Tag: Turkey

Europe
F-16

Kurds betrayed in Sweden NATO deal

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dropped his opposition to Sweden’s entry into NATO, it was announced ahead of the alliance summit in Vilnius. In an apparent quid pro quo, the Biden administration is dropping its objections to Turkey purchasing F-16 fighter jets from the US. Sweden has also offered concessions to Erdogan. In blocking Sweden’s NATO bid, Turkey had accused Stockholm of harboring Kurdish “terrorists”—meaning supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara labels a “terrorist” group. Last November, Sweden amended its constitution to strengthen its “anti-terrorism” laws, weakening free-speech protections—clearly in deference to Turkey. The Swedish Supreme Court in June also ruled to allow extradition of the accused PKK figures to Turkey. And the rallies held in Stockholm against the extraditions by Kurdish immigrants and exiles may now be criminalized. (Photo of F-16: USAF via Wikimedia Commons)

Syria
syria refugees

EU donor conference for Syria falls short

Donors and diplomats met for a seventh straight year in Brussels to raise money for Syria’s ongoing humanitarian crisis. They pledged a total of 5.6 billion euros ($6.1 billion) for “2023 and beyond,” including 4.6 billion euros ($1 billion) for this year. The money will be used to support people both inside Syria and in neighboring countries hosting Syrian refugees. Aid groups say the amount isn’t enough given growing needs within Syria and for Syrian refugees, many of whom face pressure to return to a country still at war. The UN has only received 11.6% of the $5.41 billion it says it needs for aid to Syrians in 2023, and that doesn’t include assistance for refugees. Low funding levels have led to cuts in aid, including food rations in a place where millions are struggling to get by. (Photo: UNICEF via UN News)

Planet Watch
refugee camp

Number forcibly displaced worldwide 110 million: UN

The United Nations released the Global Trend Report 2022, on refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless people worldwide. It finds that the number of forcibly displaced people stands at 108.4 million, with 29.4 million falling under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Both figures are at an historic high. The increase in forcible displacement within a single year is also the largest since UNHCR started tracking these statistics in 1975. In light of the continuing significant increase, the report says forcible displacement likely exceeds 110 million as of May 2023. (Photo: Afghan refugee camp in Shinkiari, Pakistan, via Pixabay)

Planet Watch
migrants

Migrant fatalities surged in 2022: UN

The UN migration agency reported that 2022 was the deadliest year yet for migrants crossing from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) into Europe. According to the report from the International Organization for Migration‘s Missing Migrants Project, a record number of 3,800 people died along these migratory routes last year. The report underscored the urgent need for action to improve the safety and protection of migrants. The data, though recognized as undercounted due to the challenges in collecting information, sheds light on the magnitude of the problem. The recorded deaths in 2022 represent an 11% increase from the previous year. (Photo: Flavio Gasperini/SOS Mediterranee via InfoMigrants)

Syria
syrian refugees

Lebanon: halt ‘refoulement’ of Syrian refugees

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) joined with 20 other human rights organizations to issue a joint statement protesting Lebanon’s summary deportation of Syrian refugees. The rights organizations say the deportations violate the international law principle of non-refoulement, which protects individuals from being returned to a country where they may face torture, cruel or degrading treatment, or other irreparable harm. “The Lebanese Armed Forces have recently summarily deported hundreds of Syrians back to Syria, where they are at risk of persecution or torture,” the statement charges. “The deportations come amid an alarming surge in anti-refugee rhetoric in Lebanon and coercive measures intended to pressure refugees to return.” (Photo: EU Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid via Flickr)

Greater Middle East
Border wall

Turkish border guards torture, kill Syrians: report

Turkish border guards are indiscriminately shooting at Syrian civilians on the border with Syria, as well as using excessive force and even torture against asylum-seekers and migrants trying to cross into Turkey, Human Rights Watch charges. A new report cites hundreds of deaths along the border in recent years, with several killings and abuses this year. Since the beginning of 2023, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has recorded 11 deaths and 20 injuries along the frontier caused by Turkish border guards. Human Rights Watch independently documented and verified two such incidents. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Africa
Somaliland

Oil contracts at issue in Somaliland conflict?

