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…

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…

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…

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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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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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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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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