Category Archives: Turkey

Atatürkian Ideology Remains Toxic for Turkey

By Ali Aziz: Summary: The succession of crises in Turkey reflects its shaky foundations. Ataturkian ideology[1] holds that there is no such thing as a distinct Kurdish people, but this ideology undermines the strength of the state and its true philosophy from the beginning. In his 1991 book Turkey and the Middle East, Philip Robbins called…

Turkish State Seeks to Annihilate Kurdish Aspirations

By Arian Mufid: As the PKK enters its 42nd year of guerrilla warfare against the Turkish state, Erdogan continues to use their resistance as an excuse to install the Turkish military junta in the Kurdistan Regional Government. 1984, 1986 and 1987 saw several attacks made against the PKK by the Turkish military. However, the PKK…

The Failures of the Turkish State to Move Away From Genocidal Policies

By Arian Mufid: Turkish leaders have occasionally boasted about learning from their violent history of grave injustice towards indigenous minorities, however ‘Operation, Claw-lock’ (endorsed by the Kurdish KDP) has exposed how empty those claims are. On the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and following Turkey’s latest military operation in Kurdistan, it is worth reflecting on…

COP26 Can Stop Turkish Aggression Against Rojava

By Arian Mufid: With many world leaders gathered in Glasgow for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), can they not stop the Turkish plan to invade Rojava, the North of Syria Kurdish enclave? The news of the last few days is that the Turkish military state has approved the attack and invasion of Rojava….

AKP Party and Kurdish Issue in Turkey

By Arian Mufid: During Erdogan’s recent US visit he addressed Turkish media outlets stating that there isn’t any problem in Turkey regarding the Kurds; “I’ve said this dozens of times before and will say it again: There is no Kurdish issue in Turkey. We are here to defeat terrorism in all forms.” Expanding upon the…

HDP MP Gergerlioğlu Still Detained, Despite Constitutional Court Ruling – Now His Son Arrested Too

KT News: Despite the 1 July ruling by the Constitutional Court of Turkey that HDP MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu should be released from jail, the MP is still being detained and today his son was arrested when police attacked a Justice Watch vigil outside the Ankara Sincan Prison where his father is being held. HDP…

Turkey’s Imperialist Aggression Strategy is an Historical Blunder

By Arian Mufid: Much like the Ottoman Empire, the new Turkish military state is forcing itself on nations in the Middle East by way of bullying and intimidation. Western powers have failed to challenge this and have instead facilitated the Turkish military state’s aggression into countries such as Iraq, Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan. History offers…

Turkey’s Top Court Upholds Selahattin Demirtas’ Jail Sentence As Kobane Show Trial Begins

KT News: On the same day as the opening session, on Monday, of the ‘Kobane Trial’ of 108 members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the Turkish Court of Cassation decided to uphold a four-year eight-month sentence against Selahattin Demirtaş, the imprisoned HDP former co-chair. HDP deputy Ümit Dede said yesterday that the timing…

PKK Should Realise Their Armed Struggle is Futile

By Arian Mufid: When Abdullah Ocalan the leader of the PKK was captured in Nairobi, Kenya with the help of all the international intelligence services including the CIA, Syrian Mukhabarat, Mossad, and the MIT, the Turkish military junta managed to jail him since February 1999. Since then, Ocalan has issued several books and diaries on…

Gebze Women’s Closed Prison – Political Prisoners Distress Call

By Gül Güzel: 45 arrested and convicted women, whose names I kept secret, wrote from Gebze Prison in Turkey. On the occasion of the Corona pandemic, detainees and convicts all over the world were released from prisons and in Turkey as well… However, political prisoners and convicts were excluded from this practice, other criminals were…

Turkey and Erdogan’s Dream of Empire

By Arian Mufid: Erdogan is going between west and east with his aggression. He looks at the past and thinks he can revive the Ottoman Empire in the region. What is going on in Turkey today is related to his personality and the way he was brought up in Turkey. This is a most important…

The Endless Cycles of Betrayals and Killings of the Kurds

By Dr. M. Koohzad: After the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in WWI (1914 – 1918), European victors dissected the world’s most potent Muslim Empire. In the middle of the Great War, the Allies predicted the result of the conflict and planned to take over by signing the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement. The two, a…

KRG Compliance with Turkish Invasion

By Arian Mufid: It is under Erdogan’s rule that Turkey is at risk of MSCI downgrade to ‘frontier’ market status, despite ranking as the world’s 20th largest economy, due to the devaluation of the lira and overall bad economic situation. This means that the MSCI index is registering increasingly large outflows of capital and Turkey…

Interview with Hisyar Ozsoy of the HDP on COVID-19 and its Consequences in Turkey

Dr. Jeff Miley interviews Dr. Hisyar Ozsoy, Member of Parliament and Co-Spokesperson of International Affairs for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), about the social and political consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in North Kurdistan and the rest of Turkey, and about the response of the Kurdish freedom movement.   Jeff Miley is a Lecturer of…

Open Letter From Women To Kurdish Leaders

Open Letter from Women to: – Mr. Masoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) – Ms. Bese Hozat and Mr. Cemil Bayik, Co-Chairs of the Executive Council of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) – Mr. Lahur Talabani and Mr. Bafel Talabani, Co-Presidents of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) “Kurdistan should not become a battleground…