1. Öcalan: This process has three components
8 December 2013 / Kurdish InfoA delegation of BDP MPs Pervin Buldan and İdris Baluken and the HDP’s Sırrı Süreyya Önder made their 13th visit to Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan on İmralı island. The message Öcalan gave to the delegation is as follows:
“Firstly, I extend my condolences to the families of the two sons of our people who lost their lives in Gever, and to the entire Kurdish people. These murders are an extreme provocation as regards the process. Everyone must be more aware than ever of bigger provocations. The best way to commemorate these two sons of the people is to perpetuate their names in the struggle for peace and freedom.”
“While I maintain my belief in the process I expect the government to take a more positive initiative on negotiations. Whoever delays democratic steps for the sake of short term election calculations will be inviting chaos and conflict and jeopardising this process that will lead to the liberation of Turkey and the region and the establishment of a truly democratic republic
http://www.kurdishinfo.com/ocalan-process-three-components
2. 10th International EUTCC conference documents published
10 December 2013 / Kurdish InfoThe 10th International EUTCC conference, titled “Turkey, the Kurds and the Imrali Process: An historic opportunity”, took place on 4-5 December. All the published texts and speeches, including the final resolution, are available at this link.
http://www.kurdishinfo.com/category/10th-eutcc-conference
3. KCK: We give full support to the Hewler meeting
12 December 2013 / ANFKurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council Co-Presidency has released a statement about the Hewler meeting which will be led by KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) President Massoud Barzani and held in order for the revival of the Kurdish Supreme Council (Desteya Bilind a Kurd). KCK remarked that they give full support to the Hewler meeting which -it said- is a consequence of the talks between KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). "Should the meeting witness the determination of a joint attitude towards the Geneva Conference within the body of Desteya Bilind, and the strengthening of the interim administration, it will have a major role in the resolution of the Kurdish question and democratisation in Syria", KCK said and remarked that the meeting will also lead up to significant results concerning the Rojava revolution.
http://en.firatnews.com/news/news/kck-we-give-full-support-to-the-hewler-meeting.htm
4. Arrests continue despite resolution process
3 December 2013 / Kurdish InfoDetention in Turkey has reached peak in the last one month during which at least 261 people have been taken into custody and 87 among them have been remanded in custody. The recently increasing operations are being carried out as a follow-up of the KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) operations. These operations are targeting Kurds despite the ongoing resolution process in search of a democratic and peaceful solution to the Kurdish question. Detainees are accused of being members of an illegal organization, opposing the law on meetings and demonstrations, taking part in the KCK and YDG-H (Movement of Patriot and Revolutionary Youth) organizations.
According to the figures on recent detentions, as compiled by Serkan Kurt for DIHA news agency, an average of three people were detained and arrested a day during the month of November. Most of those detained are youths accused of being members of the YDG-H.
http://www.kurdishinfo.com/arrests-continue-despite-resolution-process
5. Turkey MPs brawl over 'Kurdistan'
9 December 2013 / Global PostA fracas erupted in Turkey's parliament on Monday between nationalist and pro-Kurdish lawmakers over the use of "Kurdistan", long a taboo word in the country.
Lawmakers from the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) submitted a motion demanding that the word "Kurdistan" be removed from the parliamentary minutes when referring to Iraq's autonomous northern region.
The move met an angry response from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), with lawmaker Hasip Kaplan declaring: "Kurdistan, Kurds and the Kurdish language do exist." The war of words turned nasty when another BDP lawmaker attempted to punch a nationalist rival and MPs were drawn into the scuffle as they tried to separate the two.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/131209/turkey-mps-brawl-over-kurdistan
6. The ‘K’ Word that Ignited a Row in Turkey’s Parliament
11 December 2013 / RudawNationalist lawmakers in Turkey’s parliament scratched out any reference to “Kurdistan” in the 2014 budget, after heated exchanges and insults with MPs from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) on Monday. The use of “Kurdistan,” to refer to the country’s predominantly Kurdish-populated southeast regions, has been a taboo in Turkey, where the large and oppressed Kurdish minority has been struggling for greater rights. Until only 11 years ago, it was illegal in Turkey to publicly speak or write in Kurdish. The Kurds themselves refer to Turkey’s Kurdish regions as North Kurdistan.
