Archives Kurds - Page 3 of 3 - New Eastern Outlook

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…