Most politicians and experts would agree that over the past 15-20 years relations between Turkey and Iraq, even leaving aside the historic Mosul issue, have had their ups and downs, mainly as a result of three different problems. The first of these is Turkey’s military presence in Iraqi Kurdistan, the second is the sharing of water resources in trans-boundary rivers, and finally there is the issue of Kurdish…

Turkey is planning a massive ground operation in Northern Iraq with the aim of liquidating the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq, which it designates as a terrorist organisation. According to Hürriyet, a publication with close ties to the Turkish government, the operation is scheduled for this summer and will be supported by the intelligence services in Baghdad and Erbil, which will also take measures against PKK activity in Sulaymaniye and Sinjar. The operation aims to close off the Turkish-Iraqi border completely…

Kurds and Turkey have been at loggerheads since the inception of the country after the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. Kurds make up the largest minority of Turkey, as they comprise 1/5^th of the nation’s 79 million population. Kurds have a total population of 30 million in different regions of the Middle East, mostly living in the bordering areas of Turkey, Iraq, Armenia, Iran, and Syria. They have been perennially attempting to gain an autonomous state comprising this border region…

Sweden, like Germany and Great Britain, has a large Kurdish community (about 100-150 thousand people). As is known, the formation of the Kurdish diaspora in this Scandinavian country began in the 1970s and further migration flows intensified in the 1980s-1990s and 2000s due to the fighting and repression in Turkey, as well as the occupation of Iraq. The Kurdish diaspora is quite politically active and well-integrated in Sweden, and is represented by six members in the local parliament…

Turkey considers the Kurdish issue among the priority threats to its national security. In this regard, the formation of a Kurdish autonomy in the territory of south-east Turkey is perceived by Ankara as an existential threat to internal security, as well as the possibility of such autonomies (and especially an independent Kurdistan) in the territory of neighboring countries (in particular, in Syria, Iraq and Iran) threatens to the Turkey’s external security. Actually, it is also not clear where tens of millions of Kurds should move to from the territories they have inhabited for many centuries…

The Kurdish issue remains a key threat to Turkey’s internal and external security. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), banned and recognised as a terrorist organisation in Turkey, somehow continues its actions against Turkish forces in northern Syria and Iraq, which is used by Ankara to conduct local military operations in neighbouring countries to suppress the resistance of Kurdish forces and destroy their military facilities. As it became known from mass media, on 22 and 23 December this year, 12 Turkish servicemen were killed as a result of attacks of PKK militants on a Turkish…

On June 3, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was sworn in as president of Turkey for another five-year term. The inauguration and the subsequent ceremony, attended by approximately 80 international and regional leaders, suggested that a significant change in Turkey’s foreign policy priorities may be under way. Observers have predicted that the Turkish president is likely to continue with his recent policy of “neutralizing” problems abroad and strengthening partnerships with other countries in the region. On May 31, several days after his election victory, he declared: “Our goal is to establish a belt of security & peace from Europe to Black Sea…