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Why should Kurds be given land over the indigenous Christian people? The same people the Kurds murder on a daily basis?
Iraqi Kurdistan's President Masoud Barzani resigns after Independence push backfired
- Thread starter Arkain2K
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Why should Kurds be given land over the indigenous Christian people? The same people the Kurds murder on a daily basis?
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Source? I've never heard of a group of Christians in the ME trying to establish their own country anywhere.
D
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Turkey won't allow a Kurdistan, Erdogan is pretty much Hitler when it comes to the Kurds.
This should be interesting because if the Iraqi Government send the military after the Kurds it could give ISIS an opportunity to regain territory. This shit never ends.
This should be interesting because if the Iraqi Government send the military after the Kurds it could give ISIS an opportunity to regain territory. This shit never ends.
D
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Well to be fair they're murdered before they can gain any traction usually.
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The Assyrians are the indigenous people of Iraq, Syria and turkey. Every section that the Kurds claim.
The Kurds massacred them all to near extinction and continue to do so. Erbil the Kurdish capital is an Assyrian town which the Kurds massacred and took.
Read about it.
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Do you have sources and a general timeframe here?
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Why we cant unanimously support the Kurds is beyond me.
They supported us in the Gulf War and got fucked by Saddam when we left. We came back into Iraq and they supported us wholeheartedly. Just a couple of years ago they were singlehandedly (hyperbole) pushing ISIS back in Iraq while Obama sat with his thumb in his ass now afraid to get involved after "getting us out of Iraq". An independent Kurdistan would be the most stable and loyal ally to have in the area.
Honestly, FUCK TURKEY. They aren't our friends. And fuck the Iraqi's (dumb fucks can't stop killing each other). Those motherfuckers aren't our friends either. Iran? Definately not our friends. And if the threat of losing those allies or worsening relations with any of them is the reason to not support Kurdistan I can say we really won't be missing much.
They supported us in the Gulf War and got fucked by Saddam when we left. We came back into Iraq and they supported us wholeheartedly. Just a couple of years ago they were singlehandedly (hyperbole) pushing ISIS back in Iraq while Obama sat with his thumb in his ass now afraid to get involved after "getting us out of Iraq". An independent Kurdistan would be the most stable and loyal ally to have in the area.
Honestly, FUCK TURKEY. They aren't our friends. And fuck the Iraqi's (dumb fucks can't stop killing each other). Those motherfuckers aren't our friends either. Iran? Definately not our friends. And if the threat of losing those allies or worsening relations with any of them is the reason to not support Kurdistan I can say we really won't be missing much.
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I am in full support of a Kurdistan. Those guys are awesome. The Peshmerga always had our backs, and they are a friend to America. Furthermore, they are really reasonable people who have been under the thumbs of the Turks, Iraqis, and Iranians for far too long.
The Turks won’t allow this because they hate the Kurds, and there is a strategic oil pipeline at risk. The Turks are the most brutal ones of all to the Kurds. Hell, the Iranians are the “nicest” ones, and they still pretty much consider the Kurds to be subhuman. The Kurds deserve the right to self-governance, and the West would see another friendly democracy arise from an otherwise shitty region. This seems like a win-win for everyone not from Turkey. If the Turks win out in this, it’s only because they lobby the EU to act on its behalf.
The Turks won’t allow this because they hate the Kurds, and there is a strategic oil pipeline at risk. The Turks are the most brutal ones of all to the Kurds. Hell, the Iranians are the “nicest” ones, and they still pretty much consider the Kurds to be subhuman. The Kurds deserve the right to self-governance, and the West would see another friendly democracy arise from an otherwise shitty region. This seems like a win-win for everyone not from Turkey. If the Turks win out in this, it’s only because they lobby the EU to act on its behalf.
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I 100% agree with all of this, except about Iran. I think we could make a great ally of Iran if we changed our strategy in the ME.
