Kurdistan today

Tel Temir, Syria – The victories of the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) against militants of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS) in the vicinity of Tel Temir town of Hasakah province, in northeastern Syria, helped lifting the siege on Arab villages, local sources said.

Several media outlets reported that the YPG forces launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Arab residents in the area.

Arab people in the liberated villages refuted rumors about their displacement or burning their farms by YPG fighters.

Asya Abdulrahman, 31, an Arab resident of Tel Temir countryside, responded to the rumors about YPG attacks, saying: “On the contrary, the YPG hasn’t displaced us from our houses nor burned our farms. We have been displaced by ISIS terrorists.”

“Many villagers returned home safely after the YPG forced ISIS to withdraw from the area. Our houses and farms are fortunately secure by now, and we’ll start our life like before,” she told ARA News.

Ahmed Ali, 53, another Arab resident of the countryside of Tel Tamir, said: “SIS militants have besieged our villages for months. All roads were blocked. The roads to Hasakah, Tel Temir or Ras al-Ain were all closed. We were completely besieged by ISIS terrorists before the YPG fighters arrived here.”

“The YPG fighters have helped us get rid of those IS radical strangers. The YPG hasn’t caused any harm to the locals as rumored by the media,” he told ARA News.

Halima al-Hameed, 68, also talked to ARA News about the recent developments in the Arab villages of Tel Temir, saying: “When ISIS took over the area we left our houses. The situation remained like that until the arrival of the YPG forces. We’re grateful to them.

Noteworthy, the YPG forces caused the radical group of ISIS heavy losses during the recent battles in Tel Temir. Subsequently, ISIS militants were forced to withdraw from the area.

A Briton who fought against Islamic State forces in Syria has told the BBC he believes he can justify his actions if the police decide to question him.
Former currency trader Harry says he was not quizzed when arriving back in the UK after five months with the YPG, or Kurdish People's Protection Units.
He says he had been fighting for "democracy, freedom and the Kurds".
The Home Office has warned people that taking part in the conflict in Syria and Iraq could amount to an offence.
Interviewed by the BBC's Quentin Sommerville before his journey home, 28-year-old Harry was asked what he would tell the UK authorities if questioned.
"I'll be totally honest with them," he said.
"Whatever information they need I'll give it to them. But more than that I'll tell them why I came, what kind of person I am...
"And then I'll go along with the practicalities and say to them: 'Do you think I am a threat to the British people? Do you think that I'm a terrorist? If you think that it is in the public's interest to prosecute me, then do your worst. I'll have to take that when it comes. But I suppose being here was justified."
Harry, who is from Cambridge and also known under his Kurdish name of Macer Gifford, says he travelled to the conflict with a goal of "shining a light on what was going on".
"I'm not a professional soldier but... an extra pair of hands fighting against Islamic State is always going to be a good thing," he said.
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The YPG has been making ground against Islamic State fighters
More than 200,000 people have been killed since the civil war in Syria began in 2011, with the militant group Islamic State taking advantage of the conflict to gain territory.
But Kurdish forces supported by an allied air campaign have recently made important gains in the north of the country and Harry says "a lot has been achieved" since he joined the YPG.
Harry described the feeling of taking the Islamic State's main camp for Rojava [Syrian Kurdistan] as "quite symbolic".
"I have to go home some time and it's a good time to draw a line," he told the BBC.
He added: "I have achieved a little something... It hasn't been a holiday, it hasn't been a gap year. It's been very stressful. I've seen friends die. I've been in some terrible combats. I can't tell you how tired I am."
On his arrival at Heathrow Airport, Harry added: "I went for humanitarian reasons. I don't think it was particularly controversial. The people we were up against in the Islamic State, well, they are barbaric. People will understand why I went out."
He was fighting in the YPG alongside other Westerners including another Briton, IT worker Jac Holmes, 22, from Bournemouth, who returned to the UK on Wednesday.
Mr Holmes - who spoke to Newshour from a YPG military training camp in Syria in February - was detained for three hours by officials at Heathrow Airport after landing on a flight from Cairo.
He said officials had removed his phone and other items before he was questioned.
Mr Holmes then left the airport accompanied by his mother and stepfather.
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Harry spent five months with the YPG in Syria
The YPG has not been designated as a terrorist group by the UK government. But the Home Office's list of proscribed organisations does include two Kurdish groups.
The Home Office said each case is dealt with on an individual basis.
A spokesperson added: "The UK advises against all travel to Syria and parts of Iraq. Anyone who does travel to these areas, for whatever reason, is putting themselves in considerable danger.
"The best way to help the people of these countries is to donate to registered charities that have ongoing relief operations, not by taking part in a conflict overseas, which can be an offence under both criminal and terror laws."

