KURDISH NEWS WEEKLY BRIEFING, 11 – 17 June 2016
NEWS
- KCK: We will have no talks unless Kurdish existence is clearly recognized
- HDP delegation meets with EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn
- Venice Commission calls curfews in Turkey ‘unconstitutional’
- EU Envoy to Turkey Resigns as Tensions Threaten to Derail Migration Deal
- HDP co-chair condemns terror attacks on civilians
- Ultranationalist group threatens LGBT Pride March in Istanbul
- Turkey’s southeast beginning to resemble Syria
- Russia shows support to Kurdish-led SDF north Syria
- Erdogan slams US support of Syrian Kurds, lectures Washington on ‘good & bad terrorists’
- Turkish President under fire for views on women
- Turkish border guards shoot civilians on border with Syria, two killed
- Turkish gov’t shakes up judiciary with decree shifting more than 3,700 judges, prosecutors
- ‘It is impossible to have peace in Syria without peace in Turkey’
- Arab-Kurd forces cut main Daesh Syria-Turkey supply route
- Iran TV: Revolutionary Guards killed 5 Kurdish separatists
OPINION, COMMENTARY, ANALYSIS
- Cascading Conflicts: U.S. Policy on Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds
- Deniz Gamze Ergüven: ‘For women in Turkey it’s like the middle ages’
- Erdogan links Crusades with present-day terror
- How UN summit disappointed its Turkish hosts
- Renewal of Turkey-Israel Relations Imminent
- This Former Schoolteacher Is Building a U.S. Alliance With Syria’s Kurds
CAMPAIGN
- Turkey : Set Journalism Free
EVENTS
- UNISON CONFERENCE FRINGE MEETING
- Westminster Debate with Can Dundar ‘Quo Vadis Turkiye?’
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NEWS
- KCK: We will have no talks unless Kurdish existence is clearly recognized
16 June 2016 / ANF News
The Executive Council Co-Presidency of the KCK (Kurdistan Communities’ Union) refuted Turkish President Binali Yıldırım’s claim that “PKK conveyed us a demand for talks” amid Turkey’s increasingly highlighted discourses that “We have crushed PKK and we are about to end it”.
- HDP delegation meets with EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn
16 June 2016 / ANF News
A delegation from the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) chaired by co-president Selahattin Demirtaş continues their official talks in Belgium’s capital Brussels. The HDP delegation comprised of HDP co-president Selahatin Demirtaş, deputies Leyla Birlik and Hişyar Özsoy and European representative Eyüp Doru has been having talks with European officials in Brussels since the beginning of this week.
http://anfenglish.com/news/hdp-delegation-meets-with-eu-commissioner-johannes-hahn
- Venice Commission calls curfews in Turkey ‘unconstitutional’
14 June 2016 / Hurriyet Daily News
The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe (CoE) has arrived at the conclusion that curfews imposed in various districts and neighborhoods in Turkey’s Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions since August 2015 were “not constitutional.”
- EU Envoy to Turkey Resigns as Tensions Threaten to Derail Migration Deal
14 June 2016 / The Wall Street Journal
The European Union’s top envoy to Turkey resigned, EU officials said on Tuesday, ending a short, rocky ride as European and Turkish officials grapple with myriad challenges threatening a deal credited for curbing the refugee influx to Europe.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-ambassador-to-turkey-resigns-says-official-1465895974
- HDP co-chair condemns terror attacks on civilians
16 June 2016 / Hurriyet Daily News
The co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has condemned terror acts against civilians, while calling on the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), an outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)-affiliated group which carried out several recent attacks, to dissolve itself.
- Ultranationalist group threatens LGBT Pride March in Istanbul
15 June 2016 / Hurriyet Daily News
The Alperen Hearths, an ultranationalist youth organization linked to the nationalist Great Union Party (BBP), has threatened the LGBT Pride March set to take place on June 26 in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, vowing to prevent the march from taking place.