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You know how I can tell that you served in Northern Iraq? Haha. Seriously, all of us who were there feel this way. Getting in gunfights in Kurdistan was actually almost funny. Just hit the deck and take cover because a wall of Kurdish lead would be flying towards where the shots came from.
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The US is a model for denying the right to self-govern and keeping territory by force. But when is hypocrisy ever an issue for government?
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I don't know where the hell you get that load of propaganda from, but the Assyrians actually living in the north have a very positive view on their Kurdish neighbors, most likely because of how well they are treated in the past decades and have long consider their ways of life to intertwine with the Kurds.
Choosing between living free in an independent Kurdistan (with reserved seats for them in the Kurdish Parliament) or being massacred by the Islamic Caliphate while waiting for the Iraqi Government to help is an easy choice, and most Assyrians sure as hell don't want to go at it alone like you're insinuating, knowing they would quickly ends up in an ISIS mass grave.
The Assyrians of northwest Iraq and northeast Syria can legitimately lay claim to being one of the oldest indigenous peoples of the Middle East. Christian speakers of Aramaic, they trace their culture, history and collective identity to the Assyrian empire that collapsed in the 7th century B.C.. With the exception of the Jews and the Persians, few peoples in the region can clearly trace their community to such ancient roots. The Assyrians are also sometimes referred to as Syriacs or Chaldeans, among other names (generally depending on their particular approach to Christianity).
While groups such as the Palestinians claim descent from Canaanites, and the Kurds claim roots in the Medes civilization, such links appear tenuous because the Palestinians and Kurds only “discovered” these lineages recently (for instrumental reasons in all likelihood), and they hardly kept Canaanite or Medes culture and identity alive over the centuries. Assyrians, Jews and Persians, in contrast, maintained a clear ideational link to the ancient cultures, languages and national territory of the Assyria, Israel and Persia. They did so since long before modern nationalism gave them a reason to.
In more modern times, the fate of the Assyrian people turned tragic. From the time of the Islamic conquests to the present, the Assyrians suffered continuous massacres and repression. Often working as tools of Ottoman, Persian or more contemporary Arab, Persian and Turkish states, Kurdish tribes carried out raids, massacres and conquests against Assyrian communities. In my course on political violence, I give my students a short article by Nuri Kino about “Seyfo” (Sword), the period around World War One when the Ottoman Empire pursued a “final solution” against the indigenous Christian communities of Anatolia. Almost without exception, the students have never heard of this terrible episode in history.
Whereas mainstream Turkish, Arab and Iranian societies likewise remain willfully ignorant of this history, most Kurds acknowledge the terrible role their forefathers played in these events. Kurdish leaders in both Iraq and Turkey have referred to this era as a source of shame for them, and worked hard to acknowledge the Assyrians’ identity, language, culture and place in today’s society. Kurdish-run municipalities in Turkey went to the trouble of publishing materials in Aramaic for the area’s remaining Assyrians, and the pro-Kurdish parties there even recently elected the first Assyrian member of Turkey’s parliament. In Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurds have reserved seats for the Assyrian community in their parliament since they established it in 1992. They went out of their way to assure the protection of modern Assyrian communities, culture and language. In Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) insisted that Assyrians be included in the various cantons’ top administrative bodies, and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) incorporated and armed many Assyrians into their fighting force.
Assyrians I have known in Iraq and Syria were all well aware of this. Their attitude towards the Kurds was thus largely positive, although often still ambivalent as well given their difficult history. While living in Iraq in 2003, I spent a lot of time with Assyrians and Chaldeans in Duhok, Mosul, Qaraqosh and Baghdad as I conducted a capacity and needs assessment of their NGOs (in order to help them receive a large sum of financial aid from a Christian charity in Canada). The Assyrians in the north saw a future for themselves with the Kurds, although some of those I spoke to in Baghdad had different views. For the most part, their attitude was a realistic, moderate approach, focused on safeguarding their communities and being part of whatever political institutions (including those of Kurdistan) that would help them do so.