The latest row in the Turkish parliament was ignited after the nationalist parties vehemently opposed the use of the word in a budget report by the BDP. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) unanimously agreed to remove the word from the report, alleging it was against the constitution.
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/turkey/11122013
7. Bayık: We will revise the cease-fire if AKP insists on its current policies
12 December 2013 / ANFCemil Bayık, co-president of the Kurdistan Communities' Union (KCK) Executive Council, said in an interview with the Foreign Policy magazine that the peace process in Turkey is over unless the governing AKP (Justice and Development Party) moves from preliminary talks to a roadmap for a genuine solution to the Kurdish problem.
In his interview with journalist Chase Winter for FP, Bayık said both the PKK and AK Party agreed to "let the guns fall silent and politics speak," adding that the AK Party however hasn't lived up to this. "We are continuing the cease-fire, but if the government insists on its current policies then we will revise our stance. We want to solve the problem not with war, but with democratic methods," Bayık said, warning that unless the government moves from preliminary talks to a roadmap the cease-fire could end.
http://en.firatnews.com/news/news/bayik-we-will-revise-the-cease-fire-if-akp-insists-on-its-current-policies.htm
8. Defendants refuse to attend court in ‘KCK’ trial
10 December 2013 / ANFPoliticians tried in the main Istanbul KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) trial have refused to attend the second session of the 9th hearing in protest at disciplinary penalties and 24-hour CCTV surveillance. The court has ordered them to be brought to court by force. 83 of the 204 Kurdish politicians and human rights activists being tried at the Istanbul 15th High Criminal Court in the main Istanbul KCK trial are in custody. Their lawyers stated that the reasons their clients had refused to attend the hearing were disciplinary penalties exceeding 40 years, 24-hour CCTV surveillance, the transfer of those in custody to different prisons and the failure of the prison authorities to address these issues.
http://en.firatnews.com/news/news/defendants-refuse-to-attend-court-in-kck-trial.htm
9. Violence rattles Turkish-Kurdish peace process
9 December 2013 / eKurdThe peace process between Turkey and Kurdish rebels appeared fragile on Monday after three days of violent confrontations rocked the Kurdish region in the southeast.
The weekend clashes in several cities, which left two protesters dead and saw four Turkish soldiers briefly kidnapped, were the worst since Kurdish rebels announced a ceasefire nine months ago. Four Turkish soldiers abducted by PKK were released early on Monday in the Kurdish region in southeast Turkey's Diyarbakir province. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday accused certain groups of trying to damage the peace process. "These are actions perpetrated by those who want to hurt the process," Erdogan said. "However, we will continue the process... without falling into this trap." Two protesters were shot dead by police in clashes in Yuksekova on Friday night, setting off weekend protests in several towns including the main southeastern Kurdish city of Diyarbakir and even Turkey's biggest metropolis Istanbul.
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2013/12/turkey4872.htm
10. Nishtiman Grants Kurdish Music Its Deserved Place in the World
12 December 2013 / RudawIt is a cold December night in Paris. Parisian world music aficionados and members of France’s Kurdish community will soon gather in front of the Café de la Danse - one of the famous concert halls of the French capital city.
Inside, seven musicians are going through the last sound checks. They speak to each other in a mix of Sorani, Persian, Turkish and English.
Together, they form the Kurdish music ensemble “Nishtiman,” Kurdish for “homeland.”