The importance of this operation's success is enormous. The Kobani Canton has been cut off for months, surrounded by ISIS on 3 sides and the Turkish Army on the other. ISIS has freedom to cross the border as they wish, so their access to Turkey greatly increases their effectiveness. The road that runs along the border links Kobani with the Jazeer Canton (Rojava's Largest) and passes through Tel Abayd.

After the seige of Kobani City (Kobanigrad) was lifted in January, YPG/YPJ forces have been liberating the rest of the Canton since.

When I arrived in Jazeer Canton of Rojava, the majority of its territory was still held by ISIS, so the goal for the YPG/YPJ was to assault westward toward Kobani. We did exactly that, with Coalition Airpower having a huge role in that success.

6 months after the "Kobani-grad" battle ended, ISIS has been beaten on both fronts and the last remaining elements have been cut off in the city of Tel Abayd.... NOW IT IS THEIR TURN TO EXPERIENCE A KOBANI OF THEIR OWN.... But they will not be successful in their defence. I'm certain that hundreds, if not thousands, will be eliminated. The rest will flee into Turkey to lick their wounds and fight on another front.

This war that ISIS placed on the Kurds in Rojava has been intensely brutal and costly for both sides. I witnessed a sample of that myself. The way people are forced to fight when they don't have vast resources like ours increases the horror of war exponentially in relation to what modern American servicemen experience....And what we endured in Iraq and Afghanistan was at many times nightmarish.

I have to applaud my kurdish brothers in arms for the grit and sheer determination they display. Their bravery, on an individual basis, is awe inspiring and far greater than mine. Thousands of YPG/YPJ soldiers have run straight into ISIS guns for their Revolution and the freedom of the Rojava populace, including all races, religions, AND GENDERS.

the West, believing that Iraq’s Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, are its best hope in Iraq, has been sending them millions of dollars in weapons and training. But because of the way in which those weapons have been channeled to the Kurds, the assistance is undermining the U.S.-led campaign and threatening to undo a decade of progress in turning the peshmerga into a professional force. Ultimately, it will render the Kurds a less effective partner.

The military aid is uncoordinated, unbalanced, unconditional, and unmonitored. Because of the lack of oversight on weapons’ allocation, and because the weapons come with no strings attached, officials can direct them to their own affiliated peshmerga forces, empowering loyalist officers and entangling the rest of the officer corps in petty rivalries. All this distracts the peshmerga from the real task at hand: assessing, preparing for, and countering terrorist threats. To fix the problem, the U.S.-led coalition should place any assistance under a single command, under civilian control and away from political rivalries.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters conduct war exercises near the Iraqi town of Dohuk in this April 1991 file picture.
REUTERS
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters conduct war exercises near the Iraqi town of Dohuk in this April 1991 file picture.

Efforts to reform these peshmerga into a professional defense force had been long underway by the time ISIS took over swathes of territory along the border with Iraqi Kurdistan in June 2014. In the 1990s, after the Kurdish region gained de facto autonomy from Baghdad, and following several years of internecine conflict, the two strongest Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), established rival military academies in their respective territorial strongholds of Qala Chwalan and Zakho.
Both parties enrolled Kurdish former Iraqi army officers, who broke away from the Iraqi army during Saddam Hussein’s rule. They helped organize peshmerga fighters into battalions and the top staff leadership into military ranks. Each force focused on defending their own territories from the Iraqi army incursions, which increased Kurdistan’s autonomy from Baghdad—and their independence from (and enmity toward) each other.