In contrast, the diaspora Assyrian community could not seem more different. Their politics appear to be made up of bitter nationalist victimhood, mired in past injustices. A perusal of their publications and activities shows a movement focused on blaming the Kurds for almost everything. Article after article published in English by the Assyrian diaspora portrays a saintly, peaceful Assyrian community perpetually attacked by Kurdish savages, with condemnation of the Islamic State and other jihadis coming almost as an afterthought.
Let us set aside for a moment inconvenient truths, such as the Assyrian empire’s myriad conquests (dispersing the 12 tribes of northern Israel into oblivion, for example), Assyrian raids on neighboring communities in the 19th century and before, or how the British and French colonialists recruited Assyrian troops to help them quell rebelling Muslims (including the Kurds). The elderly Assyrian men I met in Iraq, some of whom served in the Royal Air Force, may well have helped bomb the likes of Sheikh Mahmoud Barzinji’s villages (although I would never be so impolite as to ask that question to an elder of that age).
The Assyrians do their community no good when they deny the Kurds’ own tragedies, or even reject the notion of a Kurdish land, identity and language (referring instead to “scattered tribes that spoke dialects of Persian”). The discourse often borders on racist, with sentences like “Deception is an art and the Kurds have perfected it.” They even pedal fantastic conspiracy theories, accusing the Kurds in Syria of having purposefully provoked the Islamic State into attacking Assyrian villages so that the YPG could come in and present itself as the Assyrians’ saviors. They take isolated political incidents, such as a quarrel over a piece of property or a skirmish between a pro-Assad Assyrian militia in Qamishly and the YPG, and cast them as part of an endless story of Kurdish depravation.
Such attitudes seem more than a little ironic, since without the YPG and the Peshmerga, the Assyrians of northern Syria and Iraq would all likely be dead, lying in some jihadist-dug mass grave. The diaspora Assyrian community should thus consider doing what their relatives still living in the homeland are increasingly busy with – taking the hand of friendship and reconciliation that the Kurds have extended. They need not forget their history in the process, of course, and deeper reconciliation takes a lot of time and effort from everyone concerned. A lack of empathy for the other and a discourse unable to rise above victimhood will get the Assyrians nothing, however. In the sorry neighborhood that the Middle East has become, the Kurds are probably the Assyrians’ best friend, neighbor and hope for the future.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/opinion/21012016
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Very true. One of the issues of the disputed areas are the presences of Arabs there. Also the oil too so the government in Baghdad won't give up those regions without a fight.
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100% of EFPs, an incredibly scary type of IED, came from Iran. Iran has been directly contributing to American deaths for years. This government will be a friend like Saudi Arabia is a friend: the kind that stabs you in the back while smiling at you and asking for assistance. It’s unfortunate, but while they have this government, they can’t be trusted.
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Well, we've treated them as an enemy since 1979. That's where the strategy change comes in. We both know it would never happen anyway, so it's really a moot point.
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'We have the tap': Turkey's Erdogan threatens oil flow from Iraq's Kurdish area
September 25, 2017
September 25, 2017
HABUR, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan threatened on Monday to cut off the pipeline that carries oil from northern Iraq to the outside world, intensifying pressure on the Kurdish autonomous region over its independence referendum.
Erdogan spoke shortly after Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Ankara could take punitive measures involving borders and air space against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over the referendum and would not recognize the outcome.
Voting began on Monday despite strong opposition from Iraq’s central government and neighboring Turkey and Iran - both with significant Kurdish populations - as well as Western warnings the move could aggravate Middle East instability.
Erdogan, grappling with a long-standing Kurdish insurgency in Turkey’s southeast, which borders northern Iraq, said the “separatist” referendum was unacceptable and economic, trade and security counter-measures would be taken.
