OP/ED

Denying a Nation The Right to Speak Through Its Members: The Case of the Kurdish Students at Loughborough University
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In the New Iraq, Symbols Matter
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The New President : Tongue Slips or Wrong Judgments?
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Two Irreconcilable Visions of Iraq

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This is Turkey
 Ahmet Abidin . April 28, 2005

Teaching old dogs new tricks
 Aram Tofi . April 16, 2005

Twisted Turkey
 Adil Al-baghdadi . April 14, 2005

Mr. Talabani as President, a Triumph or a defeat for the Kurds?
Mirza Nammo . April 9, 2005

Fein Of Washington Times Speaking On Behalf Of The Turkish Regime

Diyako Medya. April 9, 2005


 

April 29, 2005

• News Snapshot

“The PKK's goal has been to establish an independent, democratic Kurdish state in Southeast Turkey, northern Iraq and parts of Iran and Syria,” the U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism said.

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Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said that Iraq's neighboring countries have managed to devise a common and principled policy in dealing with Iraq and underlined the view that had they acted in the manner of Europe in dealing with the former Yugoslavia, there would not be a “one Iraq” today. “That is our biggest contribution to Iraq,” he said, adding, “Europe should take lessons from us.”

April 28, 2005

• After Decades as Nonpersons, Syrian Kurds May Soon Be Recognized

• Failure To Convene Kurdish parliament Anger Kurds

• Armenian journalist on trial in Turkey for "insulting Turks"

• Jalal Talabani's Letter to Blair

April 24, 2005

• U.S. Urges Iraqi Politicians To Break Deadlock

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, on Friday to ask him to finish forming a government as soon as possible, two State Department officials said Monday. More

• Talabani: We The Kurds Will Never Accept The Establishment Of An Islamic Regime

• News Snapshot

Turkey said on Monday it would fight mounting international pressure to recognize as genocide the mass $ killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire.  "There was no genocide. An all-out effort is needed to expose the lies of those who say it happened," said Turkey's Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, reported AFP

April 24, 2005

• U.S. Believed helping Kurdish In Eastern Kurdistan

• Turkey: Behind The EU Window Dressing

• 'Turtles' Director Won't Let Kurdish Refugees Be Forgotten

April 23, 2005

• Kurds' Leaders Said to Attempt to Block Shiite

• Armenians look to Bush to step up pressure on Turkey over 1915 'genocide'

April 22, 2005

• Talabani Presidency of Arab Iraq

• Mine-hunters lowly Clear Saddam's Legacy

• Re-Emergence of Discredited Ilisu Dam Project

• Local Kurdish Broadcast Requests Ignored

• Kurdish Publisher Honored In New York

April 18, 2005

• News Snapshot



Iraq's new President has said the insurgency could be ended immediately if the authorities made use of Kurdish, Shia Muslim and other militias. Jalal Talabani said this would be more effective than waiting for Iraqi forces to take over from the US-led

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Seven Kurdish civilians working on a US military base were kidnapped late Sunday in central Iraq after leaving work, a police chief told AFP. Armed men seized the seven Kurds after stopping their bus as they travelled home from the base in the Mansuria region to Khanaqin, some 180 kilometres (110 miles) northeast of Baghdad.

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On Friday, a prominent Sunni Muslim cleric urged Talabani to follow through on the amnesty pledge. In his weekly sermon, Sheik Ahmad Abdul-Ghafoor Samarrai, a cleric in the influential Muslim Scholars Assn., said Talabani should free all Iraqi detainees and refuse to "obey and kneel to pressure" from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

 

April 17, 2005

• Terrorist or freedom fighter?

• Bush Cancels Water Project In Halabja

"If the Americans think that training the Iraqi Army comes before clean drinking water for the people of Halabja," he said quietly, "then we can't expect anything from them."  More

April 16, 2005

• News Snapshot

A Kurdish television journalist was shot dead Friday in the  city of Kirkuk in Southern kurdistan, reported AFP. Shamal  Assad, who worked for the PUK TV station, was gunned down by armed men in a car lot, said police Colonel Adel Ibrahim.

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Almost a third of the members of Iraq's new parliament are women, one of the highest proportions in the world, but that doesn't mean full-blown Western-style rights are at hand. Many of the women are conservatives who want Islamic law to enforce the veil and all that goes with it. The conservatives' power "might cause a problem in$the future, especially when$ we will start debating women's rights such as dress code and whether they should wear the veil or not," said Ala Noori Talabani, a secular Kurdish lawmaker, reported AP

 

April 14, 2005

• News Snapshot

Dr. Mahmoud Osman said Massoud Barzani's presidency over Kurdistan Region was a historic requirement for the Kurds. Osman added that Barzani has expressed his approval to accept the position.

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Zengene, a Kurdish Alliance official said in a press statement that about 100,000 peshmerga will be located in free parts of Southern Kurdistan according to the agreement between the Shiite and Kurdish Alliances. The peshmerga will be in command as border guards, national guards, and as the police.

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Falah Mustafa Bakir, Minister of$State in the Kurdistan Regional Government, described his week long visit to London, during which he met Baroness Symons, the British Foreign Office Minister, as "a success and another step towards deepening the long-established relations between Kurdistan and Great Britain". Fron KRG

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Presidents Ahmet Necdet Sezer of Turkey and Syria's Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday agreed to boost links between their countries despite US pressure for Ankara to keep its distance from Damascus. Turkey and Syria will "develop cooperation and bilateral relations in all economic and commercial domains", Sezer said after meeting Assad in Damascus, reported AFP.

