Kurds Archives

Terrorist State of Turkey wants to stop Kurds liberating northern Syria from ISIS’

February 14, 2016 by administrator

Turkey’s shelling of Syria is a warning to the Kurds to stop trying to free the northern part of the country from Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS/ISIL), Kobane-based political analyst Barzan Iso told RT, citing reports of civilians injured in the attacks.

“Turkey is trying to prevent Kurds from liberating the area around the Turkish border from IS,” Iso said. “The YPG [Kurdish People’s Protection] units are stronger than before and have the ability to free the area around Turkey from ISIS.”

The reasons for Turkey’s aggressive move is not just profitable relations with Islamic State, the Kurdish analyst said, referring to the cheap IS oil exports that Turkey has reportedly been receiving. Moreover, he argued, IS fighters in northern Syria also create a useful buffer zone for Ankara that could eventually help Turkey “occupy” the territory between Aleppo and Turkey’s border.

This is just the first signal that Turkey will be further intervening into Syria, he said.

Turkey shelled positions of Syrian government forces in Aleppo and Latakia provinces as well as Kurdish targets near the city of Azaz, in northwestern Syria. This included an air base recently retaken from jihadists reportedly with Russian air support.

Turkey bombed Menagh air base and the village of Maranaz, located south of Azaz, Iso said, adding that several people were injured during the attack. “I have some reports from people in that area, who say that many civilians have been wounded, but I cannot confirm any specific details about it.”

The air base had for years been under the control of extremists groups, including the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front.

“Since 2012 the base has been under the control of Ahrar al-Sham and Al-Nusra, which are both part of Al Qaeda,” he said, adding that in the past the airbase was occupied by Turkistan’s Islamist Party, and some Uzbek fighters, including Jaish al-Fatah group, also a part of Al Qaeda.

The Turkish attacks were prompted by Kurdish forces taking back control of Azaz, Iso said.

The YPG is yet to release a statement in response to Turkey’s shelling.

Diyarbakir: Hundreds Kurds flee southeast Turkey warzone as 23 killed, curfew expanded

January 28, 2016 by administrator

Hundreds of people have fled the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, located in southeastern Turkey, as authorities have extended the curfew there after 23 people were killed in street battles, including three Turkish soldiers and 20 Kurdish fighters.

Heavy gunfire continued on Wednesday in the ancient Sur district of Diyarbakir amid clashes between authorities and militants said to be members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been outlawed by Ankara, Turkish Dogan news agency reported.

Three Turkish soldiers were killed in Sur when militants fired on them with rifles and a rocket launcher, Reuters cited security sources as saying.

Turkey’s army also confirmed that it had killed 11 alleged PKK in the town of Cizre near the Syrian border, and nine others in Sur on Tuesday. The Turkish army claims it has killed 134 Kurdish fighters in the ancient Sur district since December. The district has also witnessed severe damage since then.

The 24-hour curfew zone has been extended to five more districts in Diyarbakir, according to the district governor’s office. The curfew bans residents from leaving their homes and forbids observers and reporters from entering the areas when clashes are taking place.

After alleged members of PKK reportedly dug trenches and set up explosive devices, the curfew was put in place “restore public order,” the district governor’s office said.

Local media reports estimate that more than 2,000 people left Sur following the fighting on Wednesday. People were seen fleeing with suitcases, bags, and bedding.

Watch Ruptly TV’s footage from the streets of Diyarbakir below:

Turkey’s state early in the morning started to warn people that they have to leave their houses. And right now thousands of people are trying to leave Sur district, the ancient part of the city,” Harun Ercan, a Diyarbakir resident, told RT.

“This armed conflict continues to create new tragedies and these people don’t know what to do. While these operations continue, gross human rights violations are committed by Turkey’s security forces,” Ercan added.

Turkish authorities have introduced curfews in several Kurdish-majority towns since the peace process with the PKK collapsed in the summer of 2015.

Clashes between Turkish forces and Kurdish PKK fighters have been ongoing since July. Turkey’s authorities maintain that all of those killed during the security operations in the country’s southeast have been PKK members.

However, the Turkish Human Rights Foundation reported that at least 198 civilians, including 39 children, have been killed in military operations in the area since August.

Kurds have long been campaigning for the right to self-determination and greater autonomy in Turkey, where they are the largest ethnic minority. In late December, a congress of Kurdish nongovernmental organizations called for Turkey’s southeastern regions to be granted autonomy via constitutional reforms.