- Turkey’s southeast beginning to resemble Syria
13 June 2016 / Al Monitor
A recent photo of the Turkish town of Nusaybin and its Syrian neighbor Qamishli across the border was circulated widely on social media June 5, and it went viral in no time. The photo appeared only in daily Cumhuriyet under the headline “Nusaybin leveled.” In the background of the photo, which was taken from a high building in Nusaybin, an abandoned city was captured with buildings full of holes caused by artillery rounds and roads blocked by rubble. In the foreground about 30 Turkish soldiers are seen moving through a town square covered by dust and debris, protected by six armored vehicles and massive Turkish flags hanging from the destroyed buildings lining the square.
- Russia shows support to Kurdish-led SDF north Syria
14 June 2016 / ARA News
The Russian government seem to support a recent offensive of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to retake Manbij city from ISIS, and to stop ISIS fighters from organizing attacks on European territory.
http://aranews.net/2016/06/russia-shows-support-kurdish-led-sdf-north-syria/
- Erdogan slams US support of Syrian Kurds, lectures Washington on ‘good & bad terrorists’
12 June 2016 / RT
Turkey has criticized Washington over its active support of the Kurdish fighting force in Syria, branding the People’s Protection Units (YPG) as terrorists despite their latest successful advances on ISIS jihadists’ positions.
https://www.rt.com/news/346261-erdogan-washington-kurds-terrorists/
- Turkish President under fire for views on women
12 June 2016
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s renewed call for the country’s women to forgo birth control and have at least three children has drawn ire from women’s rights advocates and is being questioned by Islamic scholars and political experts.
https://citizentv.co.ke/news/turkish-president-under-fire-for-views-on-women-129991/
- Turkish border guards shoot civilians on border with Syria, two killed
13 June 2016 / ARA News
Turkey’s border police on Sunday opened fire on a number of Syrian civilians who were trying to cross the border illegally, escaping the ongoing war in Syria, local sources reported.
http://aranews.net/2016/06/turkish-border-guards-shoot-civilians-border-syria-two-killed/
- Turkish gov’t shakes up judiciary with decree shifting more than 3,700 judges, prosecutors
7 June 2016 / Hurriyet Daily News
Turkey has witnessed a wave of resuhuffle in the judiciary, one of the most extensive decrees in the history of the modern Turkish Republic, with the government replacing more than 3,700 judges and prosecutors, at a time when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has yet to ratify a bill stripping scores of lawmakers of their legislative immunity from prosecution.
- ‘It is impossible to have peace in Syria without peace in Turkey’
11 June 2016 / The Irish Times
One of Turkey’s leading politicians says the war in Syria will continue unless unrest between Kurdish separatists and Turkey is first resolved. The co-chair of the Kurdish-rooted Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas says an “ethnic civil war” could break out in Turkey as divisions between Kurds and Turks grow.
- Arab-Kurd forces cut main Daesh Syria-Turkey supply route
17 June 2016 / Gulf News
BEIRUT: Arab-Kurdish fighters backed by the US on Friday cut the Daesh militant group’s main supply route between Syria and Turkey, a monitor said, in a major setback for the terrorists.
- Iran TV: Revolutionary Guards killed 5 Kurdish separatists
13 June 2016 / The Washington Post
TEHRAN, Iran — A firefight between Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards and Kurdish militants in western Iran left five militants dead, Iran’s state TV reported on Monday.
OPINION, COMMENTARY, ANALYSIS
- Cascading Conflicts: U.S. Policy on Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds
14 June 2016 / Bipartisan Policy Center
In the fight against ISIS, U.S. policymakers have been increasingly confounded by the fact that two crucial allies, Turkey and the Kurds, are locked in a violent conflict on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border. While Washington’s plans for defeating ISIS rely on airbases in Turkey and Kurdish troops in Syria, the Turkish government continues to insist that Washington’s Syrian Kurdish partners are no different from the Kurdish terrorists against which it is fighting at home. In the absence of a more effective U.S. plan for addressing the situation, Turkey’s domestic conflict now threatens to not only undermine the war against ISIS but also destabilize Turkey, damage U.S.-Turkish relations, and prolong the Syrian conflict.
