1. Islamist Rebels Force 20,000 Syrian Kurds to Flee to Iraq
21 August 2013 / Catholic RegisterFollowing recent clashes in Syria between al Qaeda-linked rebels and Kurdish forces, 20,000 Syrian refugees have fled to Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region of northern Iraq, in the last six days. “The factors allowing this sudden movement are not fully clear to us at this stage,” said Adrian Edwards, United Nations high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) spokesman, at an Aug. 16 news briefing. Around noon on Aug. 15, a group of some 750 Syrian refugees crossed a new bridge across the Tigris River on the border between Syria and Iraq near the Iraqi town of Faysh Khabur. Later that day, another group numbering between 5,000 and 7,000 people followed.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/islamist-rebels-force-20000-syrian-kurds-to-flee-to-iraq/
2. Kurdish Mission to Probe Reports of Massacres in Syria by Jihadi Groups
14 August 2013 /RudawLeaders from across the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran agreed to a fact-finding mission to Syrian Kurdistan, following reports of Kurdish massacres by Islamist fighters and a vow by Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani to defend fellow Kurds if those reports are true. “He (Barzani) cannot just take any action without proper investigations,” explained veteran Kurdish politician and MP Mahmoud Othman. “He needs to know if massacres are happening, and if so, it should first be known to the world and then the Kurdistan Region can act and should act,” he told Rudaw TV.
The investigative team will include representatives from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region as well as from Kurdish parties from Iran and Turkey.
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/14082013
3. Syrian Kurd leader back in Turkey
14 August 2013 / HurriyetThe leader of the main Kurdish group in northern Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), has reportedly returned to Turkey for talks with Turkish officials, in his second visit in less than a month. The Turkish government had expressed strong concerns about the imposition of a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria after the PYD, which is affiliated to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), increased its control in the area. While underlining that there was no problem in Ankara in holding talks with PYD leader Salih Muslim, Turkish officials declined to specify an exact date for the imminent arrival of the Kurdish politician. However, Fırat news agency, which is known to have close links to the PKK, reported that Muslim has arrived in Turkey.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/syrian-kurd-leader-back-in-turkey.aspx?pageID=238&nID=52490&NewsCatID=352
5. Syrian refugees pour into Iraq’s Kurdistan
19 August 2013 / Middle East OnlineThousands of Syrian Kurds have poured into Iraq over the past few days, to escape deadly clashes between Kurdish fighters and jihadists and seeking a respite from privation. The UN says more than 15,000 refugees have crossed into Iraq in the latest influx since Thursday, with more expected to follow. The sudden influx of Syrians across the border stands in marked contrast to the relatively small numbers of refugees taken in by Iraq in recent months compared to other neighbouring countries and has forced the UN refugee agency to scramble aid to the region. The vast majority of refugees pouring into Iraq's autonomous Kurdish regions in the north are women, children and the elderly.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=60794
6. New appeal to Amnesty International for Rojava
17 August 2013 / ANFA new appeal to Amnesty International and human rights defenders have been issued by the PYD (Democratic Union Party) and other organizations. In the appeal Kurdish political parties, organisations and Community members in exile "call on the International Community to protect the civilians - Kurds, Arabs and other Syrian multi-ethnicities, Assyrians, Armenians, Christians - against the brutal ethnic cleansing attacks taking place against the peacefully co- existing ethnicities in the Kurdish region in Syria".
A detailed account of what has been happening since 17 July 2013 has been attached to appeal.
http://en.firatnews.com/news/news/new-appeal-to-amnesty-international-for-rojava.htm
7. Syrian Deputy Premier: ‘The Kurds Must Unify Their Demands’
21 August 2013 / RudawQadri Jamil is the Syrian deputy prime minister, as well as the secretary of the newly-licensed People’s Will Party. In this interview with Rudaw, he speaks about an unwritten cooperation agreement between the Syrian government and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), and admits that Qamishli airport is being jointly controlled by the two. Jamil says that in order to have a stronger voice, Syrian Kurds should overcome their divisions and must ‘unify their demands.’ Here is an edited transcript of his interview.http://rudaw.net/english/interview/21082013
8. Details of Kurdish National Congress released
20 August 2013 / ANFThe drafting committee of the Kurdish National Congress has issued a press release about its preparations going on for the last one month since the Hewler meeting which was attended by all political circles from four parts of Kurdistan on 22 July. The Kurdish National Congress will take place on 15-16-17 September 2013 and will witness the participation of 600 delegates and 300 guests. The opening speech of the press release was made by drafting committee secretariat member Ronahi Serhat who condemned the closure of Kurdish channels MMC, Nuçe TV and Roj Tv by Danish judiciary.
