New international talks aimed at ending the Syrian conflict may be unlikely to succeed, but they do mark shifts in the alignment of competing forces.
The United Nations Security Council unanimously voted on December 31 to support a ceasefire in Syria that started the previous day. The latest round of international peace talks are scheduled for January 23 in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana.
“We will resist and resist until we win!” chants Sebahat Tuncel before her mouth is forcibly shut by half a dozen police officers who drag her along the floor and detain her in early November.
The following statement was released on November 11 by Farooq Tariq, spokesperson for the Awami Workers Party in Pakistan.
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On the night of November 3, the Turkish police detained Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ – the co-chairs of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) – alongside several other Members of Parliament who were democratically voted in with over 5 million votes in the last parliamentary election.
The political situation in Turkey continues to deteriorate in the wake of the attempted coup d’état in July, allegedly organised by the Gülen Movement, a former ally of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). It has in fact led to a slow incremental counter-coup where President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his cronies have progressively jailed, marginalised and silenced opponents of all hues — but especially the Kurdish movement.
The regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took a further leap towards undisguised dictatorship, intensifying its crackdown against the democratic and left-wing opposition, independent media and the Kurdish population.
On October 25, Co-Mayors of the Diyarbakır (Amed) Metropolitan Municipality, Gültan Kışanak and Fırat Anlı, members of the Kurdish Democratic Regions Party (DBP), were arrested.
BREAKING NEWS November 5 — The regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took a further leap towards undisguised dictatorship with the issue of arrest warrants for all 59 Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MPs by the Diyarbakir Chief Prosecutor's Office, reported.
Thirteen HDP deputies including party leaders Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ have already been detained.
A large minority in Turkey, at about 20% of the population, the Kurdish people have long faced systemic discrimination by the Turkish state. This has included massacres and violent repression of their culture, with even the Kurdish language banned until recently.
Such oppression led to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) launching an armed struggle for national liberation in 1984. In recent years, the PKK — whose leader Abdullah Öcalan remains in solitary confinement in a Turkish jail — has declared its commitment to a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Fascist mobs, with support from the police, attacked neighbourhoods populated by Kurds, the Alevi religious minority, other minorities and leftists. Istanbul, July 16. Photo: Sendika10.org.
Faced with an attempt to overthrow his government, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described the coup as “a gift from God” — and wasted no time in exploiting it to further entrench his authoritarian regime.
[The following opinion piece was written by Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) Executive Committee member and founder Duran Kalkan on July 17. It can be read as the official stance of the PKK regarding the failed coup attempt in Turkey.]
"The AKP's fascism drove the army into Kurdish cities and towns, made them burn cities to the ground and massacre hundreds of civilians." Cizre, Bakur.
The umbrella organisation of the Kurdish movement, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council Co-Presidency, released the following statement on July 16
Destruction wrought by Turkish state in Diyarbakır.
Three-hundred-and-fifty thousand. That is the number of people displaced since the Kurdish-Turkish “resolution process” was interrupted by the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last year.