Tag Archives: Kurdistan

KURDS GO TO THE POLLS TOMORROW

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A new day for the Kurdish Independent movement starts tomorrow. Voting for independence is a long time coming. The Kurds, numbering 30 million have been subjugated to the likes or dislikes of their home countries over the past centuries; Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey are now coming face to face with the grave divisional error of the Sykes-Picot agreement ending WWI.

The Kurds

An ethnographic map of Eastern Turkey after WW1

As originally cast, Sykes-Picot allocated part of Northern Kurdistan and a substantial part of the Mosul vilayet including the city of Mosul to France in area B, Russia obtained Bitlis and Van in Northern Kurdistan (the contemplated Arab State included Kurds in its Eastern limit split between A and B areas). Bowman says there were around 2.5 million Kurds in Turkey, mainly in the mountain region called Kurdistan. The Kurdish Peoples doesnt have any own State since the fall of the Zand dynasty

Partitioning of Ottoman Turkey according to the aborted Treaty of Sèvres

Sharif Pasha presented a “Memorandum on the Claims of the Kurd People” to the Paris peace Conference in 1919 and the suppressed report of the King-Crane Commission also recommended a form of autonomy in“the natural geographical area which lies between the proposed Armenia on the north and Mesopotamia on the south, with the divide between the Euphrates and the Tigris as the western boundary, and the Persian frontier as the eastern boundary.”

The subsequent Treaty of Sevres potentially provided for a Kurdish territory subject to a referendum and League of Nations sanction within a year of the treaty. However the Turkish War of Independence led to the treaty being superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne in which there was no provision for a Kurdish State.

The end result was that the Kurds were included in the territories of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran.

KURDISH PEOPLE attend a rally to show their support for the upcoming September 25th independence referendum in Duhuk, Iraq.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Momentum for referendum growing on eve of Kurdistan independence vote

MOMENTUM FOR REFERENDUM GROWING ON EVE OF KURDISTAN INDEPENDENCE VOTE

Momentum for referendum growing on eve of Kurdistan independence vote

KURDISH PEOPLE attend a rally to show their support for the upcoming September 25th independence referendum in Duhuk, Iraq.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Tens of thousands packed a rally in Erbil’s stadium on Friday, waving a sea of Kurdish flags. Among them were also Israeli flags, a display of affection for the one country that has openly supported the referendum.

A Kurdish man holds an Israeli and Kurdish flag during a rally to show their support for the upcoming September 25th independence referendum in Erbil, Iraq September 16, 2017. (REUTERS/AZAD LASHKARIG)A Kurdish man holds an Israeli and Kurdish flag during a rally to show their support for the upcoming September 25th independence referendum in Erbil, Iraq September 16, 2017. (REUTERS/AZAD LASHKARIG)

Some Kurds say this moment is their 1948 – a reference to Israel’s declaration of independence. They see the challenges Israel faced in its early years as similar to the problems their region now faces.

Iran, Turkey, the Iraqi government in Baghdad, the US, UK, the UN and many other countries have pressured the Kurdish leadership to cancel or postpone the vote. Even up to the eleventh hour the pressure continues, with the UN Security Council expressing concern about the vote and US presidential envoy for the coalition to counter the Islamic State Brett McGurk encouraging Barzani to reconsider.

“There is no Iraq, it is a militia state,” says Hussein Yazdanpanah, a leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), who serves a front line commander northwest of Kirkuk.

Yazdanpanah’s Peshmerga soldiers are Iranian Kurds who oppose the regime at home and have come to the Kurdish region of Iraq to fight alongside their comrades against the common threat of the Islamic State. His men have been holding a front line for three years on a line of dusty hills that overlooks Hawija, where the Iraqi army launched an offensive on September 20.

“Iran, Iraq and Turkey do propaganda against the referendum,” he says, sitting in a chair that overlooks the flat plains around Kirkuk. “Kurdistan has enemies, but also friends. The most important thing you see here is that we have all the minorities and ethnicities [and they] want a referendum. Kurds decided not to stay with this country [Iraq] which has discrimination and inequality.”