- Deniz Gamze Ergüven: ‘For women in Turkey it’s like the middle ages’
15 May 2016 / The Guardian
Not too long after the film Mustang was released in Turkey last October, its director and co-writer, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, was interviewed by the Nobel prize-winning writer Orhan Pamuk. “He was curious about how I’d lived through its reception,” she says, with a characteristically wide-eyed smile. “Well, I was gloomy. I explained how I’d been attacked. I’d had some very aggressive, negative critiques there [in Turkey], the kind of thing I hadn’t received anywhere else. So I loved his response. First of all, he said that lots of people around him had seen it, and liked it. Then he said: ‘But you will be attacked.’ And he explained why. After all, he knows: he’s had plenty of violent criticism himself. ‘Don’t get depressed,’ he told me. What he was saying was: keep going.”
- Erdogan links Crusades with present-day terror
12 June 2016 / Al Monitor
Cengiz Candar reports Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bizarre remark at an iftar dinner on the second day of Ramadan, where he said, “Those who came with aspirations of occupying Istanbul now are using the terrorist organization as a tool. They wish to complete their unfulfilled dreams at the time of the Crusades, today with terror.”
- How UN summit disappointed its Turkish hosts
10 June 2016 / Al Monitor
On May 27, Al-Monitor ran a vivid report about the massive destruction from Turkish security operations in the country’s mainly Kurdish southeast. The story described how people gathered on tall buildings in Diyarbakir’s ancient district of Sur, hoping to locate their homes intact in devastated neighborhoods that are still off-limits to residents, while others scrambled to recover usable belongings or the bodies of relatives. According to the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), at least 550 civilians have been killed and 350,000 people displaced since July 2015, when Ankara launched a massive crackdown to purge Kurdish militants entrenched in residential areas across the southeast.
- Renewal of Turkey-Israel Relations Imminent
13 June 2016 / LobeLog
Turkey and Israel will likely normalize diplomatic relations in the next few months or sooner. The media in Turkey and Israel have reported that the two countries will soon exchange ambassadors—the point at which normalization would be formalized. Trade, military, business, and academic ties already exist.
http://lobelog.com/renewal-of-turkey-israel-relations-imminent/#
- This Former Schoolteacher Is Building a U.S. Alliance With Syria’s Kurds
10 June 2016 / Bloomberg View
Sinam Mohamed does not look like the kind of woman who would have much influence over America’s quiet war in Syria. But this soft-faced former English teacher has emerged as a crucial liaison between the Barack Obama administration and the largely Kurdish army fighting alongside U.S. special operators to encircle the Islamic State’s capital at Raqqa.
CAMPAIGN
- Turkey : Set Journalism Free
http://europeanjournalists.org/campaigns/turkey-set-journalists-free/
EVENTS
- UNISON CONFERENCE FRINGE MEETING
Support Peace Negotiations in Turkey and Support Rojava
Tuesday 21 June 12.30-2pm
Buckingham Suite, Hilton Brighton Metropole Hotel, Kings Road, Brighton, BN1 2FU
https://peaceinkurdistancampaign.com/2016/06/17/support-the-free-ocalan-campaign-at-the-unison-conference/
- Westminster Debate with Can Dundar ‘Quo Vadis Turkiye?’
8 June 2016 / Centre for Turkey Studies
The Centre for Turkey Studies (CEFTUS) is delighted to invite you to a Westminster Debate with keynote speaker renowned journalist and author Mr Can Dundar.
The event will take place on Wednesday 29 June 2016, between 7.00PM and 9.00PM in Committee Room 10, House of Commons. Please note that security checks are required to enter the House of Commons, so we kindly ask you to arrive at 6.30PM, allowing the event to start and end promptly on time.
http://ceftus.org/2016/06/08/westminster-debate-with-can-dundar-quo-vadis-turkiye/
Peace in Kurdistan
Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question
Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk
www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.com
Contacts Estella Schmid 020 7586 5892 & Melanie Gingell – Tel: 020 7272 7890
Patrons: Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford, Jill Evans MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Hywel Williams MP, Kate Osamor MP, Elfyn Llwyd, Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy, John Austin, Christine Blower, NUT International Secretary, Simon Dubbins. UNITE International Director Bruce Kent, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, John Berger, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Prof Mary Davis, Dr Thomas Jeffrey Miley, Mark Thomas, Nick Hildyard, Stephen Smellie, Derek Wall, Melanie Gingell