Kurdistán (Continuación)

The offensive by ISIS militants against civilians and religious minorities in the northern Iraqi governorate of Nineveh has created a catastrophe.

At least 300,000 Yazidis and 100,000 Christians were displaced literally overnight, according to figures provided by the Kurdistan regional government. Many of the Yazidis fled to the mountains on August 3 after Kurdish fighting forces known as Peshmerga, who were protecting them, precipitously withdrew. For the Christians in villages north of Irbil, the moment came in the wee hours of August 7, when the Peshmerga silently pulled out.

The thousands of Yazidis who had remained stranded on a mountain seem to be getting out for now after U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

L’Etat islamique constitue une menace mortelle pour la survie de l’Irak et pour la stabilité de l’ensemble du Proche-Orient. L’inaction de la communauté internationale en Syrie a laissé le champ libre aux jihadistes. L’incurie du gouvernement de Bagdad et la forfaiture de son armée leur ont permis de conquérir en quelques jours le tiers du territoire irakien et de s’emparer d’un gigantesque arsenal d’équipements militaires d’une valeur de plusieurs centaines de millions de dollars, ainsi que des montants considérables de cash.

Depuis deux mois, les Kurdes résistent seuls sur plus de 1 000 km de frontières à cette déferlante de jihadistes alliés aux ex-officiers et partisans aguerris de Saddam Hussein.…  Seguir leyendo »

When the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria poured out from the eastern deserts of Syria into Iraq’s second-largest city last month, it was an image out of the eighth century: bearded Islamist marauders summarily executing unbelievers, pillaging as they went. But underneath that grisly exterior lurks something more modern and more insidious. As ISIS’s most recent annual report shows, the group is sophisticated, strategic, financially savvy and building structures that could survive for years to come. ISIS currently brings in more than $1 million a day in revenue and is now the richest terrorist group on the planet.

Despite the recent calls from hawks in Congress for a broader offensive, there are few meaningful options available to the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

While the world’s attention has been mainly focused on the war in Gaza, the deteriorating situation in eastern Ukraine, and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the Islamic State’s campaign of terror in both Syria and Iraq has continued. In Syria, fighting between ISIS and Bashar Assad’s forces has led to some of the bloodiest days of the conflict so far.

In Iraq, things seemed to have reached a stalemate, with ISIS’s rapid advance through the country stopped short of Baghdad and the predominantly Shiite areas of southern Iraq. All the same, more than 1,700 Iraqis were killed in July, making it one of the deadliest months since the height of the Iraq war.…  Seguir leyendo »

Like all the rest of us I have been looking with sickened disbelief at the changes in the map of northern Iraq, and the Ebola-like spread of the fanatics. It seems incredible that the disintegration should happen so fast.

It was only in May this year that we welcomed a dynamic and forward-looking young politician to City Hall in London. His name is Nechirvan Barzani, and he is the prime minister of the fledgling state of Kurdistan. He brought his finance guy, his transport minister, his tourism minister – the whole lot.

For about an hour we talked about the great Kurdish boom, and their plans to build ski resorts, hotels: how to put the place firmly on the map for the British tourist.…  Seguir leyendo »

A popular committee fighter supporting Iraqi government forces campaign against jihadist militants from the Islamic State (IS) guards a position in the town of Taza Khurmatu, roughly 20 kilometres south of the disputed northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk as fighting on the front line continued on August 8, 2014. President Barack Obama has ordered US warplanes back into Iraqi skies to stop jihadists from moving into autonomous Kurdistan and carrying out a potential genocide against displaced minorities. (Ali Al-Bayati/AFP/Getty Images)

Today the people of Kurdistan and Iraq are threatened by a fanatical and barbaric terrorist organization that wishes to dominate Middle East. We are resolved to defeat this threat with the help of the United States and our friends around the world.