SUPPORT THE KURDISH INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT

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The bully diminutive Erdogan running Turkey has been flying to close to the sun of late.  His accusations have developed an anti-American thrall across Anatolia. The hyperbolic diatribe spewing out of the mouth of this wannabee dictator is a cause of concern to NATO. Europe has long been aware of Turkey’s anti European Union policies which are tantamount to treason. So far the United States has not taken an intransigent view of Turkey’s blustering when a hard stance is in order.

Turkey, if you recall was the heart of Eastern Christendom a thousand plus years ago. Constantinople was the center of Eastern Orthodoxy. From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe and it was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times as the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and as the guardian of Christendom’s holiest relics such as the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross. After the final loss of its provinces in the early 15th century, the Byzantine Empire was reduced to just Constantinople and its environs and the city eventually fell to the Ottomans after a month-long siege in 1453.

Long running feuds aside, the time has come to take sides. Is Turkey in or out? The only answer here is OUT. Turkey has accused the United States of complicity in the most recent coup d etat which attempted to over through Erdogan. Turkey has blamed us for harboring Fethullah Gulen, once a friend of Erdogan, but now seen as a treacherous enemy; believed to be directing his followers from his Pennsylvania enclave. Erdogan has the chutzpah in ordering the United States to turn Gulen over. Once in Turkey Gulen will face the hang man’s noose or more precisely Erdogan’s sword for beheading.

Turkey has inflamed the European Union (EU) with its dictatorial posture, but most of all its lack of respect for Democracy. Since the coup the diminutive wannabee Napoleon puke has rounded up a half a million of what he believes, were members of the coup and anti government. Beside these roundups 200 news organizations have been shut down. Currently there are no opposing news organizations.

However, the mother of all eruptions is close at hand. Support for an independence Kurdistan is growing across all of the main venues. Even Israel is pressing for Kurdish independence. The Kurds are the majority population in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, and are a significant minority group in the neighboring countries of Turkey, Iran, and Syria, where Kurdish nationalist movements continue to pursue greater autonomy and cultural rights. In total the Kurds number approximately 30,000,000. The time has come for them to have a country of their own.

On September 25 a plebiscite will take place in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Councillors in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk have voted to take part in next month’s Kurdish independence referendum in a session, however, that was boycotted by Turkmen and Arab members. The central government in Baghdad is strongly opposed to Iraqi Kurdistan’s planned September 25 referendum, which is non-binding but could lead to independence. Kirkuk, an ethnically-mixed oil-rich province, is not part of the Kurdistan region but has a large Kurdish population.

Having an Independent Kurdish state is very worrisome for the diminutive Erdogan who will continue to fight against the Kurds at all costs. Erdogan sees the Kurds as an existential threat to his authoritative rule.  In Turkey, there are 14 million Kurds, many of whom are well-integrated into the political and economic life of the country, but many others who remain alienated. Religious Kurds have been an important and reliable constituency for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). There is also the People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, whose leader Selahattin Demirtas has made a big splash among Western observers for his alleged liberalism. The AKP has sought to portray the HDP and Demirtas as no different from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has been waging a war on Turkey since the mid-1980s. Click here for a more detailed analysis of the ins and outs of the Kurdish relationships within Syria, Iraq and Turkey.

Peshmerga, which means, “those who face death,” is the military of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iraqi Kurdistan. Their existence dates back to the mid-20th Century when Mustafa Barzani picked up arms to fight for Kurdistan autonomy.

But the tradition of a guerrilla resistance force fighting for Kurdish autonomy goes back to the origins of the Kurdish people. Because the land area has always been subject to regional and major powers vying for dominance, a resistance force always emerged as they took refuge in the mountains.

Up against much greater forces in the Iraqi Army and Air Force, the Peshmerga was not successful until after the 1990-1991 Gulf War when the U.S. and U.K. enforced a no-fly zone in the North of Iraq.

