Welcome to The Kurdish Situation Report, a weekly update on the latest news coming from the four Kurdish regions in Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran. The Kurdish Situation Report is co-produced by the Washington Kurdish Institute and The Kurdish Project.
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Points of interest for December 7th, 2015.
Corresponding locations for this week’s news stories are numbered above.
Syria (Rojava or Western Kurdistan)
1. Fighting has broken out between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Islamic militants in northern Syria. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that more than 20 people have been killed over the past two days.
The fighting is said to be concentrated in northern Syria, in the northern province of Aleppo, near the town of Azaz. Most of the fighting has taken place in the border area, where Turkey is examining the possibility of creating a safe zone to protect civilians and moderate rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
2. A U.S. airstrike hit and destroyed oil wells belonging to Daesh (ISIS) terrorists in Syria. The airstrikes were carried out near the towns of Ain Issa and Mare, Al- Raqqa and Deir al-Zour. Five oil wells were reported to have been destroyed.
3. A photo (posted above), reportedly taken by the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in Syria, shows a Kurdish female fighter destroying a Daesh (ISIS) sign telling women how to dress. The photo, posted to Reddit, was upvoted over 1000 times.
4. A group of young female activists in Rojava started an awareness campaign to reduce instances of early marriages.
Iraq (Bashur or Southern Kurdistan)
5. Turkish military has unilaterally deployed a battalion of troops near Mosul, in northern Iraq. The Turkish military has had troops in northern Iraq since 1997, but Turkish officials claimed that the radical increase of military force is an attempt to counter Daesh (ISIS) in the region.
Furthermore, the battalion is said to support, train and equip the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, and some see the move as an attempt to bolster relations with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq, while countering the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a Kurdish political movement in Turkey, which has headquarters in northern Iraqi mountains, and has been labeled a terrorist group by Turkey.
6. A Kurdish official announced that U.S. heavy weaponry is to be delivered directly to the Kurdish Peshmerga ‘soon.’ The weaponry is said to include humvees, and Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) armored vehicles.
Iran (Rojhelat or Eastern Kurdistan)
7. Kurdish filmmaker, Kayvan Karimi, who was sentenced to six years in prison for including ‘insulting the sacred’ has been granted an appeal to the decision.
On December 1st, 2015, more than 130 Iranian documentary filmmakers signed a statement voicing their support for Karimi. They expressed hope that “this misunderstanding is cleared up and the young filmmaker is acquitted of the accusations against him.”
Karimi’s lawyer, Amir Raeesian, previously stated that the charges of ‘insulting the sacred’ were based on scenes in Karimi’s documentary about the history of graffiti in Tehran, Neveshtan Rooy-e Shahr (Writing on the City).
8. Experts believe that the Iranian government is close to signing an unprecedented oil and gas agreement with Iraqi Kurdistan. The two governments have never had such an agreement, which would expand economic relations, with an emphasis on oil and gas.
Turkey (Bakur or Northern Kurdistan)
9. Selahattin Demirtas, a co-chair of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP), has been listed in Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2015. Demirtas made the list for “dashing Erdogan’s dreams”
10. Thousands of people marched in Diyarbakir (Amed in Kurdish) as an act of solidarity with those who have been forced under curfew in Sur, a district in Diyarbakir.
Reports indicate that more than three people have been killed, and scores more injured, as Turkish police have violently enforced curfews in Sur.
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