After the recent Ankara bombing, a reporter on the Turkish resistance becomes a member.
Insights Into the Resistance Movement in Turkey (First in a Series)
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Kurdistan
The Kurdish Elephant
In their latest deal to fight ISIS, Washington and Turkey are treating the Middle East’s largest stateless minority like pawns. That’s a huge mistake.
In Kurdish Syria, a Different War
On August 15, a car bomb ripped through a Beirut suburb, killing 21 people. The explosion was but the latest in a wave of attacks across Lebanon throughout 2012 and 2013 that were linked to events inside Syria. The ease with which violence in Iraq and Syria has...
The Kurdish Moment: Opportunity and Peril
For almost a century, the Kurds—one of the world’s largest ethnic groups without its own state—have been deceived and double-crossed, their language and culture suppressed, their villages burned and bombed, and their people scattered. But because of the U.S. invasion...
Kurdistan: The Next Autocracy?
Kurdistan has enjoyed an unprecedented level of political and economic stability since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. Yet not all is well in Kurdistan, due in part to the dominant presence of one ruling family. Descended from a political dynasty that has built a power base over centuries of fighting, regional president Massoud Barzani has blossomed into an authoritarian ruler not unlike many whose regimes are now crumbling from the internal pressures of the Arab Spring.
Who Will Govern Syrian Kurdistan?
Although the prospects for an independent state in Syrian Kurdistan remain dim, unprecedented Kurdish autonomy will likely result from the conflict. The implications extend beyond Syria’s borders as various governments and non-state actors have strong, and often conflicting, interests in the political fate of Syria’s Kurds and the territorial integrity of the Syrian state.
WikiLeaks VI: U.S. Supporting Separatist Kurd Party Fighting Turkey?
The Wikileaks dump will supposedly demonstrate U.S. support for the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, a separatist organization that has been fighting the Turkish state for the past thirty years.
Congress Sends Wrong Message to Iraq
After more than 19 years of war, including seven years of occupation, the U.S. Congress still does not grasp domestic politics in Iraq. This week, the House passed a resolution asking the State Department to establish U.S. consulates in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, as well as in “other regions” in the country. This resolution isn’t binding, but it still sends the wrong message to Iraqis.
The Kurdish Closing
Turkey’s constitutional court banned the country’s only pro-Kurdish party on December 11. Likely to result in an increased number of ethnic conflicts across the country, the decision is both typical and paradoxical.
Turkey vs. Iraq?
While Capitol Hill battles the White House over Iraq, another battle is brewing in the Middle East. In the last week the Turkish military has moved 140,000 troops from across its country to the southern border with Iraq. These troops represent an invasion force meant to prevent the continued terrorist activities of the Kurdish minority that use northern Iraq as a safe haven. Turkey has previously voiced its intent to attack elements of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) after repeated bombings and recent attacks on civilians in the south of Turkey. If Ankara chooses to use military force in the north of Iraq now, the results would be dire for the future security and stability of Iraq.
The effects of Turkey conducting military operations in northern Iraq would undermine the fragile security environment that currently exists in two major ways. First, the Kurdish soldiers that are operating in Baghdad as part of the U. S. military “surge” would be tempted to abandon their posts in order to protect their homeland in the north. Second, because Turkish troops would not likely remain for long in the north of Iraq, the remaining PKK fighters could regroup and continue to use northern Iraq as a base of operations for its recent offensive attacks in Turkey. Iraq would have difficulty meeting either of these challenges. To face both simultaneously would only exasperate and quicken the destabilization of Iraq and the region.