After the Kurdistan Regional Government was established, the Peshmerga officially became the armed forces and responsible for the security of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Originally, the Peshmerga was led by Mustafa Barzani, the head of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), but in the aftermath of another failed revolt, which resulted in the defeat of the Peshmerga by Iraqi forces in the mid-1970’s, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) arose and formed their own Peshmerga.

The ideological split along both tribal (Barzani family) and political (PUK is more progressive and liberal) lines divided Kurds, and eventually led to the Kurdish Civil War of the 1990’s. During the Civil War, the Peshmerga took sides and opposing forces were responsible for Kurds killing and maiming other Kurds. It ended when KDP’s Head, Massoud Barzani, signed a peace treaty with the PUK Head, Jalal Talibani.

According to the 1992 Constitution of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the President of Kurdistan is the Commander-in-Chief of the Peshmerga Armed Forces.[1] In an effort to unite against the Islamic State in August 2014, KRG President Massoud Barzani issued orders to the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs to reform the Peshmerga under a unified single command structure.

The bottom line here comes down to the diminutive Erdogan who may up the ante and pick a fight with the Peshmerga on the Syrian border. This will cause a rift with the United States, although the United States hasn’t jumped into the fray hook line and sinker. But the battle we hope will not come is on our door step and can’t be denied. For the United States the battle lines are clear; boot Turkey from NATO before we suffer more humiliation from the the diminutive Erdogan.

Turkey is against the United States, the Kurds are for the United States. 

“SO LET IT BE WRITTEN – SO LET IT BE DONE”

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“SO LET IT BE WRITTEN – SO LET IT BE DONE”  Erdogan playing with fire.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has had enough of Turkey’s Erdogan. The diminutive Muslim Brotherhood dictator is a subversive. He spews Western vile from his trash mouth blaming the United States for the attempted coup; wants us to hand over Gulen. But that is not all, the member of NATO has taken opposite sides in our fight against ISIS; he has bombed our YPK partners. He has mouthed off of Israel’s right to Jerusalem by professing that Jews have no historical right to it. He continues to urge the pseudo Palestinians to intafada and fight for their own state while on the other hand he is fighting tooth and nail to prevent 25 million KURDS from have theirs. The blood of Americans are on his hands. In addition to this he has constantly battled the  PKK or Turkish workers party (labeled as a terrorist organization by the United States) by limiting Turkey’s Kurds to their lawful rights. The KURDs make up 15-20% of the population. Flag of Kurdistan Workers' Party.svgThe group was founded in 1978 by a group of Kurdish students led by Abdullah Öcalan.] The PKK’s ideology was originally a fusion of revolutionary socialism and Kurdish nationalism, seeking the foundation of an independent, Marxist–Leninist state in the region, which was to be known as Kurdistan. The initial reason given by the PKK for this was the oppression of Kurds in Turkey.

The Iraqi Kurds or The Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq is the family business of the Barzani Clan, even though elections are generally considered free and fair. President is Massoud Barzani, Prime Minister is Nechervan Barzani while the security chief is Masrour Barzani. The Barzanis are Iranian Kurds. The Barzanis and the PKK profoundly hate each other.

Thus, PKK is labeled as a “narcoterrorist” organization.

“…As a result of the PKK’s increasing activity in the international narcotics trade, the (US) Treasury Department designated the group a significant foreign narcotics trafficker in May 2008. Even more recently, in February 2009, the Treasury Department also listed the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), which is under the control of the Kongra-Gel, as a specially designated global terrorist entity..”Contending with the PKK’s Narco-Terrorism

America’s relationship with Turkey has entered a period of deep crisis. At the heart of the matter is continued U.S. support for Syrian Kurds fighting the Islamic State. The partnership between the United States and a coalition of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Arab militias, currently known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), began more than two years ago under President Barack Obama. President Donald Trump’s administration continues to back the 50,000-strong SDF as the most capable anti-Islamic State force in northern Syria. The SDF are now closing in on Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State’s self-described caliphate, and Trump has approved a plan to provide arms directly to the YPG for the final push. Yet Turkey sees the SDF as mortal enemies due to the YPG’s affiliation with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a designated terrorist organization which has fought a bloody insurgency inside Turkey for three decades. These clashing interests have put Washington and Ankara on a collision course just as the U.S.-led campaign to crush the caliphate enters its culminating phase.

