Kurdish autonomy

Kurdish rebels declare formal ceasefire with Turkey

by News Sources 03.24.2013

Reuters reports: The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group declared a “formal and clear ceasefire” with Turkey on Saturday after the rebels’ jailed leader this week ordered a halt to the decades-long armed campaign for autonomy. “Since March 21 and from now on, we as a movement, as the PKK … officially and clearly declare [...]

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Video: Kurdish group releases captive Turks

by News Sources 03.14.2013
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Will there be an independent Kurdistan?

by News Sources 01.04.2013

Will the losers in the region’s post-WWI upheavals be the winners of the ‘Arab Spring’? David Hirst writes: The Baghdad newspaper Sabah published a surprising article a few weeks ago. Its editor, Abd Jabbar Shabbout, suggested it was time to settle the “age-old problem” between Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds by establishing a “Kurdish state.” Never [...]

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Violence dims hope of solution to Turkish Kurd conflict

by News Sources 09.03.2012

Reuters reports: Images of smiling Kurdish MPs hugging rebels, rifles slung over their shoulders, at a remote roadblock in Turkey’s mountainous southeast hit a raw nerve. The embrace, depicted in Turkish newspapers as battles raged with government troops, fed a climate of animosity which is undermining hopes of a revival of secret talks to end [...]

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Turkey: 115 Kurdish rebels killed in offensive

by News Sources 08.05.2012

The Associated Press reports: Turkey’s security forces have killed as many as 115 Kurdish rebels during a major security offensive over the past two weeks, the country’s interior minister said Sunday. Idris Naim Sahin said the rebels were killed in an airpower backed offensive near the town of Semdinli, in Hakkari province which sits on [...]

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Video: Al Jazeera interviews Kurdish president Massoud Barzani

by News Sources 07.28.2012
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In uprooting of Kurds, Iraq tests a fragile national unity

by News Sources 04.22.2012

The New York Times reports: In January, the dismembered body of Wisam Jumai, a Kurdish intelligence officer, was discovered in a field in Sadiyah, a small town in northeastern Iraq. Soon his family and friends, one after another, received text messages offering a choice: leave or be killed. “Wisam has been killed,” read one message [...]

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Turkey may launch ground offensive into northern Iraq at any time

by News Sources 09.13.2011

Today’s Zaman reports: Turkey said on Tuesday that its military may launch a ground offensive against terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq at any time in accordance with ongoing talks with Iraqi Kurdish officials as part of cooperation against the PKK. Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin said in response to questions from [...]

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Before Iraq election, Arab and Kurd tensions soar in the north

by Paul Woodward 03.02.2010

Christian Science Monitor reports: In a sign of heightened Arab-Kurd tension along a disputed boundary just days from Iraq elections, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan says the governor of the adjoining Arab-majority province will be arrested if he enters Kurdish-controlled areas. In an interview with The Christian Science Monitor at his mountaintop headquarters in northern [...]

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U.S. adviser to Kurds stands to reap oil profits

by Paul Woodward 11.13.2009

U.S. adviser to Kurds stands to reap oil profits By James Glanz and Walter Gibbs, New York Times, November 12, 2009 Peter W. Galbraith, an influential former American ambassador, is a powerful voice on Iraq who helped shape the views of policy makers like Joseph R. Biden Jr. and John Kerry. In the summer of [...]

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Kurdish rebels surrender as Turkey reaches out

by Paul Woodward 10.20.2009

Kurdish rebels surrender as Turkey reaches out By Nicholas Birch, Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2009 In the first concrete sign that months of efforts by Turkey’s government to end a 25-year Kurdish insurgency could bear fruit, eight Kurdish rebels crossed over the border from Iraq on Monday to give themselves up. Accompanied by 26 [...]

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Former US diplomat holds secret stake in Kurdish oil field

by Paul Woodward 10.11.2009

Former US diplomat holds secret stake in Kurdish oil field By Reidar Visser, historiae.org, October 10, 2009 It is widely known that the former US diplomat Peter Galbraith has been one of the most prominent figures in shaping the state structure of Iraq in the period after 2003, especially with his vocal advocacy of various [...]

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Iraq attacks raise fears of renewed ethnic tensions

by Paul Woodward 08.11.2009

Iraq attacks raise fears of renewed ethnic tensions By Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2009 A string of bombings in northern Iraq and Baghdad that has killed at least 112 people in the last several days, including 60 on Monday, has raised fears that insurgent groups are embarking on a sustained attempt to [...]

