English woman wants to stop ethnic-cleansing of Syrian Kurds

Sheila Mosley was born in Zimbabwe, but her parents are from Yorkshire in the UK. Together with the Syrian Kurd Khalaf Dahowd, she has chosen to promote the situation of Kurds from Syria as co-chair of the International Support Kurds in Syria Association.

English woman wants to stop ethnic-cleansing of Syrian Kurds

More on Syria here.

Kawa Rashid, spokesman of the Syrian Kurdish Unity party in Brussels reacted to a recent Today’s Zaman report suggesting more rights for Syria’s Kurds. “The Syrian regime is not be trusted, because we see other things happening in Syria”

Kurdish candidates for Iraqi elections

Despite the delayed Iraqi elections, Rudaw published the names of the candidates.

Husyar Zebari for Mosul
Pshtiwan Sadiq for Hawler
Sarbast Lazgin for Duhok
Muhammad Amin for Baghdad
Karwan Qadir for Sulaimani
Hashm Abdullah for Kirkuk
Khasro Goran for Mosul

29 KDP candidates: among them Hosyar Zebari, Sami Shorsh, Mullah Omer Chingiani and Jula Haji.
39 PUK candidates: Among them Dr. Foad Maasum, Dr. Najmaddin Karim, Jamal Abdul, Saady Ahmad Pira, Friad Rwandzi and Dr. Saman Fawzi.
28 candidates for the Change list.
24 candidates for the Islamic Union of Kurdistan
10 candidates for the Islamic Group Kurdistan (Komal) headed by Ali Bapir
10 candidates for Kurdish minority groups

(C) Rudaw

Iraq expert concerned about Galbraith’s role in Iraq

Reidar Visser is the editor of the Iraq website historiae.org, a member of the Gulf Research Unit at the University of Oslo and a research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs which is funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the Norwegian Ministry of Education. According to Iraq expert Reidar Visser, Galbraith's dual role in Iraq and Kurdistan appears to have broken no laws, but it does raise ethical questions.

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Kurdish president asks for EU support

By Wladimir van Wilgenburg

Brussels - The Kurdish president Massoud Barzani embarked on a diplomatic visit to Brussels on Tuesday. The president asked Europe for support and emphasized that the Regional Kurdistan Government (KRG) maintains good relations with the Turkish government.

Massoud Barzani was received by EU MPS Fiorello Provers and Struan Stevenson and Jim McEvoy from the EU Protocol department. The Kurdish president held a speech about the role of the Kurdistan region in Iraq and said he is proud on the role his people played in democracy and free elections, compared to the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

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Update: France & PKK

My 'analysis' was used in a new article on the PKK and France. Representatives of Kurdish organizations say the actions against Kurdish organizations is 'political' and related to Turkish involvement. They make a point, considering the Turkish talks with French officials on the PKK issue.

PARIS–Kurds in Paris are protesting that they are being harassed by police as authorities push to track down members of a Kurdish separatist terrorist organisation.

PKK commander Murat Karayilan told the think tank Jamestown, “France is giving Turkey a message: ‘Don’t be scared, I’m attacking the PKK in my own country and you can have your war against the PKK. We will be at your back and supporting you.’”

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AKP attacked for Kurdish initiative

Because of it's Kurdish initiative, anti-AKP groups are saying the AKP is working together with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The CHP-leader said the AKP is collaborating with Ocalan, as a way to score cheap points. There were several demonstrations against the AKP in Turkey. As a result the govt didn't let the last PKK group turn back to Turkey out of fear of losing votes. Also the PKK 'peace' group declared that the AKP should show a stronger will and ignore the ultranationalist policies of the MHP and CHP.

Although it's possible there were some indirect talks between the PKK and the gov't, it's ridiculous to claim that the AKP and PKK are working together. The PKK is not very suspicious about the AKP government. And also the pro-Kurdish DTP party is not very pro-AKP. DTP MP Tugluk even proposed an alliance between Kemalists and Kurds against the 'Islamic threat' in an op-ed piece in the leftwing newspaper Radikal, owned by the Dogan group (which was fined by the tax authorities).