Serhat remarked that the preparations for the congress have been based on ensuring the participation and support of all organized structures and individuals
http://en.firatnews.com/news/news/details-of-kurdish-national-congress-released.htm
9. KCK: Government Must Take A Step Forward
23 August 2013 / BianetKCK Executive Council Co-Presidency released a statement on the ongoing peace process, urging the Turkish government to take concrete steps as soon as possible.
Kurdish movement has done for its part but the Turkish government delayed the process by not taking any concrete steps, the statement said. “There is nothing left expect the government’s mentality to not take any steps forward.”
Some of the highlight from the statement are as follows:
* Withdrawal of [our] armed forces was a manifestation of willingness. The Kurdish Liberation Movement has paved the way for Turkish governments to take steps forward. Instead of appreciating this and having series steps forward, we observe no progress. And on the contrary, we observe that Turkish government is constructing new patrol stations and dams, hiring new village guards. We also observe that some gangs are attacking Kurds in Rojava [in Syria], and arrests are being made. These alone show how Turkish government is not approaching this issue seriously. […]
http://www.bianet.org/english/politics/149400-kck-government-must-take-a-step-forward
10. Facebook censorship against Kurds continues
15 August 2013 / ANFAccording to Turkish paper Radikal, the social network Facebook has closed the accounts of Kurdish parties and personalities, as well as of opponents, "as part of an agreement with the Turkish authorities". Among the pages which have been closed during the month of July are the account of the main Kurdish party, the BDP, as well as those of its members: deputies Hasip Kaplan, Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Ayla Akat Ata, DTK co-chair Ahmet Türk, Diyarbakir Mayor Osman Baydemir and deputy Leyla Zana the Sakharov Prize. The Turkish Minister of Communication Binali Yildirim had said in late June that "Facebook has a long harmonious collaboration" with the authorities. An approach that has not been shared by Twitter. According to the Minister, Twitter refused to cooperate.
http://en.firatnews.com/news/news/facebook-censorship-against-kurds-continues.htm
11. Hakkari Mayor Convicted to 15 Months of Prison
22 August 2013 / BianetHakkari Mayor Bedirhanoğlu has been convicted to 15 months of prison for attending the funeral ceremony of PKK guerrilla Ferdane Kına on August 10, 2012.
bianet retrieved the information from Yüksekova Haber, a local news website that referred its article to Dicle News Agency. Yüksekova 2nd Assize Court found Bedirhanoğlu guilty of “attending illegal demonstration or protests and refusing to disperse despite warning and force”, sentencing him to 15 months of prison.
Bedirhanoğlu released a statement, criticizing the ruling.
“On the aforementioned date, I have attended a funeral ceremony in Gever along with BDP Hakkari deputy Adil Zozani. I was convicted to 15 months of prison because of that. Unfortunately attending funerals is punishable [in Turkey].
http://www.bianet.org/english/minorities/149360-hakkari-mayor-convicted-to-15-months-of-prison
12. Kurds remember 15 August
15 August 2013 / ANFThe 15 of August 1984 is an important date for the Turkish-Kurdish conflict as it marks the first PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) attack, led by Mahsum Korkmaz (known as "Agit"). The 15 of August is remembered throughout Turkey, Kurdistan and Europe by thousands of Kurds. In the PKK's second party Congress, which was held from 20 to 25 Augustus 1982 in Daraa (Syria) it was decided that the PKK would start preparing for an insurgency inside Turkey. Training camps were opened in Syria and in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley and propaganda teams were sent across the border to make contact with the local populations. After years of preparation the PKK launched it's first major attacks on August 15, 1984. The attack was led by the founder of the PKK's military wing.
