What is the Kurdish-led HDP’s position on Turkey’s elections? (by Yeghia Tashjian)

CHP chairman and presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu (center) with HDP co-chairs Pervin Buldan (left) and Mithat Sancar (right), March 20, 2023 (Photo: Official website of the Peoples’ Democratic Party) On March 22, 2023, following a meeting with CHP leader and joint opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu,

Aesthetic Intervention: Kurdish Female Combatants’ Artistic Practices (By Özlem Belçim Galip)

The role of women in armed guerrilla groups and conflicts has been a focal point of feminist scholarship, especially during the last two decades. However, the case of female combatants provides another example of limitations being placed on women’s agency in both conflict

A cry with a hand wave from a high-rise block: Forced dispossession and resettlement in Southeast Turkey (By Özlem Belçim Galip)

  The desperate situation of Kurdish women in the Kurdish region of Turkey struck me first while shooting my documentary film in late 2019 in several cities in the region. I managed to observe the intense changes to the socio-cultural dynamics accompanying the

Whither Turkey? The Old, the New and the Not-So-New in 2018 (By Joe Hammoura)

Like a typical adolescent, bent on asserting his phallic worth through projecting raw force right and left – thereby creating a constant scene – Turkey would remain interesting as a site of constant political and economic drama or tragedy, depending on who you

Turkey’s “Mercenaries”: Vengeance from a Woman’s Body in Afrin (By Joe Hammoura)

‘Every war is different. Every war is the same.’ – Anthony Swofford Since the beginning of the Olive Branch Operation in Syria’s northwestern Afrin region on January 20th, the Turkish army has launched massive air and ground force strikes on targets across the

Turkey’s “Peace Operations” (By Uzay Bulut)

“You can live a normal life here [Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus] if you keep quiet, if you don’t tell the truth that we live under Turkish occupation, that much of our territory is a military zone where we can’t go.” — Şener Levent, owner

Armenia, the Turkish threat, and the Russian antidote (By Benyamin Poghosyan)

The Afrin events are being used to assert the notion that without Russian military guarantees, and a Russian military base deployed in Armenia, Yerevan will be under a constant threat from a potential Turkish offensive, says Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed. Turkey’s military

Do the Kurds Deserve a State? (By Abboud al Jazairi)

Following WWI, a number of key Arab figures and tribesmen who had joined the Allied war effort took over the administration of former Ottoman territory in what is today’s Syria and Jordan. Led by recently coronated King Faisal of the Hashemites, they proclaimed

Dreams of Independence: Reflections on the Eve of Kurdish Referendum (By Heather Miller)

I first came to Kurdistan in late July of 2014. My first month was colored with constant conversations and anxiety surrounding ISIS and it’s seizure of Kurdish land. My television was fixed on news stations as my colleagues and I watched more and

Turkey and Iran may not oppose an Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum as long as Kurds play their cards right (By Christiane Waked)

It is not a mystery that all eyes are going to be turned on the residents of Kurdish-controlled areas in Northern Iraq as they are preparing to vote on 25 September in a referendum on their preference for the future of the Kurdistan Region of