Turkish security forces launched a large-scale security operation in southeastern part of the country on December 14.

Human Rights Watch criticized the curfews, stating that they make it impossible to monitor causes of deaths. “Many people have died in circumstances which are extremely difficult to scrutinize because of the curfews,” The Guardian quoted Emma Sinclair-Webb, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, as saying.

Iraq Kurdistan: Why are the Kurds leaving their homeland?

January 27, 2016 by administrator

By Rizgar Khoshnaw ,

(Ekurd.net) I am often confronted with the question of: Why are the Kurds leaving Kurdistan in such large numbers? My answer to them is simple and to the point and that is: For most people life in Kurdistan in not a life and it is merely an existence in its worse form. There are no jobs, poor health care system, uncertainty of the future and most importantly, there is no electricity. Kurds are leaving as fast as they sell everything they own in order to pay for the costly, and I might add, dangerous trip out of Kurdistan.

Many Kurds have taken huge risks by selling everything they own in order to attempt to venture out of the country. They hire an individual, from the black market Bazzar, to forge their traveling documents to take them to Europe. Once they arrive, if they arrive, they turn themselves in to the authorities to be taken as refugees. This is the common avenue for Kurds to take in order to make their way to a new and better life in another country.

Almost every week there is another group of Kurds caught in a boat trying to make it to land, or on a border trying to cross. There are many documented tragic incidents that has caused the lives of many Kurds, most often women and children, during the smuggling operation. And yet with all of the high risk involved in their journey, the Kurds fleeing Kurdistan still think it is worth it. The Kurds are in search of a better opportunities for themselves as well as their children. In their new country they are hoping to find work, safety, send their children to school and live a normal life as all humans deserve.

If anyone has been following my writings might say that what I have written above might sound familiar, they are absolutely correct!! Indeed what I have written today, actually duplicated, is an article that I had published 15 years ago!!

It is amazing that here we are 15 years after I had published this article above word for word without changing a single word, we still see Kurds fleeing their homeland in huge numbers. I had published the article on a number of websites, including Middle East News Online, The Kurdistan Observer and Kurdishmedia, on June 13- 14, 2001.

I do not need to give current examples of how Kurds are once more leaving Kurdistan and dying along the way since such news is all over the media outlets and in every country. As we speak, there are over 3,000 Kurds living in tents in France trying migrate to England and hundreds are dying in the sea trying to reach land. The world now views the Kurds as a “disease” and wants nothing to do with them. If the Kurds were respected at all then the French government would not forcefully place 3,000 women and children in pitiful camps/prison and not allow them to leave.

How sad it is to see the average Kurd is still suffering, jobless, miserable and all a while the Kurdistan Regional Government has managed to collect over $130 Billion in oil revenue in the past ten years alone without improving people’s lives at all. Where did all that money disappear to? Why is it that we now have Kurdish billionaires and multi-millionaires while at the same time, we have people that can not afford to feed their children? When will the Kurdish government wake up and begin to govern in an honest manner and treats all of their citizens equally? In my honest opinion, the Kurdish government will never wake up, or change, and will continue to operate as they have been all these years.

Rizgar Xoshnaw, a senior Kurdish writer based in Washington, a longtime contributing writer and columnist for Ekurd.net.

Iraq, the trench of discord between Kurds and Turkmen

January 12, 2016 by administrator

“Beginning of the division of Iraq”, “violation of international law”: the Turkoman minority in Iraq condemned the construction by the Iraqi Kurds in a long trench hundreds of kilometers, officially presented as a defense against the jihadists.

“We see this trench as the beginning of the division of Iraq. It would be the implementation on the ground of a redrawn geopolitical map, “he told AFP the party leader Iraqi Turkmen Front, Archad al-Salehi.

The government of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, which extends into northern Iraq, defends it to any expansionist aim, arguing that the trenches, three meters wide and two deep, is only intended to prevent jihadist attacks of the Islamic State (EI).

But officials from the Turkmen community, the route of the deep ditch raises suspicion.

According to them, the trench will cross the western Iraq is, from the town of Rabia bordering Syria than Khanaqine, near the Iranian border.

It largely follow the 1000 kilometers of the front line between Kurdish fighters and those of EI.

But the Kurdish fighters, the peshmerga, are present beyond the borders of their region, after defeating the EI in areas where the Iraqi military had fled.