There can be no overstating how perilous the situation is. The terrorist blitzkrieg of the Islamic State has swept from Syria into Iraq, with its goal of conquering and controlling a large swath of the world. While some of its more distant aspirations may be beyond its grasp, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East and Central Asia are not.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iraqi families displaced by fighting in their home towns receive humanitarian aid at the Khazir refugee camp, near Erbil, northern Iraq, 23 July 2014. (Kamal Akrayi/EPA)

During the past few days, the extremist group known as the Islamic State has made significant advances. After consolidating its gains since the fall of Mosul and other Sunni areas, the group sought to move toward Baghdad. For now, that advance has been blocked by Shiite militias, what remains of the Iraqi forces and assistance from Iran and the United States. It is evident, however, that the Islamic State has amassed enough manpower and resources to move against the Kurdish region. Its recent attempt to take over the Mosul dam as well as its seizure of the city of Sinjar and the other areas controlled by the Kurds, who were overwhelmed by a force using superior U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan region, rattled many cages this month when he announced in parliament that the KRG would be moving ahead soon on a referendum on independence from Iraq. If Kurdistan goes ahead with such a vote, it would be joining two other parts of the world embarked on similar paths: Scotland and Catalonia.

In Scotland, First Minister Alex Salmond has set the referendum on Scottish independence from Britain for Sept. 18. The Catalonian government, led by Artur Mas, has scheduled its referendum for Nov. 9. Although the British government in Westminster has not stood in the way of a referendum, Scottish opinion polls show a narrow lead for those who want to stay within the United Kingdom.…  Seguir leyendo »

In the coming weeks, Iraq’s leaders must make existential decisions. If they cannot form a unity government led by a new prime minister and motivate Sunni moderates and tribes to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Iraq is likely to disintegrate.

If the central government fails to grant satisfactory concessions to Sunnis and Kurds, the Kurds will push for sovereignty and independence. The Kurds are serious, and the international community must adapt to this emerging reality. While all Iraqi leaders bear responsibility for resolving the current crisis, the greatest share lies with the country’s Shiite politicians, who dominate the central government.…  Seguir leyendo »

"This moment requires statesmanship." That was Secretary of State John F. Kerry — a man not known for irony — in a meeting in late June with Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. Appealing to Barzani's nonexistent Iraqi patriotism, Kerry asked for the Kurdistan leadership's help in fighting Islamic militants overrunning northern Iraq, and pleaded for Kurds to help form a new government in Baghdad rather than seek independence.

But what Kerry seems to have meant is, "This moment requires provincialism," because that is what the United States is asking the Kurds to remain: a province of Iraq. The Kurds aren't likely to listen — Barzani announced a referendum on independence — and the question now is: How should the U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

“You must be living on another planet. That’s wishful thinking,” a colleague told me about three months ago when I told him that I was waiting for Kurdistan to become a country before taking the next steps of my career.

His comments weren’t really surprising, as the thought of an independent Kurdish state was far from anyone’s mind up until a week or so ago. For a Kurd like me though, the possibility was always more likely than not. The dream of a country of our own has been running through the veins of every Kurd for hundreds of years. Why shouldn’t it?…  Seguir leyendo »

When the Iraqi city of Mosul was captured on June 10 by the armed militias of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, many world leaders were shocked and concerned. Turkey’s leaders were more alarmed than most; ISIS militants stormed the Turkish consulate in Mosul and kidnapped 100 Turkish citizens, some of them diplomats. As I write, the hostages, including two babies, are still in the hands of ISIS.

Back in Turkey, a heated media debate abruptly came to a halt after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his usual authoritarian tone, asked the media “to follow this issue silently.”…  Seguir leyendo »

Every disaster creates opportunities for somebody. If the Kurds of Iraq play their cards right, they could finally end up with the borders they want, fully recognized by a government in Baghdad that has been saved by Kurdish troops.

The Kurds have this opportunity because the large but totally demoralized Iraqi Army has fallen apart over the past week. The Sunni Islamist fanatics of ISIS are closing in on Baghdad, and Peshmerga, the army of the Kurdistan Regional Government, is the only military force left in Iraq that could take the offensive against them.

It is very unlikely that the ISIS fighters can take Baghdad.…  Seguir leyendo »

The civil war now engulfing Syria emerged from its people’s desire for political change. But the war is not universal: since the outbreak of protests in 2011 against President Bashar Assad’s regime — and long before — one group of Syrians, the Kurdish community, has consistently sought peaceful change and respect for the rights of all.