“Our aim is to build awareness about Kurdish musical tradition among the foreign public. It is the first time that a European label, “Accord croisés,” commits to promote Kurdish music as a whole” said Hussein Hajar Zahawy - the famous daf drum player from Khanaqin and artistic director of the project, which is sponsored by the Rudaw Media Network.
http://rudaw.net/english/culture/12122013
11. Behind the lines: No solution without the Kurds
12 December 2013 / Jerusalem PostSaleh Muslim Muhammad, 52, is the leader of the Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party) in Syria. This movement, often referred to as the Syrian franchise of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) is today the de facto ruler of around 10 percent of Syrian territory. Saleh Muslim, an engineer by profession from the town of Kobani in northern Syria, served several jail sentences in President Bashar Assad’s jails in the pre- 2011 period for his political activity. The outbreak of the Syrian crisis found him in exile in northern Iraq. He returned to coordinate the activities of the PYD, which he has led since 2010.
http://www.jpost.com/Features/Front-Lines/Behind-the-lines-No-solution-without-the-Kurds-334887
12. Minority Rights in Iran: Keep Hoping, Official Says
11 December 2013 / RuadwAli Younesi, the Iranian government’s advisor on minority rights, has blamed a small clan of hard-liners for hindering minority rights on security grounds, but called on minorities not to lose hope. Younesi, who is adviser to President Hassan Rouhani, said that “some individuals in hard-line movements” viewed minority issues from a security perspective, and implied their actions were inconveniencing the government’s agenda.
Speaking to the ISNA news agency, he said they were a “small group” with loud voices, who usually act on their own and ignore the guidelines and principles of the Islamic Republic. Younesi underscored comments by Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who in a speech in Iranian Kurdistan declared that “insulting Sunnis and their sanctity is not permissible.”
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iran/11122013
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
13. Mandela: Shining light for Turkey's Kurds
9 December 2013 / AFPTo the Kurds of Turkey, Nelson Mandela was a source of inspiration for their own struggle -- a freedom fighter who was jailed in isolation like their own leader.
To some nationalist Turks however, he was a "terrorist" because of his support for the Kurdish cause and an "insolent African" who turned down the country's most prestigious award. Turkey's leaders hailed Mandela as a "great statesman" and a "legendary leader", although Ankara is sending a low-level official to his memorial on Tuesday, in contrast to many world governments who are sending heads of state or top royals. The Turkish press gave the death Thursday of South Africa's first black president and Nobel Peace laureate relatively low-key coverage, with the news announced in only small stories on their front-pages.
http://za.news.yahoo.com/mandela-shining-light-turkey-39-kurds-160557090.html
14. Mandela and Ocalan: Flowers for a Friend of the Kurds
13 December 2013 / RudawFor many Kurds, the late Nelson Mandela will be remembered for his principled stand against Turkey’s treatment of its large and oppressed Kurdish minority. In 1992, when Mandela was still president of South Africa, he turned down the Ataturk Peace Prize that Turkey offered him for his lifelong fight for freedom. Pointing to the oppression of the Kurds, Mandela confronted the Turkish government for its hypocrisy and rejected the prize.
This caused an outrage in Turkey. According to the AFP news agency, nationalist Turks called Mandela a “terrorist” because of his support for the Kurdish cause. Mandela was also named an “insolent African” who turned down a prestigious award.
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/turkey/13122013
15. Turkey’s strained Kurdish peace process
11 December 2013 / Foreign PolicySpeaking in a discreet village house adorned with Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) flags, posters of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, and three Kurdish activists killed in an unsolved assassination in Paris last year, Cemil Bayik, the co-president of the Kurdistan Communities' Union (KCK), the umbrella organization that encompasses the PKK and its affiliates, says the peace process in Turkey is over unless the governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) moves from preliminary talks to a roadmap for a genuine solution to the Kurdish problem. In a move last year that bred much optimism, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party entered into direct negotiations with Ocalan to end nearly three decades of conflict. In March, Ocalan declared a cease-fire and the PKK began a withdrawal from Turkey to its bases in Iraqi Kurdistan.
