1. Minister Ergin: 2146 people tried in KCK operation
4 August 2012 / ANF
Turkish Minister of Justice Sadullah Ergin, in his answer to the parliamentary question by Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) MP Emine Ayna, stated that 2,146 people are tried within the scope of the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) investigations in Turkey. Among the KCK suspects, 992 are in prison and 274 are elected representatives, according to figures by the Ministry of Justice. Minister Ergin notified that 113 cases have been opened within the scope of KCK investigations so far and remarked that among the 274 elected representatives there are mayors, district and provincial executives, city council members and deputies of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5008http:/
2. Turkish security forces blamed for killing 501st child since 1988
7 August 2012 / Guardian
On a recent summer evening 11-year-old Mazlum Akay left his home in Yüregir, a predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood in the southern Turkish city of Adana, to buy sweets at the local corner shop. Nearby, clashes had broken out between riot police and local youths demonstrating against the solitary confinement of Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Öcalan, who was convicted for treason in 1999. Witnesses say that there were no protesers on the sidestreet where Mazlum was heading to the shop, but the schoolboy was struck on the head by a police teargas cartridge. Eight days later, on 5 August, Mazlum died from his wounds and became the 501st child killed by Turkish security forces since 1988, according to Turkish human rights organisations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/07/turkish-security-forces-blamed-killing-boy
3. Cabinet Introduces War Time Laws for Dam Construction
4 August 2012 / Bianet
Cabinet authorized the State Waterworks Authority (DSİ,) the Energy Market Regulatory Agency (EPDK) and certain municipalities to enact the "express nationalization" of real estates to allow for the construction of hyrdroelectric plants and dams through a decision published in the Official Gazette. The measure is going to accelerate the destruction of nature and force locals to emigrate by depriving them of their real properties, according to Cömert Uygar Erdem, a lawyer working for the Environment and Ecology Movement (ÇEHAV) and a member of the Ecology Collective.
Ömer Şan, the term spokesman for the Fraternity of Rivers Platform, also highlighted the fact that the decision simply ignores previous court verdicts.
http://bianet.org/english/environment/140126-cabinet-introduces-war-time-laws-for-dam-construction
4. Şemdinli mayor Töre speaks to ANF – SPECIAL
8 August 2012 /ANF
As heavy clashes between People’s Defense Forces (HPG) and Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) continue in Şemdinli (province of Hakkari) since 23 July, ANF spoke to BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) Şemdinli’s mayor, Sedat Töre. “Clashes – said the mayor – have been getting heavier in an area of 20 km from Goman Mountain, 1 km from Şemdinli district center, to Hacıbey Brook on the Turkey-Iraq border”. The clashes area is affecting the village of Bağlar and its six hamlets as well as the village of Günyazı and its three neighborhoods. Around a thousand people reside in 130 houses in this area, the mayor points out.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5011
5. Şemdinli turned into a war field
8 August 2012 / ANF
Clashes are ongoing in Şemdinli where People’s Defense Forces (HPG) guerrillas targeted Haruna military post on Tuesday. The attack on the post, which is located some 23 km from the city of Şemdinli, was carried out following two separate guerrilla actions targeting two separate military convoys in the afternoon. At least three soldiers are said to have died and three others were wounded in one of the convoy attacks, while no reports have been received as to the injuries or deaths in other attacks.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5010
6. Prosecutor Confirms Villagers Could Be Discerned in UAV Footages
6 August 2012 / Bianet
The Diyarbakır's Prosecutor's Office charged with investigating last year's Roboski massacre confirmed a news story by Wall Street Journal that a U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) had also taken footages prior to the deadly air strike and that the villagers were clearly discernable in those images. A total of 34 villagers had lost their lives in the district of Uludere (Roboski) in consequence of an air strike that took place in the southeastern province of Şırnak last year by the Iraqi border. The footages examined by the Diyarbakır's Prosecutor's Office show the villagers as they unload their goods from trucks and carry them onto their mules for cross-border trade with Iraq, according to a news report that appeared on the daily Taraf.
http://bianet.org/english/human-rights/140149-prosecutor-confirms-villagers-could-be-discerned-in-uav-footages
7. AKP MPs Advise Turkey Not to Interfere in Affairs of Syrian Kurds
4 August 2012 / Rudaw
Abdurrahman Kurt, former MP and current member of the ruling Justice and Development Party [AKP] expresses support for the Kurds of Syria and he urges Turkey to see Kurds and Kurdistan as they are.
“I believe the united Kurdish position is something normal and important,” Kurt says. “Turkey should not see the developments there as hostility. Turkey should see the value of Kurds and protect their achievements. If need be Turkey should even become an ally of the Kurds.”