http://en.firatnews.com/news/features/kurds-remember-15-august.htm
13. Halt Ilisu Dam construction
21 August 2013 / ANFThe Save the Tigris and Iraqi Marshes Coalition has released a statement ahead of the visit next week by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to Baghdad. In particular the statement draws attention to the controversial and much objected construction of the Ilisu Dam. "Iraq’s civil society and the Save the Tigris Campaign - says the statement - call upon the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) to include discussion of the Ilisu dam issue in its agenda for Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu’s visit to Iraq. In particular, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should take this opportunity to remind Turkey of its important economic partnership with Iraq, and affirm that the Ilisu dam is a threat to long term economic development and relations between the two countries. Because the Ilisu dam construction is not yet complete, the MoFA should re-iterate to Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu that its construction must be halted till a joint and sufficient evaluation are completed on the impact of this dam on the Iraqi side".
http://en.firatnews.com/news/features/halt-ilisu-dam-construction.htm
14. “The Kurdish Spring”: New book published
23 August 2013 / Peace in Kurdistan CampaignA new book entitled The Kurdish Spring: Geopolitical Changes and the Kurds, published by Mazda, is the latest publication by Professor of Political Science and secretary-general of the EU Turkey Civic Commission, Michael M Gunter, and his colleague Mohammed M.A. Ahmed, Executive Director and founder of the Ahmed Foundation for Kurdish Studies. The book features contributions from scholarly experts such as Michael B. Bishku, Ofra Bengio and Joost Jongerden, who analyse the ‘Kurdish Spring’ as a long-running and growing movement for democracy, cultural, social and political rights and self-determination across Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq.
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/the-kurdish-spring-new-book-published/
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
15. War Within A War: Kurds, Arabs Battle In Northern Syria
22 August 2013 / Radio Free EuropeIslamist and Kurdish militias are fighting a war within a war in Syria that is not just creating tens of thousands of new refugees. It's also increasingly becoming an ethnic-based conflict between Arabs and Kurds that gives new reasons to worry Syria will break apart. A glimpse of the increasingly ethnic dimension of the combat in northern Syria comes as tens of thousands of mostly Kurdish refugees have crossed into Iraq since fighting broke out in the middle of last month. One of the refugees told RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq that Arab Islamist groups regarded killing Kurds as "halal," or religiously condoned. "There is violence and killing and kidnapping in the Kurdish areas. They made Kurdish blood 'halal,'" he said.
http://www.rferl.org/content/syria-kurds-arabs-war/25083315.html
16. The Day After Assad Wins: The Hard Truths About Post-War Syria
21 August 2013 / Washington InstituteWe will probably never know whether Bashar al-Assad lost any sleep over the horrific chemical weapons attacks he allegedly ordered during his country's ongoing civil war. But Syria's president has probably already taken solace in the fact that, despite the thousands of Syrians who have lost their lives in the fighting, things could have easily gone worse for him personally. With insurgents losing ground to the regime's forces and succumbing to ever more infighting among themselves, it seems increasingly likely that Assad will avoid losing the war -- which will qualify, in this context, as an outright win.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-day-after-assad-wins-the-hard-truths-about-post-war-syria
17. Syria's Kurds Take the Offensive
22 August 2013 / The National Interest If the Syrian civil war wasn’t already murky and complex enough, the country’s Kurdish minority has added a new element of instability in recent weeks. Kurdish militias have launched offensives against Syrian rebel forces operating in the northeast and have scored significant victories. That development sets off alarm bells with both the Obama administration and the government of Turkey. The Kurdish agenda in Syria is increasingly clear: to establish a de facto independent state in northeastern Syria similar to the self-governing Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Since the authority of Bashar al-Assad’s regime is now nearly nonexistent in northeastern Syria, the militia victories over Syrian rebel forces brings the realization of that goal tantalizingly close.