http://mideastafrica.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/11/turkey_s_strained_kurdish_peace_process#sthash.GIw35SB0.dpbs<http://mideastafrica.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/11/turkey_s_strained_kurdish_peace_process%23sthash.GIw35SB0.dpbs>
16. Turkey’s Kurds Seek Forgiveness for Part in Genocide
12 December 2013 / Asberez“The Armenian population is melting.” This bleak assessment was pronounced by Sahak Mashalian, an Armenian Orthodox priest, during a recent Sunday mass at the Asdvadzadzin church in Istanbul. Reeling off the statistics: 482 funerals, 236 baptisms and 191 weddings, the black-robed cleric solemnly intoned, “These figures point to a community … that is dying.” Little over a century ago, the Armenian Patriarchate put Anatolia’s Armenian population at more than two million. In 1915, tragedy struck. Estimated figures vary, but between 800,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered by Ottoman forces and their Kurdish allies in what many respected historians call the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey vehemently denies any genocidal intent. The official line is that most of the Armenians died from hunger and disease, as they were forcibly deported to the deserts of Syria amid the upheaval of the collapsing empire.
http://asbarez.com/117363/turkey%E2%80%99s-kurds-seek-forgiveness-for-part-in-genocide/
17. “The War in Rojava has Carried Over to Geneva”
2 December 2013 / Rojava ReportThe war in Rojava is coming to an end. In this war Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar openly supported al-Qaeda; the United States and the EU openly supported the Free Syrian Army. However this broad alliance has suffered a strategic defeat at the hands of the YPG. After the victory Kurds proclaimed self-administration while asserting their control over Rojava. At just this point the United States, the Turkish State and the KDP began a war to neutralize the agents of these developments – the Kurdish High Council and the PYD – in the political field. Activities to discredit and slander the PYD’s legitimacy are still continuing in different forms. It is worth investigating the recently published report of ‘Reporters without Borders’ – an organization with its headquarters in France – as just one part of this slander campaign.
http://rojavareport.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/the-war-in-rojava-has-carried-over-to-geneva/
18. Turkey’s oil gamble with the Kurds
8 December 2013 / Kurdish InfoOnce again eyes are on oil and its potential impact on the changing Middle East scene. This month could send a significant signal depending on what emerges out from Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, or to be more specific how Turkey will behave vis-a-vis its relationship with both Baghdad, the seat of the central Iraqi authority or Erbil, the capital of the Kurds. In addition to securing the right to export their oil through the Iraqi pipeline that ends in Turkey, Erbil is believed to have reached an agreement with Ankara to build its own pipeline that ends in the busy and crowded Ceyhan terminal. An understanding is said to have been reached during a visit by Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barazani and his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan late last month, but it was decided in the end not to forge ahead and sign the deal that should have come into effect this month.
http://www.kurdishinfo.com/turkeys-oil-gamble-kurds
19. 1001 Apples departs a poignant message
11 December 2013 / The NationalThe poignant drama 1,001 Apples — by the Iranian-Kurdish filmmaker Taha Karimi who died in a car accident in May after completing the film — is screening at DIFF. His brother Hara Karimi, who attended the premiere, spoke of his brother’s passion for telling the story of the 1988 genocide of 182,000 Kurds by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. “He wanted to use the apple as a symbol of peace and love, and as a message for other countries that have suffered such horrors of war. He always used to say that the first apple was from Eve to Adam, the second was Newton’s apple, the third was Steve Jobs’s Apple, and the fourth is the apple that will bring peace to the world.”
Faraj Topkhane, a survivor of the brutal massacre, remembers as a small child a quarrel with a boy next door getting out of hand. Following a centuries-old Kurdish tradition, his mother told him to pierce an apple with cloves as a symbol of peace and reconciliation, to offer to his friend as a way to make amends.
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/film/1001-apples-departs-a-poignant-message
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