The trench would allow them to include these territories in Iraqi Kurdistan although there not belong according to present boundaries, denounced the Turkmen also called Turkmens.

Preserving the unity of Iraq –

They are worried because these areas contain many of them.

“70-80% of the territories (which would pass the Kurdish side of the trench) are populated by Turkmen,” said Mehdi Saadoun, a militant of the Foundation for Relief Turkomans.

“The cities of Tal Afar, Kirkuk and Tuz pass Khourmatou the side of Iraqi Kurdistan if the government does not apply the law preserving the unity of Iraq,” he warned.

This vast country in the Middle East has many minorities including the Kurds, whose population is estimated at about four million, and Turkmen on which there are no recent statistics encrypted.

Iraqi Turkomans have maintained in the past difficult relations with the Kurds. Ethnic rivalries have come to light since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003 and by the Kurds claim Kirkuk.

The government of Iraqi Kurdistan has admitted recently accelerated fortification of its defenses against the IE but firmly rejects any political project.

“This trench is a defensive system against car bombs used by Daech (Arabic acronym EI),” insisted a spokesman for Iraqi Kurdish fighters, Jabar Yawar.

“It will not be built everywhere, some areas do not need. It will be for military officials to decide “its route, he added.

The excavation work has not started Touz Khourmatou but they began near Kirkuk, a city located in a rich oil region and to Jalawla, near the Iranian border, according to the Turkmen officials.

For Jassem Mohammed Jaafar, a Turkmen Parliament, the trench “violates international conventions and the rights of people who will be forced to live on each other.”

Salehi called Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to take a stand against this controversial trench.

AFP

Exclusive: Turkey, the war against the Kurds

December 29, 2015 by administrator

No information, disinformation, poisoning minds, teaching of hatred of the other, even in schools, that is the reality of the field experienced by the people in eastern Turkey, and more particularly to Nusabyn, a city Mardin near the Turkish-Syrian border. This is what we wrote a civilian eyewitness on site where terror reigns.
Separated, for 2 years, with a son barbed wire network, the Syrian and Turkish Kurdistan, “wall of shame” (…)

The testimony from a personality such ^that Ms. Gültan Kisanak can not be doubted. The activist of the first hour for a political solution to the Kurdish question, successively Diyarbakir MP, Co-Chair of the BDP (Party for Peace and Democracy) and now co-mayor of the metropolitan city of Diyarbakir and co President of GABB (Union of Municipalities of southeastern Anatolia) denounces with his usual frankness, in a pathetic appeal to international solidarity, the intolerable situation in which there is the population of Diyarbakir and other towns in the Kurdish region of Turkey.

See more information available: on AKB.bzh

200,000 Kurds Fleeing Turkey Amid Increased Violence – German Media

December 23, 2015 by administrator

Europe may soon face a new wave of migrants. About 200,000 Kurds are fleeing from the southeastern parts of Turkey amid armed clashes in the region, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) reported.

The situation in the region deteriorated after serious clashes between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish security forces. In the middle of October, about 100 people died as result of a bomb attack in Ankara on the Kurdish peace demonstration.

According to the newspaper, the local population describes war-like conditions and significant number of victims. One of the local residents told the newspaper Today’s Zaman that they have no running water and that electricity transformers have exploded.

“I have seven children, they can no longer attend school. We have to drink the water, which we normally use in the toilet,” the woman said.

Another local resident said in an interview with Today’s Zaman that his 11-year-old daughter was hit by a bullet when she went to buy bread. People no longer dare to go to the streets and that is why her body lied on the ground for about 15 minutes before anyone could go and help her, but it was too late.

“Now I have only two children left. We are in a poor situation,” the man said, adding that he managed to take his family away from the conflict zone, but lacks money and can’t make ends meet.

The operation Ankara is carrying out in southeastern Turkey is war against its own people, a German journalist wrote earlier in an article for Neues Deutschland.

The main goal of the operation, according to Ankara, is to eliminate Kurds who seized towns, constructed barricades and dug trenches.

The so called anti-terrorist operation started last week and has involved nearly 10,000 military and police forces. As result of the offensive, over 100 PKK militants have been destroyed.

MP: Turkey authorities forced Turks to leave so they could massacre Kurds

December 15, 2015 by administrator

The removal of Turkish teachers from the Kurdish-populated regions in Turkey shows that the authorities clearly highlight that they will massacre the Kurds.