Turkey’s concerns about the YPG are understandable and widely appreciated. What is less well known is the fact that it was Turkey’s own actions, in particular a set of decisions made by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that stymied joint U.S.-Turkey efforts to identify an alternative anti-Islamic State force. This pushed the United States and the YPG closer together and eventually created the SDF. And, with Raqqa in their sights, the Trump administration is unlikely to abandon them now.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former number two in Likud, former interior minister Gideon Sa’ar, called for Israel and the United States Sunday to play key roles in advancing Kurdish independence.

Iraq’s Kurds set a September 25 date for a referendum on independence over the weekend. They said the referendum would take place despite warnings internationally that a vote in favor of secession could trigger conflict with Baghdad at a time when the fight against Islamic State is not yet won.

The Kurds have played a major role in the eight-month-old US-backed campaign to defeat the hardline Sunni insurgents in the Nineveh province around their de-facto capital Mosul. Baghdad’s Shi’ite-led government has rejected any move by the mostly Sunni Muslim Kurds to press unilaterally for independence, insisting that any decision about the future of the country should involve all its other parts.

Sa’ar met two months ago in Israel with adviser to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani. A former member of the security cabinet, he wrote extensively about regional issues, including the Kurds, at the Institute for National Security Studies during his time-out from politics that ended in April.

TERROR IN MOHAMMADLAND – ISTANBUL ON FIRE

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(click)Mohammad strikes again; like a carnivore stalking its prey the Islamic Terrorists does not take prisoners; knowing no bounds, they strike at will. Shock of the attack brings about violent reactions from politicians who condemn it. They speak words always vowing to get the perpetrators, but never do.

The latest scene was a soccer stadium in Istanbul. A car bomb and suicide bomber brought the city to its knees. President Erdogan blames the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers Party) for the attack; says that they will pay for the carnage. This is the same old bogeyman. The Kurds, enemy of the Turkish state, a Jihadist organization fighting an autocratic state that denies them independence. Roj emblem.svg

About half of all Kurds live in Turkey. According to the CIA Factbook they account for 18 percent of the Turkish population. They are predominantly distributed in the southeastern corner of the country. Kurds also make up around 17% of Iraq’s population. They are the majority in at least three provinces in Northern Iraq which are known as Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurds are estimated to number, worldwide, around 30–32 million, possibly as many as 37 million.

Digesting the Kurdish call for independence is not an academic exercise. For a population of 30 million people spread over a contiguous are of Syria, Iraq and Turkey, not having their own country, independent of a dictator’s hubristic dreams, the time has come for the United States to voice their support for this them.

The violent nature of autocrat Erdogan, a masochistic member of the Muslim Brotherhood, anti Israel Islamist, a diminutive Napoleonic type, critical of Western Values, is not fit to be a member of NATO or an ally of the United States. 

CLICK HERE for more on Erdogan’s arch enemy, the Gulen movement.

TURKEY SHOOT

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No we are not talking about bagging a bird for Thanksgiving, we are talking about culling Turkey from the NATO herd. So let’s talk Turkey. The Kurds are Turkey’s biggest problem, a thorn in their site poking away for more than a century. The Turkish War of Independence (1919–22), initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues in Anatolia, resulted in the establishment of the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923. 

From Wikipedia: The country’s official language is Turkish, a Turkic language spoken natively by approximately 85 percent of the population. 70–75 percent of the population are ethnic Turks; the largest minority are the Kurds at roughly 20%, with the remainder consisting of Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Circassians, Arabs, Albanians, Bosniaks, Georgians, and others.

