Chaos in Iraq: Are the Kurds Truly Set to Win?
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Chaos in Iraq: Are the Kurds Truly Set to Win?
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Obama Needs Iraqi Kurds to Fight Islamic State. But They Have Their Own Troubles.
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Syrian Kurds Launch Offensive to Retake IS Stronghold City of Raqqa
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Mattis Makes Clear US Commitment to Protecting Turkey
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Guns for the Syrian Kurds - Move is Worthwhile - But Not Without Risks
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Turkey: Ally or Albatross?
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Turkey Hints at Military Operation Against Syrian Kurds
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Prompted by the next post I have merged the few threads, all SWJ Blog posts, to this new thread - the Kurdish potential and problem.
There is a closed thread:Turkey mainly, Iraq and the Kurds (2006-2014)
The Kurds undoubtedly appear in other threads on Iraq and Syria since 2014.
A Kings College London ICSR report, 24 pgs, 'War of Shadows – How Turkey’s Conflict with the PKK Shapes the Syrian Civil War and Iraqi Kurdistan' launched yesterday.
Summary:http://icsr.info/2017/08/icsr-report...aqi-kurdistan/
Paper:http://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/...-Kurdistan.pdf
There is a podcast, but I found the sound so poor I stopped listening:https://www.pscp.tv/ICSR_Centre/1jMKgPDLmzXGL?t=1
For Iraq’s Long-Suffering Kurds, Independence Beckons
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Iran’s Leaders Opposed Kurdish Independence Vote in Iraq. Iran’s Kurds Celebrated on The Streets.
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Iraqi Kurds Claim Victory in Independence Vote
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For Kurds of Iraq, What Kind of Independence - If Any?
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After Threat of War, Iraq and Kurds Lower the Temperature
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Iraqi Forces Move on Territory Seized by Kurds
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As Islamic State Recedes, Iraqi Forces and Kurds Turn on Each Other
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The Plight of the Iraqi Kurds Poses a Difficult U.S. Foreign Policy Challenge
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The Kurds: Seeking Their Yorktown
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Kurds Face Setbacks Across the Middle East
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Why the Kurds Are Paying for Trump's Gift to Iran
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Prompted by the next post I have merged eleven threads, all SWJ Blog posts, to this thread. The title was Turkey, the PKK, Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan (merged thread) and has been amended to show a wider subject.
I don't think there have been posts on the Iranian Kurds, so this lengthy article helps to explain the history and the often ambivalent tance of the Iranian regime. Sub-titled:It ends with:Quote:
A history of support for Kurdish extremists comes back to haunt Tehran
Link:https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...#disqus_threadQuote:
Below the surface, though, a lingering fear persists: Is Tehran finally serious about confronting its jihadi menace? Or is this crackdown, like so many before it, only temporary?
Quote:
Turkey says it’s talking to the Americans. The U.S. says it’s talking to the Turks. Politicians and generals in the two countries are in almost constant communication, judging by their public comments.
There’s no indication that any of this talk has resolved the fundamental argument that’s threatening to bring NATO’s two biggest armies into direct conflict in northern Syria.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-turkey-risingQuote:
When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched an offensive there last month against U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters, he started in an area where American troops aren’t embedded with their allies.
But he said the operation will soon extend further east, to the town of Manbij, where they are. “We’ll press against terrorists without taking into consideration who’s next to them,” Erdogan said Jan. 30. Several ministers have made the same point.
Bonus video: A female Kurdish fighter of the YPJ uses a Russian-made ATGM to destroy a Turkish Leopard 2 tank in the battle for Afrin.
https://www.funker530.com/girl-destr...-leopard-tank/
A Turkish perspective, as expressed in a movie.
Breath (Turkish: Nefes: Vatan Sağolsun, literally Breath: Long Live the Homeland) is a 2009 Turkish drama film directed by Levent Semerci. The film, which tells the story of 40 soldiers in charge of protecting a relay station near the Iraqi border in southeastern Turkey, was adapted from the short stories Tales from the Southeast and Ground Minus Zero by Hakan Evrensel and is, according to Hürriyet Daily News reviewer Emine Yıldırım, the first Turkish film that tackles, through an authentic perspective and convincing realness, the contemporary situation of the Turkish army and its long battle with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsonHwcq9Lc
An interesting article on how radicalised Kurds from Iran are emerging as a regional threat and within Iran. Note there is an earlier post on this subject by the same author.
Link:https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...ihadists.html?
An ICSR (Kings College) report:Quote:
While the so-called Islamic State’s ‘caliphate’ was in ruins by the summer of 2017, Kurdish fortunes appeared to be on the ascent. Nevertheless, little over a year after the supposed ‘fall of the caliphate’, both Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish aspirations have been severely tested.
Rather than delivering the desired popular mandate needed to negotiate independence, the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum of 25 September 2017 backfired. The military and political power that the Syrian Kurds had gained while fighting ISIS has been endangered, whether due to Turkish armed intervention or the possibility that they could lose the U.S.-led coalition’s backing.
In this report, ICSR Research Fellow John Holland-McCowan seeks to highlight some of the key developments for the Kurds of Iraq and Syria as the so-called Islamic State has declined over the past year, as well as hypothesise what may lie ahead.
Link:https://icsr.info/2018/10/10/the-kur...raq-and-syria/