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish “Peoples’ Democratic Party” (HDP) MP İdris Baluken made such a statement.

Baluken noted that the extent of fascism in the country’s Kurdish-populated regions has reached the level of starting a war against the people on the streets of the primarily Kurdish-populated Diyarbakır Province, reported the Kurdish Özgür Gündem website.

“Due to the policy run by the death machine of the [ruling] Justice and Development Party [(AKP)], [a total of] 306 citizens were massacred since June 7,” the HDP deputy said.

Terrorist State of Turkey: PM Davutoglu Confirms Ankara Striking Kurdish Positions in Syria

October 27, 2015 by administrator

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu confirmed Tuesday that the country’s military forces had struck Kurdish positions near the border in northern Syria.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Last week, Kurdish fighters in Syria accused the Turkish military of firing on their positions near the northern Syrian town of Tell Abyad, which the Kurds claimed as part of their “autonomous administration” last week.
“We struck twice,” Davutoglu said in an interview with Turkish television channel A Haber, not specifying the details of the operation.

He also stressed that the Turkish authorities have previously warned members of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) not to cross the Western bank of the river Euphrates saying that Turkey would attack.

Ankara considers the PYD an affiliate of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which is prohibited in Turkey.
Kurds form the largest ethnic minority in Turkey accounting for 20 percent of the population. Relations between the two nations have been strained since 1984 after the Kurds had declared independence.
Tensions between the Turks and the Kurds escalated in July when Ankara launched a military campaign against the PKK after the group had claimed responsibility for the murders of two Turkish police officers.

Turkish journalist urges to relentlessly exterminate Kurds “USA are You hearing fascism”

September 8, 2015 by administrator

Correspondent of Turkey’s Anadolu agency Mustafa Uygun has urged on his Facebook page to brutally exterminate the Kurds. Uygun’s post greatly resonated with Turkey.

He wrote: “Our last responsibility before the dead is not to carry his coffin but shed blood. These mountains must turn purple with blood. Our last responsibility must be slaughter, regardless of who they are: young or old men, pregnant woman or a child.”

Interestingly enough, the comment gained “likes” and also received words of praise.

Source: NEWS.am

U.S. Support of Syrian Kurds Ruffles Turkey’s Feathers

August 5, 2015 by administrator

Analysts say Ankara may have no choice but to come to terms with the emerging Kurdish reality along its border with Syria.

By: Semih Idiz, Columnist for Al-Monitor
Al-Monitor

Turkey and the United States may have agreed on the use of the Incirlik Air Base near the southern city of Adana against the Islamic State in Syria, but the deal appears to have some snags, especially with regard to US assistance to Syrian Kurds fighting IS. This unresolved problem is considered one of the reasons why Incirlik has not been used yet in active operations by the US-led coalition, despite the urgency of the fight against IS and other groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said earlier this week that armed drone missions were conducted out of the base last weekend, but added that none of the drones had launched airstrikes. Unarmed drones had already been flying out of the base. There are reports that the United States is delaying the use of manned aircraft from the base because it needs to set up search-and-rescue capabilities first.

But Ankara and Washington are in open disagreement over who the armed drones and manned aircraft in Incirlik will assist on the ground during the fight against IS. Ankara says the Incirlik deal does not cover support for the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has emerged as the umbrella organization of the Syrian Kurds. Ankara sees these groups as the Syrian extension of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is outlawed by Turkey as a terrorist organization.

The United States has also listed the PKK as a terrorist organization and concedes Turkey’s right to respond to attacks by the group, but has refused to bow to Turkish demands to outlaw the PYD and YPG as well. The PYD is currently allied with the United States against IS. PKK elements have also been fighting IS alongside the PYD, making the issue between Ankara and Washington more confusing.

Washington’s only concession to Turkey in this regard has been to refuse PYD leader Saleh Muslim a visa to the United States. Muslim and other PYD and YPG officials have, however, been welcomed by European countries that are part of the US-led coalition against IS, and there is a tangible increase in sympathy in the West for the Syrian Kurds, regardless of Turkish efforts to demonize them.

The YPG raised its profile considerably in Western eyes after its fighters captured the strategic town of Tell Abyad near the Turkish border in June with air support from US jets. Ankara looked on this development with concern, fearing a prelude to the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish zone along its border with Syria by groups allied with the PKK.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out indirectly at the United States after the capture of Tell Abyad, claiming the West was striking Arabs and Turkmens in the town and settling PYD and PKK militants in their place. “How can we look on this positively? How can we consider the West to be honest?” Erdogan said, reflecting the anger felt in official Ankara circles.