A Kurdish peshmerga fighter guards a checkpoint close to the frontline, east of Kirkuk where Iraqi government troops are stationed in the north of the country on March 31, 2003.
NIKOLA SOLIC / REUTERS
A Kurdish peshmerga fighter guards a checkpoint close to the frontline, east of Kirkuk where Iraqi government troops are stationed in the north of the country on March 31, 2003.
After Saddam was ousted in 2003, the peshmerga began to take on the trappings of a real army. Qala Chwalan and Zakho turned into new Iraqi army military academies, providing an entire generation of Kurdish officers with a military education and even integrating some of them into the new Iraqi army. Peshmerga leadership began to include both senior party militants as well as junior officers who, even if they entered the academies through party connections, were not necessarily party members. The end result was a new generation of Kurdish officers who were loyal to the KRG as a whole rather than to either of the competing parties. Younger Kurds’ rising criticism of the parties’ grip on KRG institutions furthered the trend.
Reforming civil-military relations was far more challenging. Officers—regardless of whether they were party members—were expected to take orders from the party leaders to whom they owed their careers. In 2009, the KDP and PUK agreed to create a joint Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs to centralize administrative tasks, establish joint KDP–PUK brigades commanded by academy graduates, and increase cooperation between their respective intelligence agencies. However, despite the new institution, party politics continued to dictate officer recruitments, promotions, force deployments, and the handling of sensitive information.

Western policymakers might shrug, believing divisions among the Kurds will at least prevent them from successfully joining together to press for an independent Iraqi Kurdistan; in reality, these divisions prevent Kurdish parties from effectively participating in the Iraqi state. ISIS’ surprise attack last June exposed these deep-rooted problems and created new ones. It catapulted a combination of senior officers and younger party figures to command positions on the front lines, marginalizing those academy graduates who did not enjoy similar party-connections. Meanwhile, with both parties’ leaders aging, the two factions are embroiled in internal succession struggles. Emerging contenders are soliciting external support, notably from Turkey and Iran, to help them secure land and resources in territories disputed with the central government and to arm their own forces that operate under the peshmerga umbrella. For instance, in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, prominent KDP and PUK leaders have deployed their network of affiliated commanders—each pursuing a different agenda.

The West has failed to consider both the evolution of the peshmerga and Kurdish politics in general. It has conditioned weapons deliveries to the KRG on the approval of Baghdad, a policy designed to keep the Iraqi capital sovereign and to discourage total Kurdish independence. But the policy is outdated. Today, the PUK is ascendant in Baghdad, so channeling weapons to the Iraqi government has only further alienated the KDP from the central government. In turn, KDP officials have made increasingly provocative calls for independence and solicited direct arming to cut out Baghdad, which it views as being dominated by Iran. Western policymakers might shrug, believing that such divisions will at least prevent the parties from successfully joining together to press for an independent Iraqi Kurdistan; in reality, these divisions prevent Kurdish parties from effectively participating in the Iraqi state.

SEOUL – The Seoul Western District Court in South Korea has ruled against the Korea Times newspaper for publishing a series of articles relating to accusations by Korean MP Chun Soon-ok.



Chun alleged that the Korean National Oil Company (KNOC) and the KRG and Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami were involved in the misuse of funds in 2008.



The KNOC bought a suit against the Korean Times after it published a number of articles repeating the claims, which were picked up by news outlets across the Kurdistan Region. The court agreed that the allegations were ‘not true’ and ordered the newspaper to remove the articles and not repeat or distribute similar claims in the future.



The Court ruling reads:



“There is no reason for this Court to make a conclusion that the money paid to the KRG by the Creditor is either bribery or was distributed to the close associates of [former President] Lee Myung-Bak.”

It goes on to say that the Korean Times “had not been able to furnish any credible material supporting its allegation that the payment of bonuses under the contract is a bribery.

“This Court finds that the Debtor’s [Korean Times] posting of the articles… constitutes an act damaging to the reputation of the Creditor [KNOC] and as an infringement on personal rights of the creditor by stating false fact.”