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/syrias-kurds-take-the-offensive-8929
18. The Muslim Brotherhood's Fall Lands Turkey an Unexpected Ally: Kurds
16 August 2013 / The AtlanticToday, Turkey and Egypt recalled their ambassadors from each other's capitol, signaling a major downturn in bilateral ties. At the same time, Turkey's influence in Cairo seems to be winding down. Indeed, Turkey's ambitious drive to become a Middle East power by influencing the region's Muslim Brotherhood-inspired parties appears to have been upended. The Brotherhood has fallen from government in Egypt, failed to elect its candidate to lead the Syrian opposition, and has been sidelined in Libya. Qatar, which had hitherto allied itself with Ankara to fund MB-style parties, appears to be changing its heart after an unexpected change in leadership.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/the-muslim-brotherhoods-fall-lands-turkey-an-unexpected-ally-kurds/278775/
19. Which Side Are You On?
15 August 2013 / ANFIn Rojava (Western Kurdistan / Northern Syria) a horrible war against the Kurds who seek to defend their homeland from the Islamist aggressors is going on. Jihadists from all over the world, especially from Africa, Afghanistan, Sudan, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Germany and Turkey have traveled to Syria to found an Islamic caliphate. But in reality, their main purpose is to prevent Kurds from achieving peace and the success of the 'third way' that have undertaken long ago. Now a horrible war begun with attacks carried out by aggressive invaders who fight against local fighters for peace. On the one hand is the YPG (People's Defence Units) defending all the peoples who live in Rojava while on the other side are al-Qaeda-linked groups acting in agreement with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) supported by foreign invaders.
http://en.firatnews.com/news/features/which-side-are-you-on.htm
20. ‘No friends but the mountains’: Washington seeks to ensnare Kurds
15 August 2013 / RTThe targeting of Kurdish civilians in Syria by US-supported armed thugs is part of a deliberate attempt to galvanize the Kurds and pit them in a resurgent struggle against the non-Kurd regions. The Kurdish Democratic Union Party and other sources are now reporting that Kurdish men, women, and children are systematically being tortured, raped, and executed. Fighting has broken out between Syrian Kurds and the insurgent forces supported by the US, UK, France, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
http://rt.com/op-edge/us-galvanize-kurds-tortured-crossfire-531/
21. To those who doubt the massacres in Rojava - Part One
14 August 2013 / ANFLast week, at least 50 Kurdish civilians were killed and 350 others were kidnapped by jihadists in two villages of the region of Aleppo. To avenge the heavy defeat suffered by Kurdish fighters, jihadists are diving deeper into crimes against humanity, committing barbaric acts. In the villages of Til Hasil and Til Aran, in the region of Aleppo, lived about 40 thousand Kurds. Many young people including women and children were abducted by groups linked to al-Qaeda after the attack on Til Hasil and Til Aran between 28 July and 2 August 2013. Two women with few children and a boy managed to escape from the hands of al-Nusra Front and reached Afrin. Now they are free, but their wounds are still burning. Survivors of the massacre have told the agency ANHA what they saw and experienced.
http://en.firatnews.com/news/features/to-those-who-doubt-the-massacres-in-rojava-part-one.htm
22. VIDEO: Minority Misery: 'Jihadists cleansing Kurds in Syria', thousands flee
20 August 2013 / RT Iraq is facing an unprecedented influx of refugees - almost thirty thousand people have crossed its border with Syria since Thursday. The lion's share of those displaced are Kurds - who have found themselves caught in the middle of the war. And as RT's Paula Slier reports - this is yet another sign that the conflict can't be contained within Syria.
http://youtu.be/mPycsevHbS4
23. Syrian Kurds are on the verge of genocide
13 August 2013 / Kurdish AspectThe Al Nusra Front´s fatwa: “Kurds are Kufar (unbelievers) and killing Kurds, taking their women, plundering their property and destroying of their homes is just and fair.” The Al Nusra Front and Daulat al-Islam are Islamist groups that are Al Qaeda-linked militia groups and a part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). They have been in open and extreme war against the Kurdish Protection Forces of YPG, which controls most of the Kurdish territory in northern Syria. The Islamists do not differentiate between civilians and fighters, and the groups hold hundreds of Kurdish civilian hostages and have killed tens of them. In one event, around 50 Kurdish men, women, and children were killed in a village near Aleppo. According to the latest reports, tens of women and children were recently killed in the city of Tal Abyad. Civilian Kurds run for their life in fear of the extreme Islamists, who have declared fatwas (religious statements) against the killing of Kurds, as they regard them as Kufar.
http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc081313SS.html
24. Al-Qaeda: A Force for “Good”
9 August 2013 / RudawTrouble is ominously brewing in the once-quiet, northeastern Kurdish corner of Syria where violent terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusrah and Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) have begun cold-bloodedly attacking the Kurds.