April 13, 2005

• News Snapshot

The US Defense Secretary  Rumsfeld flew by helicopter to Southern Kurdistan and the mountain resort of Salahaddin where he held talks with the KDP leader Massoud Barzani.  Rumsfeld said he came to Kurdistan personally to thank Barzani for his long$record of cooperation with the United States and his help in defeating Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime, reported AP

April 11, 2005

• No Longer Your Iraq

• Arms Are Being Smuggled Into Turkey, Warns Dogan

"Some reliable sources are informing us that, every week around three or four full truck full of arms are being brought into Turkey, and no one knows about their final destination," said Dogan, spokesman for the Democratic Movement Society. "A recent report in your newspaper warned about far-right cells getting ready for attacks against Kurds in Anatolia. I personally think that MHP is also involved in that dangerous course of events.  More

• News Snapshot

Talabani: For 50 years, I have worked actively for an alliance between Kurds and Arabs and deployed tremendous efforts to establish good relations with leaders in the western world and in the Arab world. We are keen to revive Iraq's real Arab and international role, bearing in mind that Iraq is a founding member of the Arab League. Iraq will play an effective Arab role by consolidating Arab solidarity and security and taking part with its Arab brothers in efforts to find a solution to crucial issues that as the Palestinian one. From AFP

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A man who was an intelligence officer in the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein committed suicide after news that Jalal Talabani was sworn in as President of$Iraq. Captain Hatem Ahmad al-Shallal shot himself in the village of Daqouq, 60 kilometres south of Kirkuk, the source quoted al-Shallal's relatives as saying, reported www.smh.com.au

April 10, 2005

• Speech of Nechirvan Barzani to Kurdish Women’s International Conference

• Press On Talabani's New Job

• Opening The Mind Through Cinema

• News Snapshot

Marking the two year anniversary since U.S. troops took control of Baghdad and toppled Saddam Hussein's statue, supporters of a militant Shiite cleric filled the capital's streets Saturday and demanded that their American invaders go home, shouting "No! No, to Satan!"

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Breaking the deadlock over forming Iraq’s interim government came down, in the end, to a simple compromise: Kurds dropped their immediate demand that the oil-rich city of Kirkuk be added to autonomous region of Southern Kurdistan, and Shiite Arabs said they wouldn’t insist on dismantling peshmerga, reported the Christian Science Monitor

April 9, 2005

• Talabani Expects Constitution By August

• Two Views on Kurdish Iraqi Leader

• News Snapshot

Talabani's election led to spontaneous celebrations across Eastern Kurdistan on Wednesday, with hundreds pouring into streets, dancing and waving Kurdish flags, said an Iranian Internet news site (www.baztab.com). "Some 40 Kurds were arrested and 11 policemen were injured during the clashes between people and police, reported Reuters

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Jaafari refused to go into details over the government line-up but one of his senior aides Maliki said the UIA, with 146 of the 275 Parliament seats will have the all-important ministries of finance, interior and oil. He said their Kurdish coalition partners may get the Planning Ministry as a consolation for oil which they had been fighting to clinch, reported Reuters

April 6, 2005

• Bullet-Riddled Body Of Child Casts Shadow Over Turkey's EU Aspirations

"Even though the laws are changing, the people who are supposed to implement those laws in daily life are still working in the same old way," said Huseyin Cangir, the head of the Human Rights Association and the Kaymaz family lawyer. "Turkey is trying to be a law-based state. But what we still have is a police state."  More

• Saddam sees new president's election

• Leyla Zana Calls On Ankara For Rebel Amnesty

• Kurds Lose Again in Negotiations with Arab Iraq

• Talabani To Be Named Iraq President

• Two Irreconcilable Visions of Iraq

When asked recently what if the Kurds decided to go their way, Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari said, “We will not allow [emphasis added] them.”  Notice the ease with which Mr. al-Jaafari falls back on the language of tyranny; even though he spent a good many years in the democratic West, he still cannot bring himself to say, “We’ll try to persuade them not to do so.”  Or listen to these words from Ayad Allawi’s representative, Abdul Fahd al-Isawi: “Kirkuk has never and never will be a Kurdish city.”  There is more than an echo of Saddam here; it is a view shared readily by a great many in the Arab side. More

April 4, 2005

• News Snapshot

The body of a Kurdish army officer was discovered by the main traffic roundabout in the Yarmuk district of Mosul. Lieutenant Colonel Ziro Khalil Yunis was shot once in the stomach. He was in civilian clothing and carried Iraqi army and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan identification cards, reported AFP today

April 3, 2005

• News Snapshot
In an open ballot yesterday, the members of the 275-seat Iraqi National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to elect Hajem al-Hassani, the current industry minister, as speaker. Also, Shia's Hussain Shahristani and KDP's Arif Tayfor were elected deputy speakers.

• Al Jaafari Asks Blair to Help End Stalemate in Shiite-Kurd Talks

"We have had a series of meetings with the British Foreign Office and with Tony Blair's office in the last couple of weeks they understand our position. We said, frankly, international pressure needs to be put on the Kurds. They know that, now it is up to them,"    More

 

Why Don't We Have a "Country" Yet?

Mr. Talabani as President, a Triumph or a defeat for the Kurds?

 

 

 

 
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