Sarah Glynn
Less than a week after Turkey assassinated two Kurdish women journalists working in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and a day after they assassinated a mother and son in Qamishli in autonomous North and East Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister was welcomed to a meeting of the European Union in Brussels. This was the first such meeting for five years, since dialogue was reduced in response to tensions between Turkey and Greece, and the agenda included easing visa regulations and modernising the EU-Turkey customs union. The EU Rapporteur’s regular reports on Turkey’s atrocious and worsening denial of democratic freedoms and human rights appear to be considered largely irrelevant. The Financial Times described a “convivial and constructive” lunch meeting that lasted over three hours and took relations ‘two steps forward, one step back”. Another fatal drone strike in North and East Syria was carried out on the day of the meeting.
This example of European hypocrisy when it comes to what politicians like to describe as “European values” joins a long and growing list. The list includes both the failure to censure inconvenient war crimes, such as those carried out by Israel as well as by Turkey, and restrictions on democratic freedoms by European member states themselves. With respect to Turkey, hypocrisy is made easier because Turkey’s abuses get so little attention from international media, especially when these concern the Kurds.
This neglect is facilitated by lazy journalism that repeats Turkish talking points, and by other governments accepting Turkey’s definition of the PKK as terrorists in order to oil their international relations. According to the Turkish state, everyone who follows the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan and the Kurdish Freedom Movement is a terrorist, whether they wield a gun or a pen. If required to justify their targeted assassinations in Iraqi Kurdistan or in Syria, they will attempt to categorise them as self-defence. Few journalists and politicians have the time or inclination to challenge this. Even when the spotlight does fall on the Kurds, they may well be denied a fair hearing – as in the much-criticised new TV documentary on the PKK for ARTE.
As I noted last week, immediately after the assassination of the two journalists, Reuters unquestioningly repeated the statement put out by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), who have allied themselves with Turkey, that the victims were “a senior PKK member, his driver and a guard”. Reuters later amended their report by adding “However, Iraqi Kurdistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani said in a later statement that two of the victims were journalists and were not members of an armed group.” Talabani is a member of the region’s other main party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan – as is Dylan Ghafoor, head of Iraq’s Foreign Relations Committee, who stated that the attack “violates international law and the sovereignty of Iraqi territory”.
Targeting journalists
The two women killed were Gulîstan Tara (official name Gülistan Tekik) and Hêro Bahadîn, and they were working for Stêrk TV. Tara was born in 1983 in Batman (Êlih), Turkey, to a large political family that felt the brunt of Turkish oppression, and, since 2000, had dedicated her life to reporting for the Kurdish Freedom Movement in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. She has left a legacy in the many women journalists she helped to train and inspire. Hundreds came to Batman to attend her burial on Thursday night, and – predictably – police prevented most from entering the cemetery; the women carrying the coffin had to force their way through the scrum, along with Tara’s family and People’s Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party MPs. Bahadîn was from Sulaymaniyah (Silêmanî) and was only 27. She had been working for Kurdish media since 2020. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency has admitted that the assassination was the work of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency.
By targeting journalists, this attack has garnered more attention than many of Turkey’s other international crimes, especially as it followed the killing of another Kurdish journalist in Iraq just over a month earlier. Reporters Without Borders commented “With three media workers killed in less than two months, the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan is becoming one of the world’s most dangerous places for reporters.” These journalists were killed in drone attacks, but their deaths also bring to mind the murder of the feminist academic and journalist, Nagihan Akarsel, who was gunned down outside her home in Sulaymaniyah in 2022, as well the murders of other Kurdish activists killed by Turkey in Iraq. All these assassinations are part of Turkey’s war against the Kurds.
Journalistic freedom is a casualty of this war more generally. This week, journalist Zeynep Kuray was indicted on charges of “making propaganda for an illegal organisation” on the basis of her news reports and social media posts; and a Turkish court has demanded that Twitter block access in Turkey to at least 69 accounts belonging to journalists and Kurdish politicians, including those of the Yeni Yasam newspaper and of Al-Monitor’s chief correspondent, Amberin Zaman. Turkey has a history of blocking Twitter accounts, and in 2014 briefly banned Twitter completely.
War within Turkey
Inside Turkey’s borders, the Kurdish regions are controlled as an occupied zone, and large areas can be shut off for military operations. The Şırnak Governorship has just declared many areas as restricted “special security zones” for a period of fifteen days.
Further control is enforced by the paramilitary Village Guards, who also use their power for personal gain. In a village in Ağrı, the so-called Guards injured two people when villagers tried to prevent them from raiding the village and stealing land.