He stopped short of saying Turkey had decided to close off the oil flow. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day come through the pipeline in Turkey from northern Iraq, but he made clear the option was on the table.
“After this, let’s see through which channels the northern Iraqi regional government will send its oil, or where it will sell it,” he said in a speech. “We have the tap. The moment we close the tap, then it’s done.”
Yildirim said Ankara would decide on punitive measures against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) after talks with Iraq’s central government.
“Our energy, interior and customs ministries are working on (measures). We are evaluating steps regarding border gates and air space. We will take these steps quickly,” Yildirim told Turkish broadcasters.
Iraqi soldiers arrived in Turkey on Monday night to join a drill on the Turkish side of the border near the Habur area in the southeast, Turkey’s military said in a statement. Iraq’s defense ministry said the two armies started “major maneuvers” at the border area.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ow-from-iraqs-kurdish-area-idUSKCN1C018V?il=0
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No, it won’t happen. And honestly, it can’t happen. I think Iran will eventually swing back the other way and become a more friendly state. It will take the will of their people though. The day will come when modernization is more important than being a prick, and that’s when they will become an ally.
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The Kurds have been through a lot of shit, from being chemically attacked by the Iraqi government and assisting the US govt in "Iraqi Freedumb", why are they not allowed to have their own soveriegn territory like the native americans here? Anyone, anyone...Bueller?92% of Kurds voted in favor of independence from Iraq
By Tamara Qiblawi, CNN | September 27, 2017
Irbil, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Kurds have voted overwhelmingly in favor of declaring independence from Iraq in a historic and controversial referendum that could have wide-ranging implications for the Middle East.
More than 92% of the roughly 3 million people who cast valid ballots on Monday voted "yes" to independence, according to official results announced by the Kurdish electoral commission on Wednesday.
The outcome represents a step towards independence for the semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq and areas it claims, and puts Kurdish authorities on a collision course with their counterparts in Baghdad.
The poll took place despite vehement opposition from the Iraqi government, which described it as unconstitutional and has authorized use of force against Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Kurdistan Regional Government, however, says the referendum will give it a mandate for talks to secede from Iraq, although Baghdad has already ruled out such talks.
On Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called for the referendum to be annulled and for the KRG to engage in dialogue as guided by the constitution. His comments come a day after he ordered the Kurds to yield control of their airports to the central government by Friday.
Several international flight operators have announced plans to cease flights to the region on Friday, including Egypt Air and Royal Jordanian Airlines. Iran closed its airspace on Sunday.
Nearly all neighboring regional powers objected to the referendum, warning that independence could further destabilize the region.
On Tuesday, KRG President Masoud Barzani hailed the preliminary results and urged the world to "respect the will of the people of Kurdistan."
"Let's engage in a serious dialogue and become good neighbors," Barzani said during a televised speech.
The vote was held across the autonomous region and in disputed territories including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, a flashpoint city claimed by both sides.
It comes as Kurdish forces play an instrumental role in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. In helping to eliminate the terror group, Kurdish leaders appear to have expected the backing of the international community in pursuing nationalist aspirations.
But the referendum has received little support outside northern Iraq.
Both Iran and Turkey have sizable Kurdish minorities and fear the ballot might galvanize independence movements in their countries.
The United States, United Kingdom and the United Nations denounced the vote amid concerns that it could detract from the campaign against ISIS.
As voters cast their ballots Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the referendum as "illegal" and suggested Turkey could cut off oil exports from northern Iraq, depriving the KRG of a key source of revenue.
Israel is the only country in the region that supported the vote, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsing what he described as "the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to achieve their own state."
European Union leaders issued a statement on Wednesday calling on all parties involved to "exercise calm and restraint" and to resolve their issues through peaceful dialogue.
Numbering 30 million, Kurds make up a sizable minority in a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.
Despite nearly a century of Kurdish nationalist movements in various countries, the Kurds have never had a nation of their own.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/27/middleeast/kurdish-referendum-results/index.html
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