Iraqi soldiers have raised their country’s flags over key buildings in Kirkuk, and Baghdad has declared the Kurdish city be under government control. The Kurdish Peshmerga forces called the takeover “a flagrant declaration of war” and vowed that Iraq will pay a “heavy price.” The Iraqi government forces have taken full control of Kirkuk, Al…
One week after Kurdish leader Masud Barzani held his referendum on Kurdish independence from Iraq (with both the referendum and independence being contrary to the Iraqi constitution), the blowback has been fierce, angry and almost universal. What may have been conceived as a clever ploy by Masud’s eldest son, Masrour, to bolster the Barzani family’s…
So far, Israel has been the only state to support the Kurdish secession from Iraq, even celebrating the outcome of the September 25 referendum, in which an overwhelming majority of Iraqi Kurds voted for breaking away from Baghdad. Israeli enthusiasm for Kurdish independence has little to do with compassion for the Kurds, whether in Iraq or elsewhere, and more to…
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan just visited Tehran and met with President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. That’s a major geopolitical move by any standards. Iran and Turkey are both part of the Astana negotiations aimed at effecting closure in Syria. Both are regarded by Beijing as key nodes in its Belt and…
As ISIS fades and as the Syrian conflict winds down, regional tensions in the Middle East are escalating, as the attention of the Great Powers switches to the growing crisis in Iraq’s and Syria’s Kurdish areas. The latest stage in the seemingly endless geopolitical struggle in the Middle East is currently underway, with the Kurds…
The recent referenda in Catalonia and Kurdistan, while by no means crucial developments for Russia, have resulted in a lively debate in the Russian media and the Russian public opinion. The Kremlin itself has refrained from making any strong statements, possibly indicating that there might be several schools of thought on these issues in key…