Political prisoners are an important focus of attack in this anti-Kurdish war, and every week sees reports of more abuses carried out against them. I could fill this review with accounts of prison mistreatment alone, but will just give a brief summary of the findings in a report, by the Human Rights Association, on conditions in prisons in central Anatolia in the first six months of this year. The report comments that human rights violations, torture, and ill treatment in prisons have systematically increased. Of especial concern is prisoners’ health. Hospital transfers are delayed, sometimes indefinitely; sick prisoners are transported in cramped, airless and dirty containers, and handcuffs are not removed for examinations. Dental treatment is not given; and prisoners found too ill to remain in prison are not released. There were many accounts of torture and ill treatment, including communication bans, and complaints are blocked. Prisoners are transferred with little or no warning, and are often sent far from their families. Transfer can result in loss of possessions, and prisoners are strip-searched on arrival at their new prison. The report includes recommendations, but its authors cannot have much hope that these will be followed.
An example of pervasive anti-Kurdishness was provided by the treatment of a young man selling hot sweetcorn on the street in Istanbul, who was videoed by a tourist YouTuber. When asked where he was from, the corn-seller replied, “Kurdish from Mesopotamia”. As a result of the video, he was questioned by the police and he lost his job, as well as receiving hundreds of death threats online.
Anti-Kurdish racism was on display again when a group of fans supporting the team that played against Kurdish Amedspor sported masks depicting Mahmut Yıldırım. Yıldırım is associated with unsolved murders of Kurds in the 1990s. His photograph was also displayed at a match last year, along with images of white Renault Toros, which were used for disappearances.
For the Turkish government, this racism is a useful distraction from the country’s serious economic problems. It allows Turks who have nothing to feel superior nevertheless, and provides them with people to blame for their problems.
The dire state of the economy is illustrated by two articles from Mesopotamia Agency. Kurds are often forced into some of the worst jobs, and the first article talks with Kurdish agricultural labourers who are working very long hours in the hot sun for a pittance, for farmers who are themselves having problems making ends meet. The second talks with shopkeepers in an Iğdır (Îdir) market, who fear that they will have to close down because no-one can afford to buy their goods at today’s inflated prices.
Of course, Kurds don’t just suffer these injustices in silence. Other reports tell of herders forced from their native lands in the nineties meeting to sing traditional Kurdish dengbêj and keep alive their cultural traditions; of Kurdish politicians raising issues of discrimination in parliament; and of the vigil against the removal of the elected mayor of Hakkâri, which has continued now for 77 days.
Drones have been in the news for another reason too. Turkey has published a list of their top hundred taxpayers, and heading the list are the two Bayraktar brothers who are chair and general manager of the massive weapons manufacturer who make the drone that bears their name. Bayraktar drones have been tested against the Kurds and are exported to wars across the globe. The wealthier brother is President Erdoğan’s son-in-law.
War in Syria
As mentioned at the beginning, Turkey’s attacks on the autonomous North and East Syria this week included two fatal drone strikes. The drone that targeted a car in Qamişlo (Qamishli) on Wednesday, killed Xalide Mihemed Şerif, an active member of the Kongra Star women’s movement, and her son Hejar Ednan Silêman who worked with the Asayish, the internal security force of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Theirs was a politically committed family, and the widowed father spoke of his wife and son as martyred comrades, promising at the condolence ceremony that he would never give up on the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan.Thursday’s attack targeted a car in nearby Amûdê (Amuda), wounding two people. 35-year-old Hani Khalaf died on his way to the hospital.
On Monday, Turkey and Russia resumed joint patrols in northern Syria, which were stipulated in the ceasefire agreement that halted Turkey’s 2019 invasion, but which had been stopped nearly a year ago. However, on Wednesday, angry residents prevented a Russian patrol from inspecting the site of the Turkish drone strike in Qamişlo. The ceasefire agreement had Russia as a guarantor, but Russia doesn’t stop Turkey from breaching the agreement and attacking. On Thursday, a joint Russian-Turkish patrol was blocked by stone-throwing protestors. The Russians responded with teargas and bullets in the air, and a girl had her legs broken by a Russian tank.
Russia has called for direct relations between the Syrian Government and the Autonomous Administration. Their Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations told Rudaw that dialogue “is the only path toward a solution, and it is also the best option for the Kurds”. But he also stresses that this must be an internal Syrian decision, and President Assad has never shown any willingness to accept anything less than complete submission to his authority. More positively, Assad remains at least as determined to make no concessions to Turkish occupation or Turkish support for jihadi opposition groups. For their part, North and East Syria’s Syrian Democratic Council has condemned the Syrian government’s attempts to destabilise Deir ez-Zor, and has expressed their support for the demands for autonomy by the people of Suwayda in Syria’s south.
Meanwhile, the struggle continues against ISIS, who take advantage of every instability. ISIS fighters have attacked oil tankers in Deir ez-Zor; and the Asayish have apprehended a man suspected of smuggling ISIS members out of al-Hol detention camp and into the Turkish occupied areas. The Syrian Democratic Forces announced the detention, with support from the US-led Coalition, of two more ISIS members; and the Asayish also announced the capture of unspecified terrorists who were planning to attack Coalition bases.