For Syria’s Kurds, the struggle against more than four decades of the Assad family’s Ba’athist dictatorship became particularly harsh after 2004, when security forces killed dozens of unarmed protesters in the northeastern town of Qamishli. This ignited the spark for democratic reform, and we were spurred on by the knowledge that our kinsmen had won political autonomy in northern Iraq and were creating a vibrant democracy.…  Seguir leyendo »

More than 200,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees have moved into Iraqi Kurdistan. They have crossed an international border to be sure, yet it is, in the Kurdish world view, a passage from one part of their homeland to another. The Kurds disregard these frontiers, imposed on the Fertile Crescent almost a century ago by Anglo-French power.

No Kurd is lamenting the erosion of the borders in this tangled geography. The partition of the successor states of the Ottoman Empire brought the Kurds grief and dispossession. The Persians, Turks and Arabs secured their own states. Indeed, the Arabs were bequeathed several states in the geography of “Turkish Arabia” that runs from the Iraqi border with Iran to the Mediterranean.…  Seguir leyendo »

El conflicto en Oriente Próximo no solo amenaza la seguridad sino la existencia misma de varios de sus estados. Siria, Irak, Líbano y otros países, que se encuentran hoy sumidos en guerras sectarias, corren el riesgo de fragmentarse en subestados étnicos, transformando una región cuya geografía política se trazó hace cerca de un siglo.

Ante la situación regional, el Primer Ministro turco Recep Tayyip Erdogan ha ideado un audaz plan para reforzar la reputación regional de su país y ampliar su propio dominio político en el frente interno. Ante el fin del límite de tres mandatos como primer ministro, que él mismo se impuso, tiene la intención de cambiar la constitución turca para introducir un sistema presidencial en que desempeñaría el puesto de mandatario y contaría con mucho más poder.…  Seguir leyendo »

“We are at a point today when the guns will fall silent and ideas will speak,” declared Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey, on March 21. “Turks and Kurds fought together (in World War I), and launched the Turkish Parliament together in 1922. The basis of the new struggle consists of ideas, ideology and democratic politics.” And with that, he declared a cease-fire.

Ocalan has declared cease-fires before, but the Turkish government made no substantial concessions on Kurdish rights so the fighting resumed.

Nor is “democratic politics” a phrase you would readily link to Abdullah Ocalan, who tolerates no dissent in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the organization he created 30 years ago to fight for independence from Turkey.…  Seguir leyendo »

The assassination of three Kurdish activists in Paris last week has raised fears that the true target was peace talks between Turkey and the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K. But the so-called peace process was already in shambles before the killings, which have not been solved.

Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, claims that he wants a deal to end nearly 30 years of war between the state and the P.K.K. rebels. But he has yet to take the decisive action needed for a credible peace process. Until he understands that the Kurdish problem in Turkey is about politics and identity, and not just about getting the guerrillas to withdraw from Turkey and give up their weapons, there will be no hope for peace.…  Seguir leyendo »

The assassination of three Kurdish activists in Paris only days after the Turkish government announced it had started peace talks with the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the P.K.K., underscores the difficulties of finding a lasting solution to Turkey’s most acute and thorny internal problem.

Neither the killers nor the motive in the deaths of the three women, all associated with the P.K.K., are known at this stage. But the murders were most likely an attempt to sabotage the talks.

The recently initiated negotiations involving Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the P.K.K., and Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s intelligence services, are to address some of the main demands of the Kurds in return for a cease-fire in the P.K.K.’s…  Seguir leyendo »

The Baghdad newspaper Sabah published a surprising article a few weeks ago. Its editor, Abd Jabbar Shabbout, suggested it was time to settle the "age-old problem" between Iraq's Arabs and Kurds by establishing a "Kurdish state." Never before had I heard such a once-heretical view so publicly expressed in any Arab quarter. And this was no ordinary quarter: Sabah is the mouthpiece of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. Shabbout went on to suggest a negotiated "ending of the Arab-Kurdish partnership in a peaceful way."

He called his proposal Plan B, Plan A being the "dialogue" between Iraq's central government and the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq that emerged after the fall of Saddam Hussein.…  Seguir leyendo »