Bloodthirsty beheadings, reminiscent of Nick Berg, the American cruelly carved up in Iraq in 2004, horrifically bloat today’s Kurdish news. Kurds are alarmed. Americans should be too. But America is closing its eyes—and closing its embassies around the world in the face of Al-Qaeda inspired terrorist threats. Puzzled Kurds have asked me why America is so indifferent to the Kurdish beheadings, especially when these same “disciples of enforced ignorance” attacked Americans only a decade ago. I wonder too, and paraphrase Heraclitus who said, “Character is destiny,” and tell them: “Geography is destiny.”
http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/09082013
25. Imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan to become regional player?
21 August 2013 / Journal of Turkish WeeklyTurkish Kurds are increasingly vociferous against Erdogan, accusing his government of actually sabotaging the agreements with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, on moving to a political settlement of the Kurdish problem. The government has decided to retaliate, and Erdogan’s adviser has countered the accusations. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s chief adviser, a deputy of the Justice and Development Party, AK Party, Yalcin Akdogan, has written an article for The Star newspaper, to bitterly criticize the statements by PKK officials who claimed that inaction by the government could result in battles on a still larger scale.
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/154696/imprisoned-kurdish-leader-abdullah-ocalan-to-become-regional-player.html
26. Erdogan’s historic gamble on PKK peace begins to falter
22 August 2-13 / Financial TimesBefore his premiership was blown off course by mass protests in June, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was preparing to go down in history by ending Turkey’s biggest problem: the country’s Kurdish conflict. The Turkish prime minister began this year with the equivalent of a thunderbolt: news that his government was talking to Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the banned Kurdistan Workers party, or PKK, in an attempt to end a conflict in which 35,000 people have died over three decades. A ceasefire soon followed, as did an announcement the PKK would withdraw its fighters from Turkish territory to northern Iraq.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/72b49810-08d4-11e3-ad07-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2cneZUyiW
27. Sherko Bekas: A Poet for Humanity, A Hero of the Nation
14 August 2013 / RudawThe Kurds are said to be descendants of children that had hidden in the mountains to escape a child-eating monster by the name of Zahhak. For, Kurdish origins are linked with a strong mystical bond to mountains. While there is general disregard of myth as worthless to ‘outsiders’, nonetheless, its value, like that of history, is in nation building. Thus it has been a major preoccupation of Kurdish nationalists to write expressively intending to awaken the literate public to their national history. Yet, there is no doubt that nationalist Kurds trace national continuity based on ‘heroes’ across centuries.
http://rudaw.net/english/culture/14082013
28. The Kurds in a new Middle East
14 August 2013 / Foreign PolicyFor the first time in their modern history, the Kurds can look beyond the mountains for friends. This was not the case just a short time ago. The failure to negotiate statehood, largely due to an inability to present a united front following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the post-World War I new regional order, isolated their communities into four separate states (Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran) and silenced their voice on the international stage for much of the 20th century. During this time, as minorities at the behest of Arab, Turkish, and Persian nationalisms, they were subjected to discrimination, segregation, and at times, genocide.
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/14/the_kurds_in_a_new_middle_east
29. The Tightening Screws on Press Freedom in Turkey
19 August 2013 / BianetThe Turkish media’s lack of coverage of the Gezi Park protests has thrown an unprecedented light on the country’s long-suffering Fourth Estate. Ask any Turkish journalist and they’ll tell you that self-censorship and a lack of media independence are issues that have plagued the industry for decades, with the recent conclusion of the Ergenekon trial serving as a timely reminder of just how much influence the military and deep-state agitators used to exert over the Turkish media (regardless of how deeply flawed the trial process itself was). Nevertheless, there is a growing sense that, in the wake of the Gezi Park protests, things are looking as bleak as ever for the Turkish press, under siege from both direct and indirect governmental pressure.