BAGHDAD – The Iraqi Foreign Ministry has welcomed the United States Senate decision to vote against the proposed bill to arm Kurdish Peshmerga forces directly.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry applauded the US Senate decision to veto the amendment to the US defence bill which would have allowed the Pentagon to directly arm Peshmerga forces, without going through the Iraqi central government.

Baghdad reiterated its commitment to arm all Iraqi security forces, including the Peshmerga, in the war against Islamic State (IS).

It said Baghdad has the sole responsibility to distribute weapons and ammunition to all Iraqi forces.

“Any arming for any forces without the central government’s approval will have a negative effect on the unity of Iraq,” said the ministry’s statement.

On Tuesday the US Senate voted to maintain the government policy of arming all Iraqi forces facing Islamic State (IS) through Baghdad.

In an amendment to the annual defence policy bill, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) had proposed allowing the US to deliver military hardware, including anti-tank weapons, communications systems and body armour, directly to the Kurdish Peshmerga. The bill failed 54-45, despite cross party support.

WASHINGTON – The United States Department of Defence has said it’s “unacceptable” if Syrian Kurdish fighters push Arabs and Turkmens from their land amid the fight against Islamic State (IS).

According to media reports thousands of Syrian Arabs and Turkmens began flowing into Turkey last week as Kurdish fighters conducted operations against IS militants in Tel Abyad, known as Gire Spi in Kurdish. It was a stronghold of IS, giving rise to claims that the fighters are ethnically cleansing local communities by forcing their displacement.

“We certainly have seen these reports, and it is something that we are watching for,” said Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren. “Without question it is something that we’ll find unacceptable, if true.”

The Kurdish fighters, known as People’s Protection Units (YPG), have been backed by US-led coalition airstrikes that have contributed to the fleeing of civilians.

According to the coalition unit leading anti-IS operations, at least 90 airstrikes have been conducted in the Raqqa, Hasakah and Kobani regions where Kurds are fighting the militants.

“As the Kurdish forces have moved west from Hasakah in northeastern Syria to Tel Abyad the airstrikes have moved with them,” Warren said, noting that it was a part of the coalition’s strategy to cut off IS supply lines to Raqqa, the self-declared IS capital.

Warren also said the capture of Tel Abyad was a strategic gain in terms of closing an important route for the fighters although there are still several other routes that could be used to access Raqqah.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest warned that cutting off the supply route could lead to a “major flow of foreign fighters, illicit goods and other illegal activity into northern Syria into Iraq” by the militant group.

ERBIL – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Kurdish political parties have agreed that should the Iraqi government not commit to its agreement with Erbil, then the KRG should work using local law to export oil unilaterally.

On Wednesday in the regional capital of Erbil, political party representatives met with the Kurdistan Region’s Oil and Gas Council to decide on the KRG’s next steps. The KRG perceives Baghdad to be failing to meet its commitment to last December’s agreement between Baghdad and Erbil.

The agreement stated that the KRG would receive 17% of the federal budget, while exporting 550,000 barrels of oil per day (from the KRG and Kirkuk) via the State Oil Marketing Organisation.

According to a KRG statement following the meeting, Kurdish parties agreed to support KRG oil policies. If Baghdad continues to violate the December agreement, the KRG should look in to other options based on KRG oil law, leading to the possibility of it selling its oil to the world market independently.

The five main Kurdish political party representatives; KDP, PUK, Gorran, KIU and KIG (Komal) participated along with the KRG Oil and Gas Council.

BasNews understands that all sides agreed on four main points:

The KRG wants to resolve all problems with the Iraqi central government and remains committed to implementing last December’s agreement with Baghdad.

If Baghdad does not commit to the agreement, then the KRG will be forced to look at alternative legal options to solve the economic crisis and honour the salaries and needs of the Kurdistan Region people.

Kurdish parties will support KRG oil policies to solve the current economic crisis, exacerbated by the war against Islamic State and the huge influx of refugees arriving in the region.

Finally, the sides agreed that the KRG’s first option will always be to solve its problems with Baghdad through dialogue as it does not wish to sever ties with the central government.