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/turkey/5046.html
8. Sayda cannot decide for us, PKK says
7 August 2012 / Kurd Press
Returning remarks by the Syrian National Council (SNC) Kurdish leader, Abdul Baset Sayda, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said the Syrian official “is not allowed to decide for us”.
“No one is permitted to comment on PKK and its actions but the Syrian Kurds, if we enter into the Kurdistan Region of the country,” a member of People’s Defense Forces (HPG), a PKK military offshoot, told Hawlati daily on Tuesday.
“PKK is the Kurds’ armed force, not the Arabs nor the Turks and Sayda has no right to decide for us,” Zhiyan Ali was quoted by the daily as saying, adding that his party will cooperate with the Syrian Kurds in the wake of any request from the Kurdish people of the country.
http://kurdpress.com/En/NSite/FullStory/News/?Id=2196#Title=%0A%09%09%09%09%09%09%09%09Sayda%20cannot%20decide%20for%20us,%20PKK%20says%0A%09%09%09%09%09%09%09
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
9. Time of Honey and Vine Harvest Gone Sour in Şemdinli
8 August 2012 / Bianet
I stand at the crossroads of three countries in Şemdinli.
It is not easy to get from Istanbul to the district of Şemdinli that sits about an hour of travelling away from Iraq and Iran. Şemdinli is where mountain ranges awash in greenery start, following a five hour long minibus trip over winding roads.
The locals in the town that consists of two avenues and 20,000 people are relatives of the Kurds in Iraq and Iran. Most of the youngsters and the men are bilingual and speak Turkish as well, but the majority of the women understand only Kurdish.
I arrived in Şemdinli at dusk, as clashes entered their 13th day on Saturday. I learned the district was relatively calmer in comparison to the preceding days; "tactics" or a planned visit by a delegation of deputies from the opposition People's Republican Party (CHP) are among the reasons cited.
http://bianet.org/english/human-rights/140181-time-of-honey-and-vine-harvest-gone-sour-in-semdinli
10. How the Kurds Have Changed Turkey’s Calculations on Syria
6 August 2012 / Time
For many years, the Kurdish tragedy was poignantly illustrated by the gifts and sweets stuffed through gaps in a barbed-wire fence, the babies held high and the news shared across the closed Syria-Turkey border. Every religious holiday saw thousands of people dressed in their finest line the border at dawn just to see their relatives on the other side of a boundary arbitrarily drawn by Britain and France after World War I. The nation states invented by the war’s victorious Western powers left the Kurds divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, each of which sought to deny and suppress Kurdish identity.
http://world.time.com/2012/08/06/how-the-kurds-have-changed-turkeys-calculations-on-syria/
11. Turkey seeks dominance over region: Analyst
4 August 2012 / Press TV
Without being a nation state the Kurdish population controls energy resources forcing its neighbors to battle for energy agreements. Press TV has interviewed Dr. Randy Short, Baltimore Chapter, SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) about what he describes as an ‘ongoing war’ between Turkey and the US on one side and the Kurdish government on the other and the impact this has on the Syrian crisis. Dr. Short also comments on Russia as a player that is key to a solution for Syria. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/04/254469/turkey-doesnt-want-to-see-strong-iraq/
12. TURKEY: Caught Between Syria’s Kurds and a Hard Spot
4 August 2012 / Inter Press Service
In a display of muscle-flexing, Turkish tanks this week carried out military exercises on the Syrian border, just a few kilometres away from towns that Syrian Kurds had seized from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. The seizure of the Kurdish towns sent alarm bells ringing in the Turkish capital. “It took a lot of people by surprise in Ankara. It is one of the toughest and serious issues in the last period of Turkish history,” said Metehan Demir, a military expert and columnist for the Turkish daily Hürriyet. “The capture of Kurdish towns in Syria is perceived by Kurdish groups in Turkey as the signal for (a) future autonomous Kurdish region on Turkey’s border, which is seen as the start of (a) wider Kurdish state, including Iran, Iraq and Turkey,” Demir added.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/turkey-caught-between-syrias-kurds-and-a-hard-spot/
13. Russia and the Kurds
7 August 2012 / Mesop
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and Vladimir Putin’s Middle East Special Envoy Mikhail Bogdanov met with the leaders of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main force controlling the Kurdish areas in northern Syria. That undeclared meeting in Erbil coincided with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit to Iraqi Kurdistan last Tuesday, July 31. It was the first time that a high-ranking Russian official met with Kurdish officials close to Syrian territory. For about a year, the PYD has been administering that territory through elected bodies.