http://bianet.org/english/human-rights/149266-the-tightening-screws-on-press-freedom-in-turkey
30. The Stack – Monocle Magazine
17 August 2013We talk to the woman who stocks the magazine stands at Britain’s most prestigious bookshop Foyles and meet the man who started a slow-journalism revolution: the editor of Delayed Gratification magazine. We’ll also be getting the latest from Istanbul with the thoroughly independent newspaper title Birgun and hearing from Rotterdam and San Francisco about two other prime print specimens.
http://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-stack/51/
31. Dangerous Friends: Power Struggle Splits Turkish Ruling Party
21 August 2013 / De SpiegelTurkey's prime minister has quashed opposition in the streets, but now he faces a more menacing foe: challengers within his own party and from the nebulous Gülen movement. It could spell the end of political Islam in Turkey as we know it. The many hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who took to the streets in Istanbul did not succeed in toppling their country's prime minister or in continuing to occupy Gezi Park on the city's Taksim Square. The protests against the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, sparked in late May by plans to level Gezi Park, have subsided. Yet the uprising's effects may last well beyond this summer.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/power-struggle-splits-erdogan-ruling-akp-party-in-turkey-a-917823.html#spRedirectedFrom=www&referrrer=http://t.co/AjOtCFIGIp
32. Lonely command
24 August 2013 / The EconomistWHEN Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, returned to power in 2011 for his third successive term he triumphantly declared that the next five years would mark an era of “mastery” for his Islam-tinged Justice and Development (AK) party. His dreams included elevating himself to the presidency when it comes up next year and getting the AK-dominated parliament to endow it with executive powers. AK would run Turkey until 2023, the centenary of Ataturk’s republic. His opponents gloomily conceded that Mr Erdogan would have his way. At least they did until June, when mass protests erupted across the country in an unprecedented show of defiance against a decade of increasingly illiberal AK rule. Popular backing for the party slipped below 50%. Mr Erdogan looked vulnerable and acted scared, even banning political slogans at football matches.
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21583989-prime-minister-rules-roost-despite-setbacks-home-and-abroad-lack-serious
33. Turkey’s Gambles
22 August 2013 / RudawJust a few years ago, Turkey received toasts from all across the Middle East and the West. Foreign Minister Davutoglu’s “Zero problems with neighbours” policy looked like a revolutionary sea change in Turkey’s position and role in the region. Prime Minister Erdogan basked in accolades in every Arab city he visited, from Beirut to Rabaat. As relations with Israel deteriorated, Turkish leaders warned the Jewish state that it would find itself more isolated than ever. An activist foreign policy carries risks which are all too apparent now, however. By pronouncing its positions clearly and forcefully on every issue, from which Arab Spring dictators should fall and which should remain in power to how Israel should deal with the Gaza strip, Ankara seems to have made itself enemies even faster than it made friends.
http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/22082013
34. Who Poisoned Former Turkish President Ozal?
22 August 2013 / Al MonitorIn my previous article, I wrote about the most significant political dispute in New Turkey, the spat between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government and the Gulen movement. Quarters close to the government argue that the Gulenists are seeking to establish themselves in the military, civilian bureaucracy and the judiciary to install a “new Gulenist tutelage regime” in place of the “old Kemalist tutelage regime.” The Gulenists deny the allegations. Turkey’s democratically elected governments have always complained of tutelage. The debate in the Erdogan versus Gulen context is only a recent development, but the problem of tutelage has a long history in Turkish politics.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/08/turkey-president-ozal-poisoned.html
35. Westminster University Focuses on Alevi-Kurdish Suicides in London
16 August 2013 / Bianet“He was feeling trapped in a cage,” says Cemile Gurgur, sister-in-law of the latest young man in suicide serials in London ’s Alevi Kurdish community.
Having worked in a supermarket for four years, 25-year-old Huseyin Gurgur said it was making him feel ‘insane’ and took a month off from his 12-hours a day shift, packed his luggage, had a shower, asked for directions to airport to fly over to Turkey. It was the last cigarette he was having in a council estate balcony covered with mosquito nets resembling a cage before he slowly burned the net and jumped to his death while more than 15 of his relatives were at home to say farewell to him.
“He never liked working in supermarkets, just wanted to find a job that he can work in a suit,” adds sister-in-law to explain his frustration at work.
http://bianet.org/english/youth/149224-westminister-university-focuses-on-alevi-kurdish-suicides-in-london
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