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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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Arivan
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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Arivan
The point of no return: PKK reported to have evacuated Gara stronghold
The PKK has evacuated some of its most important camps in the Gara Mountains, in the central-northern Kurdistan Region, according to Nefes, a Turkish liberal-leaning newspaper, citing Turkish security forces.…
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Arivan
After the Ceasefire, Iran’s Kurdish War Moves Inside
A two-week escalation across Iranian Kurdistan has killed at least 21 people. It is the deadliest confrontation between Tehran and the Kurdish armed parties in over a decade, and the…
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Arivan
The Sunni Dimension of Zaidi’s Anti-Corruption Crackdown
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s anti-corruption campaign follows a familiar template in one respect and breaks new ground in another. The Shia component of the crackdown targets the networks of his…
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Arivan
Zaidi’s ‘Anti-Corruption’ Raids Follow Iraq’s Post-Succession Pattern, and Fall Hardest on Halbousi’s Rivals
Iraqi security forces detained as many as 20 senior officials during raids in Baghdad’s Green Zone and other areas late on June 28. The most prominent reported detainee is Muthanna…
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Arivan
Turkey’s PKK Law: What It Will Contain and Why It Is Taking So Long
President Erdogan confirmed on 24 June that his government was preparing a legal framework to accelerate the dissolution of the PKK, ending several weeks of speculation over whether any legislation would be…
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Arivan
The Iranian Kurdish front that reached the border and stopped
A United States and Israeli plan to open a Kurdish ground front inside Iran moved through months of preparation to forward deployment at Haj Omran in the first week of…
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Arivan
Iraq Picked an Outsider to Tame Its Militias. He May End Up Strengthening the System That Created Them.
A sweeping reshuffle of Iraq’s security, financial and border institutions, paired with the slow and partial integration of the Shia armed factions, is rearranging the Coordination Framework’s order from within.…
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Arivan
What a Grand Mosque Reveals About Why Kurdistan Can’t Form a Government
Masrour Barzani’s grand mosque borrows the language of Gulf monarchy and the personal ambitions of Mohammed bin Zayed. Read closely, it also explains why the Kurdistan Region still has no…
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