Anyway, some cartoons about this can be found here.

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Opposition agitating Kurdish-Turkish conflict

Turkey focusing on France again

Turkey is trying to convince France of combating the Kurdistan Workers Party. For some EU countries combating the PKK is not a priority and they turn a blind eye to PKK activities as long as they don't threat the social order and stability in the country. Despite of this, there have been sporadic arrests some EU countries and some actions against PKK organizations.

Especially Germany took measures to criminalize the PKK's organizations and shut down PKK's media activities. French security forces have detained around 40 alleged PKK members since last June. The senior PKK leader Murat Karayilan warned France that this could disappoint Kurds. According to the PKK, the goal of France and Germany is to keep Turkey busy with fighting in order to stop Turkey's possible EU membership. Pro-PKK organizations demonstrated against the arrests.

Pro-Kurdish organizations often protest in the French city of Strasbourgh, because it's the seat of several European institutions such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union.

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Turkey is getting ready to host a critical summit, with Chief Constable of France due in attendance next month.

The visit became more important after French police raided the center of a terrorist organization and businessman Cem Uzan took shelter in France.

Turkish chief of police, Oguz Kagan Koksal, will submit a detailed file to his counterpart including activities of the PKK in France, its financial sources and a file regarding the extradition of Cem Uzan, leader of the Young Party.

Hurriyet

More about Kurds and France here.

Kurds start campaign for children in Turkey

Kurdish HR organizations created a campaign called 'Justice for Children' . According to the Kurdish Centre for Human Rights: "Kurdish children have been the biggest victims of this ongoing war. It has fallen on their weak shoulders to have lived in such a violent time."

The petition was started by the 'Justice for Children Initiative' which was created after the arrest of 700 children during pro-PKK demonstrations in Diyarbakir on 28 March 2006. The initiative also created a 'dossier on children' which was posted on PKK sites. The reports also contains statistics on killed Kurdish children between 1989-2009 based on press reports of the pro-PKK news agency ANF and Turkish media.

The Turkish AKP-government promised new measures to prevent Kurdish children being jailed as part of the 'Kurdish initiative'.

Police Superintendent, Dr. Ali Dikici presented a different policy on the website of the Turkish army to prevent 'children from joining the PKK'. He emphasised that a military strategy is not enough to end the conflict and says community policing should be implemented in Kurdish regions to prevent children from supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

But despite the promised efforts of the government, new policies by the Turkish police or campaigns of Kurdish human rights organizations, it's unlikely that Kurdish children can be left out of the conflict between the state and the PKK.

Dutch choir can also sing in Kurdish

On 10 October the Kurdish Cultural Centrum organized a multicultural concert in the Dutch city of Leiden in cooperation with popular Kurdish artists like Nasir Rezazi. The Kurdish audience was surprised seeing Dutch people singing in Kurdish, after having suffered decades of cultural oppression.

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Example of PKK's PR campaign

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) propaganda as expected, the state also used civilian casualties of the PKK (in the past PKK targeted village guards and their families) as propaganda for legitimizing violence and support for the 'war effort'. For instance in delegitimizing the PKK as an 'evil terrorist movement'. The PKK has the same strategy against the Turkish state and now to delegitimize the initiative of the Turkish government and get more support of the Kurdish youth. The same goes for islamist non-state actors:

What key images, phrases, and motifs are most often aimed at these young people to get them to join these new terrorist networks? And which of these are the most effective?

What triggers moral outrage among Muslims, as it would for any other person, is the image of a moral violation against a person with whom they empathize. These images are projected by the media, like Al Jazeera. They are part of reporting of events, and as such they are not directed at people. They are just the news. The rage they cause helps fuel the desire to get back at the violators on the screen.

Foreign Policy: Marc Sageman, The next generation of terror.

*Marc Sageman, author of Understanding Terror Networks, is a former CIA case officer. From 1986 to 1989 he worked with Islamic fundamentalists on a daily basis during the Afghan-Soviet war.