Fighting continues in Somalia’s northern breakaway state of Somaliland, where three administrative regions—Sool, Sanaag, and Aynaba—have taken up arms in a bid to rejoin the internationally recognized Mogadishu government. Somaliland accuses the government of Ethiopia (which is officially attempting to broker a dialogue in the conflict) of intervening on the side of the re-integrationist rebels, headquartered in the town of Las Anod, Sool region. Somaliland has been effectively independent since 1991, and has seen a more stable and secular social order than the regions controlled by the Mogadishu government. But now Mogadishu is asserting its right to grant oil contracts to foreign companies within Somaliland’s territory. Local media note that the new conflict erupted just after Mogadishu announced the issuing of an exploration lease to Turkish Genel Energy in Somaliland—indeed, within Aynaba, one of the contested regions. The move was protested as “illegal” by the Somaliland government, based in the city of Hargeisa. (Map: Siirski via Ethiopia Insight)

Syria
Idlib displaced

Unnatural disaster in Syria’s northwest

In the wake of the devastating earthquake that has killed some 15,000 in Turkey and Syria, the contested political situation in the latter country is raising particular dilemmas. Aid agencies warn of “catastrophic” implications for Syria’s rebel-controlled northwest, where millions of displaced and vulnerable people were already in precarious straits and relying on humanitarian support before the quake. At least half of the estimated 2,000 dead in Syria are in the rebel-controlled area. Due to Russian influence at the UN on behalf of the Bashar Assad regime, humanitarian access is already limited to one border crossing—Bab al-Hawa. And Moscow and Damascus have been pressuring to close that one as well. (Photo: UNHCR)

Greater Middle East
hdp

Turkey: Kurdish party challenges ban order

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) asked the Turkish Constitutional Court to postpone its decision on a government request to ban the party until after upcoming general elections. Co-leader of the HDP, Mithat Sancar, told reporters: “The Constitutional Court should stop all proceedings on this case. The authorities want to use this case…as a tool to threaten us.” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government accuses the HDP of ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is banned in Turkey. The HDP won 12% of the vote in the 2018 general election and holds 56 of parliament’s 579 seats. (Image: HDP)

Iraq
Sinjar

The Yezidis, ‘esotericism’ and the global struggle

In Episode 156 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses Peter Lamborn Wilson‘s last book, Peacock Angel: The Esoteric Tradition of the Yezidis. One of the persecuted minorities of Iraq, the Yezidis are related to the indigenous Gnostics of the Middle East such as the Mandeans. But Wilson interprets the “esoteric” tradition of the Yezidis as an antinomian form of Adawiyya sufism with roots in pre-Islamic “paganism.” Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel, the divine being revered by the Yezidis as Lord of This World, is foremost among a pantheon that ultimately traces back to the Indo-European gods. Wilson conceives this as a conscious resistance to authoritarianism, orthodoxy and monotheism—which has won the Yezidis harsh persecution over the centuries. They were targeted for genocide along with the Armenians by Ottoman authorities in World War I—and more recently at the hands of ISIS. They are still fighting for cultural survival and facing the threat of extinction today. Weinberg elaborates on the paradox of militant mysticism and what it means for the contemporary world, with examples of “heretical” Gnostic sects from the Balkan labyrinth. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo via Kurdistan Source)

Syria
syria

Turkey seeks Moscow ‘green light’ for assault on Rojava

Turkey is now openly seeking cooperation from Russia, foremost foreign backer of the Bashar Assad dictatorship, in a long-planned cross-border operation into northern Syria against the Kurdish autonomous zone in the region, known as Rojava. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said: “We are in talks and discussing with Russia about all issues including opening the airspace.” Meanwhile, ISIS sleeper cells are coming to life in the extremist group’s former de facto capital of Raqqa, which is jointly occupied by the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Assad regime forces. Several have been killed on both sides as presumed ISIS militants launch armed attacks on SDF positions in the city. (Image: Pixabay)