http://www.mesop.de/2012/08/08/russia-the-kurds/
14. Intervention is now driving Syria's descent into darkness
7 August 2012 / Guardian
The destruction of Syria is now in full flow. What began as a popular uprising 17 months ago is now an all-out civil war fuelled by regional and global powers that threatens to engulf the entire Middle East. As the battle for the ancient city of Aleppo grinds on and atrocities on both sides multiply, the danger of the conflict spilling over Syria's borders is growing. The defection by Syria's prime minister is the most high-profile coup yet in a well-funded programme, though unlikely to signal any imminent regime collapse. But the capture of 48 Iranian pilgrims – or undercover Revolutionary Guards, depending who you believe – along with the increasing risk of a Turkish attack on Kurdish areas in Syria and an influx of jihadist fighters gives a taste of what is now at stake.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/07/intervention-syria-descent-into-darkness
15. Robert Fisk: Syria's ancient treasures pulverised
5 August 2012 / Independent
The priceless treasures of Syria's history – of Crusader castles, ancient mosques and churches, Roman mosaics, the renowned "Dead Cities" of the north and museums stuffed with antiquities – have fallen prey to looters and destruction by armed rebels and government militias as fighting envelops the country. While the monuments and museums of the two great cities of Damascus and Aleppo have so far largely been spared, reports from across Syria tell of irreparable damage to heritage sites that have no equal in the Middle East. Even the magnificent castle of Krak des Chevaliers – described by Lawrence of Arabia as "perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world" and which Saladin could not capture – has been shelled by the Syrian army, damaging the Crusader chapel inside.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-syrias-ancient-treasures-pulverised-8007768.html
16. Syria's 'forgotten Kurds' grab the spotlight
3 August 2012 / France 24
One of the unintended consequences of the Syrian uprising has been the rising political aspirations of Syria's minority Kurds, predominantly based near the Syrian-Turkish border. But across the frontier, Ankara is on high alert. Situated at the base of the Taurus Mountains on the Syrian side of the Turkish-Syrian frontier, al-Qamishli is the sort of nondescript border city that has been on the periphery of Syrian concerns – except for the country’s Kurds. Al-Qamishli after all, is called “the secret capital of the Kurds,” but that's a title more mythic than real.
http://www.france24.com/en/20120803-syria-forgotten-kurds-grab-spotlight-turkey-erdogan-kurdish-uprising-assad
7. Focus on Aleppo allows Kurds to fill vacuum
4 August 2012 / Irish Times
SQUEEZED BETWEEN the rock of Damascus and the hard place formed by the external powers involved in the struggle for Syria, the country’s Kurds have adopted an independent line. They have rejected the deployment of rebel forces in their area and aligned themselves with the domestic political opposition. With the tacit acceptance of Damascus, the Kurds have assumed control of Kurdish towns and villages from which government forces have made a tactical withdrawal in order to fight rebels in Aleppo. Kurds are also excluding the Free Syrian Army from the northeast corner of Syria bordering Turkey and Iraq. In response, Baghdad has bolstered army deployments along this sector of the frontier with Syria. The largest Kurdish faction is the deeply-rooted Democratic Union party (PYD), an offshoot of the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has been fighting Ankara for the past 30 years and is regarded by Turkey as a terrorist movement.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0804/1224321449391.html
18. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly About the Syrian Civil War
5 August 2012 / PJ Media
An interview with Ammar Abdulhamid, one of the most knowledgeable analysts about the Syrian civil war in the world by Barry Rubin: Ammar Abdulhamid may know more about Syria’s civil war than anyone else in the world. That’s no exaggeration. An pro-democratic oppositionist living abroad, Abdulhamid has functioned on a virtual 24/7 basis as the source of news and analysis about events within Syria, always trying to be honest and accurate in his assessments regardless of his own preferences. Barry Rubin, PJMedia Middle East editor, interviewed Abdulhamid on the latest developments and trends.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-about-the-syrian-civil-war/?singlepage=true
19. Slouching Towards Greater Kurdistan?
8 August 2012 / eKurd
Deep beneath "Damascus volcano" and "the battle of Aleppo", the tectonic plates of the global energy chessboard keep on rumbling. Beyond the tragedy and grief of civil war, Syria is also a Pipelineistan power play. More than a year ago, a $10 billion Pipelineistan deal was clinched between Iran, Iraq and Syria for a natural gas pipeline to be built by 2016 from Iran's giant South Pars field, traversing Iraq and Syria, with a possible extension to Lebanon. Key export target market: Europe.
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/8/syriakurd583.htm
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