In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Returning to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where this review began, Turkey continues its invasion in the north, with the help of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Turkish bombardments have ignited fires destroying more villages and agricultural land, and Turkey has transformed a picnic site into a production site for concrete military emplacements. The PKK guerrillas continue to fight back, including with their own armed drones.
On Thursday, just two weeks after Iraq and Turkey signed a memorandum for security cooperation, the Iraqi military shot down a Turkish drone over Kirkuk (Kerkûk). Turkish drones have been left to fly over the Kurdistan Region and over Sinjar (Şengal) and Maxmur (Mexmûr), and to assassinate journalists near Sulaymaniyah, in but it seems that for disputed and oil-rich city of Kirkuk, the rules are different. The Iraqi Airforce stated that a warning was issued, according to protocol, and the drone was then shot down by air defence. This is the first time Iraq has shot down a Turkish drone and, especially considering the timing, it raises many more questions than we have answers.
In another testament to the volatility of the region, on Sunday morning, a large Popular Mobilisation Unit (PMU) force, complete with hundreds of vehicles and heavy weapons, moved into the Garmiyan region, and took control of an unexplored oil field. They encircled the Oil and Gas Police guard, led by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and began work with bulldozers to construct a new base. The PMUs are militia recognised by the Iraqi Government, but it seems they had not informed the Iraqi army of their plans. The PUK protested to Baghdad at this “violation of the border”, and, by afternoon, the PMUs were withdrawing. Despite the PUK having good relations with Iran, to which many PMUs are linked, Kurdistan Watch observes that this is not the first time that PMUs have targeted oil and gas infrastructure in PUK-controlled areas.
Today is the anniversary of the day, in 1996, when Masoud Barzani invited Saddam Hussein’s troops to help his KDP take Erbil (Hewlêr) from the PUK in the civil war over Kurdistan. It is a reminder that Barzani politics has always functioned only in the interests of the Barzani family. Feudal clientelist relations ensure devoted support from followers, including the Deputy Speaker of Iraq, himself a member of the KDP, who writes of Masrour Barzani – Masoud’s son and Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq – “with an iron fist, he has confronted injustice, discrimination, substance abuse, and homosexuals while continuously striving to protect the dignity of individuals & uphold the higher values of Kurdistan’s society.”
The politics of the Kurdistan Region is notoriously corrupt and increasingly authoritarian. The government chooses to clamp down on dissent rather than work in the interests of the people. Kurdistan Watch claim that the UN’s recent report on corruption in the Kurdistan Region is dangerously misleading, as it looks only at cases in the Region’s courts and at official data. There is, thus, no scope to mention major corruption scandals involving leading politicians and political parties, such as the smuggling of Kurdistan’s oil.
The oil pipeline to Turkey was shut down, but the oil hasn’t stopped flowing. It is now transported in long lines of tankers, and profits flow not to government coffers but to the pockets of traders and politicians. A report by Timour Azhari for Reuters, published in July, described “a booming business in which more than 1,000 tankers carry at least 200,000 barrels of cut-price oil every day to Iran and, to a lesser extent, Turkey – bringing in about $200 million a month”. Azhari records, “A senior official at Kurdistan’s natural resources ministry said oil production in the region was running at 375,000 bpd, of which 200,000 was trucked to Iran and Turkey, and the rest refined locally, adding, ‘Nobody knows what happens to the revenues from the 200,000 smuggled abroad, or the oil derivatives sold to refineries in the region.’” International oil companies sell at very low prices to a network of middlemen, and of course the officials and politicians take their cut. Kurdistan Watch claim that 90% of production takes place in KDP areas, but most oil tankers are owned by a PUK-linked company, and they are charged a fee to pass through PUK territory on their way to Iran. This black economy breaches quotas and supports unlicenced polluting refineries. Kurdistan Watch queries the silence of both the Iraqi Government and the United States (who demand sanctions against Iran).
The Kurdistan Regional Government has also bowed to pressure from Iran – via the Iraqi Government – to move to the next stage in controlling groups from Rojhilat, or Iranian Kurdistan, that have their bases in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This doesn’t affect the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), which, like the PKK, operates from guerrilla bases hidden in the mountains, but the different factions of Komala have all been instructed to move to new camps near Sulaymaniyah. Hassan Rahmanpanah, of the communist Komala (CPI), told Voice of America, “To avoid conflict and to prevent falling into Iran’s trap of pitting Kurds against each other, which would result in Kurdish bloodshed, we have agreed to move to the designated camps. We refuse to be classified as refugees and will persist with our political activities. A suitable environment for our political work must be provided. We reject any scenario where we’re confined under UN supervision and merely provided basic sustenance. If those are the conditions, we will not comply.” The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) appears to have not yet received their order to relocate.
Finally, a small bit of good news amidst the gloom. Two Germans who took the German police to court for preventing them from travelling to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on a peace delegation in 2021 have won their case, and the ban has been declared unlawful. It is too late for that visit of course, but the ruling is important for the future, and the need for peace actions has only grown.
Sarah Glynn is a writer and activist – check her website and follow her on Twitter.
