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The 8% Oil Share That Could Define the Limits of SDF Integration and Decentralization

The Syrian Energy Ministry has reportedly reached an agreement with HKN Energy over the Rmeilan oilfields. The deal matters not only for its implications for Syrian oil production but because…
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With the Regime Still Standing in Tehran, Trump Finds Its Scapegoat in the Kurds, Tel Aviv in Turkey

Trump has now accused “the Kurds” five times of diverting weapons intended for Iranian anti-government protesters, claiming Washington sent guns and ammunition through Kurdish intermediaries who kept the shipments for…
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Syria Moves SDF Fighters Far From Home in Test of Army Integration

On the Syria-SDF integration front, a notable development took place today: The Qamishli brigade, composed entirely of SDF fighters and numbering approximately 1,300, was transferred to al-Nabk military camp in…
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For Iraq, Hormuz Is a Boomerang

Iraq’s oil output dropped from approximately 4.3 million barrels per day before February’s Hormuz closure to around 1.3 to 1.4 million barrels, almost entirely for domestic consumption, with exports through the southern…
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Baghdad Turns to the Printing Press as Oil Revenue Holds Near $1 Billion

Iraq has begun printing money to manage the fiscal crisis triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein confirmed in an interview with Al-Sharqiya television…
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Hasakah: After the Territory, the Fight Over Coercive Power

The Latest on SDF-Damascus Integration: • The region is in a transitional period, and security has been deteriorating steadily but at an accelerating pace across the SDF-held pocket, especially in…
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Iraq’s Hardline Factions Refuse a Disarmament Others Have Accepted

Iraq’s most powerful armed factions have begun responding to a renewed drive to bring all weapons under state authority. The political cover came from the Coordination Framework, which declared its…
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How Israel’s Iranian Kurdish plan against Iran collapsed

Three months after the war with Iran began, a fuller account shows the northern front Israel hoped to open through Iranian Kurdish groups was undone within a week, defeated less…
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Afrin and Qamishli could become transit hubs in two major regional rail corridors

A major shift may be underway around two Syrian Kurdish border geographies: Afrin in the west and Qamishli in the east. For most of the past decade, Afrin in the…
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Turkey’s Kurdish Peace Process Reaches Its First Legislative Test

Speaking at an Eid al-Adha gathering in Van on 28 May, Pervin Buldan, a lawmaker for the DEM Party, Turkey’s main legal pro-Kurdish party and a deputy speaker of parliament,…
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