Tag: Bashur (Kurdistan Region of Iraq) (Total 20)

The Iraqi Kurdish Ministry of Peshmerga issued a sharp rebuke of Turkey’s defence minister after he flatly denied the existence of Kurdistan, Kurdish-outlet Rudaw English reported on Sunday.

In a Facebook post, the Peshmerga ministry wrote that Hulusi Akars comments were “surprising” given his high rank within the Turkish government and his experience with Iraqi Kurdistan in particular where Turkey has good relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil, Iraq.

Kurdistan does not exist in or outside of Turkey, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said, news website Duvar reported on Tuesday.

The defence chief’s comments came in response to opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Deputy Tülay Hatimoğulları mentioned during budget hearings recent allegations that Turkey’s armed forces were using chemical weapons in the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.

Israel has been a strategic supporter of the Kurds for many decades, even speaking out on the ethnic group’s behalf after the recent Turkish incursion into Syria. Now, though, some Kurds are saying actions speak louder than words

A court in Munich sentenced a German woman to 10 years in prison for the crime against humanity of letting a Yazidi child die of thirst in Mosul.

Turkey has resumed cutting down trees in Duhok province months after they suspended the practice, according to local sources. Villagers have threatened to protest at Turkish military bases if the deforestation continues.

On 24 April 2021 Turkey launched another military invasion in northern Iraq, an area controlled by Kurds. The invasion, which is apparently still in progress, is reported to involve chemical attacks. The use of chemical weapons is a war crime and a breach of international law. Chemical weapons qualify as weapons of mass destruction.

According to international media reports, the invasion and the chemical attacks have forced Kurdish civilians to flee their villages. There is also a risk that civilians could be injured or killed. These attacks breach international law and bring to mind Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria, which led to an occupation.

Iraq had not given Turkey authorisation for its troops to enter the country. Iraq’s foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, has said that Turkish forces entered the country illegally, in violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.

In the light of the foregoing, I should like to ask the European External Action Service (EEAS) the following questions:

1. Is the EEAS aware of these reports?

2. Is the EEAS intending to condemn Turkey’s military invasion of northern Iraq and use of chemical weapons, and will the EEAS be taking further action against Turkey bilaterally and within the EU?

3. How is the EEAS intending to counter Turkey’s attack on Kurdish parts of Iraq?

Footage sent exclusively to the Morning Star purported to show the aftermath of a chemical attack, which officials said took place in the Avashin region of the mountainous Duhok province on May 3.

TURKISH jets continued to pound Kurdish villages in Qandil and other parts of Iraqi Kurdistan today, amid growing demands for investigations over its alleged use of chemical weapons.

Missiles struck a number of villages in simultaneous attacks at around 10.30am local time, according to eyewitnesses, although no casualties were reported.

Salih Kado said that the occupying powers of Kurdistan agree to exterminate the Kurds because their economic and political interests are intertwined. He stressed that Turkey’s use of chemical weapons is part of the failed policy and a reaction to the defeat.

Secretary-General of the Syrian Kurdish Left Party, Saleh Kado

Kurdistan National Conference (KNK) condemned the Turkish occupying state ‘s use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish people and called upon the international community to take firm decision about the crimes that committed against the Kurds.

As members, friends, and observers of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, we note with grave concern that seven years since ISIS/Daesh began its campaign against the Yezidis, thousands of Yezidi women and children remain missing.

The 2014 attacks on Sinjar and the Ninevah Plains displaced thousands of people from their homes. ISIS/Daesh abducted thousands of others, forcing boys to become child soldiers and selling women and children into sexual slavery. The number of people they killed remains unknown, and discoveries of mass graves continue.

A chemical weapons expert in Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime that gassed 100,000 people has been living in Britain for more than a decade.

The Iraqi scientist, a former brigadier general, claimed refugee status after arriving on a work visa.

Home Secretary Priti Patel tried to have him kicked out – but he was allowed to stay after insisting he faced execution if he had quit his role.

Judges ruled the man can only be referred to by the initials ASA.

He took his case to the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber and it ruled in his favour in July, a decision highlighted today by the Sunday Mirror.

While the world is busy with COVID-19, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime is actively engaged with its pan-Islamic and nationalistic ambitions in eliminating the most “disloyal” segments of the Kurdish population.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A senior US official from the state department visited Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani in Erbil on Thursday, ensuring that Washington will encourage American companies to invest in the Region through a government-funded institution.

DUBAI, Sept 8 (Reuters) – United Arab Emirates energy firm Dana Gas (DANA.AD) said on Wednesday a consortium it co-leads had secured $250 million in financing from the U.S. development agency to fund an expansion of gas production at the Khor Mor plant in Iraqi Kurdistan.

TURKISH war planes have bombed a Kurdish village in Iraqi Kurdistan with chemical weapons, local officials told the Morning Star, demanding that war-crime investigations be opened.

The Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has opened a new wheat marketing center in Erbil, a year after announcing the project.

Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji was born in 1878 in Sulayimaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. During the British occupation of Iraq following the First World War, Sheikh Mahmud was appointed governor of Sulaymaniyah. The Kurds, however, were afraid of Britain ruling them indirectly by Arabs in Baghdad, and Sheikh Mahmud used his position to promote Kurdish independence and rebelled against the British in 1920. The uprising ended when Sheikh Mahmud was injured and he was arrested and sent to India. Britain took direct control over the Kurdish region after the rebellion, which became hostile for Britain. Turkish threats had Britain worried about the security of the north and in an effort to stabilize the region, they brought Sheikh Mahmud back to rule Kurdistan region. Sheikh Mahmud declared himself the king of Kurdistan, rejecting Britain’s Anglo-Iraqi arrangement. In 1923, Britain withdrew the offer of an independent Kurdish state and any say in Iraqi government. Sheikh Mahmud was king until 1924, when he was once again arrested and exiled, this time to Baghdad. He died October 9, 1956, remembered by Kurds as a leader to who resisted the British Mandate in Iraq.

ANKARA/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Turkey is taking its decades-old conflict with Kurdish militants deep into northern Iraq, establishing military bases and deploying armed military drones against the fighters in their mountain strongholds.

The Iranian Kurds risking death to cross into Iraqi Kurdistan, and train as Peshmerga fighters in the Komala military training camps.