired of the incessant use, misuse, and abuse of these words in Turkey.

Let us not talk about shared dolma, shared pain, an Anatolian diaspora, Turkish passports, lobbies, condolences, and other absurdities.

The road to conciliation passes through justice. There are no shortcuts.

Ankara keeps the border with Armenia shut, but Diyarbakir can open another border: The border with the diaspora.

And that border can only open with justice.

As we approach the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, let our minds, together, wander from Dersim, to Diyarbakir, to Ankara.

Many of you here know that Sakine Cansiz was from Dersim, and that her nom de guerre, Sara, was her Armenian grandmother’s name.

Hundreds of thousands gathered to pay their respect to Sakine Cansiz in January last year. But that respect has not been paid to Sakine’s grandmother, and the million and a half who perished during the genocide.

That respect has not been paid to my grandparents.

So let hundreds of thousands gather in Diyarbakir on April 24, 2015, to commemorate the genocide of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontic Greeks.

And to make the voice of justice stronger.

Armenia: In 2014, the Ministry of Education will commission 699,500 school books including some Kurdish and Yezidi

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The Armenian Ministry of Education will buy and distribute school books in Kurdish and Yezidi language for schools attended by the children of some 40,000 Kurdish Yazidi citizens of Armenia. This information was arton98924-314x235announced by Armen Achotian the delegate of the Ministry of Education and Science at the government meeting on 10 April. His ministry also command textbooks on Armenian language and literature, Russian language, mathematics, technology, the study of chess, and the History of the Armenian Church. In 2014 the primary budget plans to allocate the sum of 969 million drams (about $ 2.3 million) for a total purchase of 699,500 school books to be provided to primary schools of Armenia.

Krikor Amirzayan