A few days later, he said Turkey would never allow a Kurdish entity to be established in northern Syria. “Whatever the cost, we will continue our struggle in this regard,” he said angrily June 26. Disagreement on the topic of US assistance to the YPG surfaced again after State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington on July 27 that the use of Incirlik would enable the US Air Force to assist YPG fighters on the ground more effectively.

Pointing out that the US-led coalition is already providing support to the YPG, Kirby said, “The fact that we now have access to bases in Turkey will allow for that support to be more timely and perhaps even more effective.” Kirby’s remarks, which were quickly picked up by the Turkish press, ruffled official feathers in Ankara. “The points indicated by Kirby do not reflect the agreement we arrived at [on Incirlik],” Ministry for Foreign Affairs spokesman Tanju Bilgic told reporters in a press briefing in Ankara.
Questioned later about Bilgic’s statement, State Department spokesman Mark Toner backed Kirby, indicating that Syrian Kurdish groups would be among those receiving support from the US-led coalition.

Many analysts in Ankara believe Turkey is in a weak position here and will have to eventually find a formula to accommodate US support for Syrian Kurdish fighters if it does not want to come out the loser from this dispute. Retired Maj. Gen. Armagan Kuloglu told Al-Monitor that the deal arrived at with the United States is primarily based on combating IS.

“Turkey joined this fight to allay the impression that it has been assisting IS. But it is also using the argument about the need to fight all forms of terrorism in order to get support from Washington against the PKK,” Kuloglu said. “Washington has given this support, albeit somewhat reluctantly, saying, ‘You have a right to fight the PKK,’ but it has also indicated that the PYD is altogether another matter,” he added.

Kuloglu, who comments frequently on political and military matters, went on to say it was unrealistic to expect the United States to give up its support of the Syrian Kurds. He added that it was also not possible for Ankara to revoke its decision to allow Incirlik to be used against IS because of US support for the PYD, which he suggested is here to stay. Kuloglu said active and effective participation by Turkey in the US-led coalition against IS may provide Ankara some leverage over the PYD.

Many analysts, however, have been noting Turkey’s lame response to IS when compared with its disproportionate response to PKK attacks and have taken this as a sign that Turkey is still not prepared to go all-out against IS even though it has been targeted by the group.

“Ankara has to find a formula for this problem with Washington because if it doesn’t, it stands to lose more than the US, especially with regard to its operations against the PKK in northern Iraq,” Kuloglu said, arguing that Iraq is effectively under US control, giving Turkey a free hand to carry on with its strikes against the PKK there.

Kuloglu also believes that Ankara’s insistence on its position toward Incirlik and the PYD would have a price in terms of turning international public opinion against Turkey again, given that Syrian Kurds have gained the sympathy of the West.

This appeared to be corroborated by a piece in the Independent by Patrick Cockburn, who argued, “So far, [IS] has not done too badly out of Turkey’s ‘game-changing’ turn against it.” He went on, “If US aircraft based at Incirlik are forbidden to attack [IS] fighters when they are battling either the Syrian Kurds or the Syrian army, the militants’ two main opponents on the ground, then they will be no worse off militarily than they were before.”

Kuloglu also indicated that reports of an agreement between Turkey and the United States for a safe zone in northern Syria had to be taken with a pinch of salt. Many in the West believe Turkey wants this zone to prevent the advances of the Kurds, although Ankara says it wants it to protect Syrian refugees against IS and the Syrian regime.

“Despite these reports, the US says it will not put boots on the ground to protect this zone. Turkey can’t do this on its own, and it is not possible to rely on the Turkmens there, as the recent fiasco relating to fighters trained and equipped and sent to Syria show,” he said.

He was referring to reports of the way the group — trained and equipped in Turkey by the United States, made up mostly of Turkmen fighters and acting under the name of Division 30 — was routed by Jabhat al-Nusra fighters as soon as it entered Syria.

Like Kuloglu, many Turkish analysts believe Washington is merely appeasing Turkey by going along with its calls for a safe zone. They argue that Washington’s ultimate aim is to establish a friendly Kurdish zone in northern Syria, and suggest there is little Ankara can do to counter this without locking horns with its Western allies and finding itself alone in its fight against the PKK.