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As the PKK Makes Peace with Turkey, It Is Quietly Building Up Along Iran’s Border

Despite the ongoing peace process with Turkey, under which it is expected to disarm and withdraw from its bases along Iraq’s border with Turkey, the PKK and its affiliates are…
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Turkey’s Kurdish peace process presses ahead after breakthrough over the ‘framework law’

Following months of slowdown caused by the Iran war and by disagreement over the nature of the draft bill that will pave the way for the return of PKK-linked fighters,…
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How Damascus Is Trading Institutional Manning for Coercive Penetration in Hasakah

The Syrian government has announced a provisional executive office in Hasakah province with a roughly 6:4 ratio favouring SDF-linked appointees over Damascus appointees. This has provoked criticism from some Arab…
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Why Turkey Intervened: The Strategic Logic Behind Ankara’s Opposition to an Iranian Kurdish Front

Kan News, Israel’s public broadcaster, citing senior Israeli officials, reported that Turkey threatened to provide air assistance to Iran if Kurdish forces invaded the country as part of a Mossad-coordinated…
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Tehran’s Quiet Campaign on the Kurdistan Border

At least nine Iranian Kurdish fighters from the Komala movement were killed today in an Iranian attack in Sulaimani province. The strike caps a violent stretch inside Iran’s majority Kurdish…
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Syria’s Arms Seizure Sells Washington Its Leverage Over Hezbollah

Syrian authorities have intercepted a truck carrying Iraqi oil that was found to be concealing a shipment of weapons, including long-range missiles and drones, destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon via…
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Where Turkey’s PKK Framework Law Stands

Negotiations over the legal framework for the PKK peace process have entered their final stage, with the ruling bloc aiming to pass the law before parliament rises for its summer…
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Iran’s Power in Iraq Has Become Harder to See

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi arrived in Washington on Monday for his first foreign trip since taking office, leading a delegation that includes the foreign and oil ministers and the…
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The Kurdish Layer in Washington’s Iraq-Syria-Turkey Design

A new Middle East is taking shape, and its organising principles are trade and connectivity rather than military power alone. The order being built is state-anchored. For the first time,…
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Two Power Centres: How the KDP and PUK Became Different Kinds of Useful

The Kurdistan Region has one flag and is constitutionally one polity, but for nearly two years it has not been able to form a new government, with the current caretaker…
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