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Kurdish faultline threatens to spark new war

by Paul Woodward 08.10.2009

Kurdish faultline threatens to spark new war By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, August 10, 2009 It is called the “trigger line”, a 300-mile long swathe of disputed territory in northern Iraq where Arab and Kurdish soldiers confront each other, and which risks turning into a battlefield. As the world has focused on the US troop [...]

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After Kurdish vote, Talabani pledges to rebuild party

by Paul Woodward 07.29.2009

After Kurdish vote, Talabani pledges to rebuild party By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, July 29, 2009 Facing what could prove a turning point in tumultuous Kurdish politics, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani vowed Tuesday that he would lead the revival of his party after a surprisingly successful challenge by opponents in last week’s election led some [...]

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Worries about a Kurdish-Arab conflict move to fore in Iraq

by Paul Woodward 07.27.2009

Worries about a Kurdish-Arab conflict move to fore in Iraq By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, July 27, 2009 Louis Khno is a city councilman whose city is beyond his control. In his barricaded streets are militiamen — in baseball caps and jeans, wielding Kalashnikov rifles, with the safeties switched off. They answer to someone else. [...]

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High turnout in Iraqi Kurds’ elections

by Paul Woodward 07.26.2009

High turnout in Iraqi Kurds’ elections By Sam Dagher, New York Times, July 26, 2009 Voters in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region cast their ballots on Saturday in local presidential and parliamentary elections as a hunger for political reform clashed with a desire to maintain stability. Turnout was high — 78.5 percent according to the Electoral [...]

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NEWS: Turkish ground attack follows air attack

by Paul Woodward 12.19.2007

Turkish soldiers cross border into northern Iraq AP, December 18, 2007 The Turkish army sent soldiers about three kilometres into northern Iraq in an overnight operation on Tuesday, Kurdish officials said. A Turkish official said the troops were still in Iraq by midmorning. The troops crossed into an area near the border with Iran, about [...]

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NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Turkish attack on PKK

by Paul Woodward 12.17.2007

Iraq angered by Turkish bombing By Damien Cave, New York Times, December 18, 2007 Iraqi leaders criticized Turkey on Monday for bombing Kurdish militants in northern Iraq with airstrikes that they said left at least one woman dead. The Turkish attacks in Dohuk Province on Sunday — involving dozens of warplanes and artillery — were [...]

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NEWS: Return of Iraq’s disposessed; Turks bomb Kurds; rise of Najaf; withdrawal of British

by Paul Woodward 12.16.2007

Balkanized homecoming By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, December 16, 2007 When the Iraqi government last month invited home the 1.4 million refugees who had fled this war-ravaged country for Syria — and said it would send buses to pick them up — the United Nations and the U.S. military reacted with horror. U.N. refugee officials [...]

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NEWS: Madhi Army makeover; Kirkuk’s Arab-Kurdish divide

by Paul Woodward 12.09.2007

Sadr militia moves to clean house By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2007 Militia commander Abu Maha had studied his quarry carefully, watching as the man acquired fancy suits, gold watches and the street name “Master.” Now, heavily armed and dressed in an Adidas track suit, Abu Maha told his followers it was [...]

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NEWS, ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: U.S. Special Forces inside Iran?

by Paul Woodward 11.29.2007

U.S. wages covert war on Iraq-Iran border By Nelson Rand, Asia Times, November 28, 2007 While the PKK has been in the international spotlight in recent weeks, with Turkey mounting cross-border raids and threatening to launch an invasion of Iraq, not so much attention has been given to the Iranian offshoot, the PJAK. The group [...]

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NEWS, ANALYSIS & OPINION: Permanent bases; Kurdish-Shia coalition; language of war

by Paul Woodward 11.26.2007

US, Iraq deal sees long-term US presence AP, November , 2007 President Bush on Monday signed a deal setting the foundation for a potential long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq, with details to be negotiated over matters that have defined the war debate at home — how many U.S. forces will stay in the country, [...]

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OPINION: The undoing of a Kurdish resolution

by Paul Woodward 11.21.2007

Turkey’s fickle friends By Stephen Kinzer, The Guardian, November 20, 2007 The democratic revolution that has brought unprecedented levels of freedom to Turkey in recent years will not be complete until the festering Kurdish problem is resolved. When I toured the Kurdish region two years ago, a solution seemed tantalisingly close. Kurds were overflowing with [...]

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