In the latter half of the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks began penetrating into medieval Armenia and the eastern regions ofAnatolia. In 1071, the Seljuks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, starting the Turkification process in the area; the Turkish language and Islam were introduced to Armenia and Anatolia, gradually spreading throughout the region. Today there are more than 120,000 people of different Christian denominations, representing less than 0.2 percent of Turkey’s population. Islam is the dominant religion of Turkey with 99.8 percent of the population being registered as Muslim.

The slow transition from a predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking Anatolia to a predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking one was underway.[58] Alongside the Turkification of the territory, the culturally Persianized Seljuks set the basis for a Turko-Persian principal culture in Anatolia, which their eventual successors, the Ottomans would take over.

The Kurds, a distinct ethnic group, are the largest non-Turkic ethnicity, around 18-25 percent of the population or between fifteen and twenty million. Kurds are concentrated in the east and southeast of the country, in what is also known asTurkish Kurdistan. Unlike the Turkish people, the Kurds speak an Indo-European language. There are Kurds living in all provinces of Turkey, but are primarily concentrated in the east and southeast of the country, the region of Kurdistan. Click here for more on the Kurds.

The Kurdish people are an ethnic group whose origins are in the Middle East. They are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world that do not have a state of their own. The region of Kurdistan, the original geographic region of the Kurdish people and the home to the majority of Kurds today, covers contemporary Turkey, Iran,Iraq, and Syria. This geo-cultural region means “Land of the Kurds”. Iraqi Kurdistan is an autonomous region in northern Iraq, covering 40,643 square kilometres (15,692 sq mi) and has a population of approximately 4 million people. Kurdish populations occupy the territory in and around the Zagros mountains. These arid unwelcoming mountains have been a geographic buffer to cultural and political dominance from neighboring empires. Persians, Arabs, and Ottomans were kept away, and a space was carved out to develop Kurdish culture, language, and identity.

In a nutshell the Kurdish people are an ethnic group whose origins are in the Middle East. They are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world that do not have a state of their own. The region of Kurdistan, the original geographic region of the Kurdish people and the home to the majority of Kurds today, covers contemporary Turkey, Iran,Iraq, and Syria. This geo-cultural region means “Land of the Kurds”. Iraqi Kurdistan is an autonomous region in northern Iraq, covering 40,643 square kilometres (15,692 sq mi) and has a population of approximately 4 million people. Kurdish populations occupy the territory in and around the Zagros mountains. These arid unwelcoming mountains have been a geographic buffer to cultural and political dominance from neighboring empires. Persians, Arabs, and Ottomans were kept away, and a space was carved out to develop Kurdish culture, language, and identity. Counting the Kurds in Turkey there are somewhere between twenty two to thirty million. As a comparison, the Baltic country of Lithuania has approximately three million.

Turkey became a member of NATO in 1949 to cement its ties with the United States. This provided them with a hedge against the Soviet Union. But today Turkey finds itself in a different position. With a almost 100% Muslim population Turkey does not always tow the NATO line. In fact Turkey has thumbed its nose at the Western Powers in their fight against radical Islam. Their president, the diminutive Erdogan is seeking authority to rule by fiat. This is undemocratic and will no play out well with the NATO countries. And of course Turkey is anti Israel, Erdogan is an anti-Israel. In the scheme of things it is time that Turkey get booted from NATO. The sooner the better; having a half friend is like having a no friend. NATO should cull Turkey from the herd before Turkey does more damage in our fight against ISIS, not to mention Turkey being violently against Kurdish separatists who deserve their own country. Erdogan is anti Kurd and will do any thing to stop them from breaking free from Turkish hegemony. If Turkey was not a member of NATO, the United States would arm the Kurds in their goal for independence. 

As had been said before, when the going gets tough it will be very difficult for NATO to depend on the Muslim orientated country of TURKEY.