Nytimes.com | By CHRISTINE MEHTA

On April 24, 2017, Serdar Kuni, a 45-year-old Kurdish doctor accused of providing medical aid to Kurdish rebels, stood in a courtroom in Sirnak in southeastern Turkey. The courtroom overlooked buildings reduced to rubble and a deserted mosque with broken windows. Police posts, circled with barbed wire fences, had sprung up every few hundred yards. A Turkish flag flew on a hill above the town, staking out its territory after more than a year of intense fighting with Kurdish rebels seeking autonomy from Turkish rule. An estimated 50,000 of Sirnak’s 65,000 residents were yet to return home after having been displaced by the fighting.

Washingtonpost.com | By Ilham Ahmed (Co-president of the Democratic Council of Syria)

On Tuesday, Turkey bombed the headquarters of Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, killing 20 of our soldiers. Immediately after the strike, the leaders of our forces — known as the People’s Protection Groups, or YPG — rushed from their operations center near Raqqa, where they’ve been working with the U.S. military to push the Islamic State out of its Syrian stronghold, to view the site of the attack. The American colonel and other officers who accompanied the YPG leaders were met by tens of thousands of protesters, including the mothers of soldiers who have died fighting the Islamic State. They asked the Americans a simple question: “How is it possible that our soldiers are fighting with you against ISIS while your ally Turkey is attacking us here?”

Nytimes.com | By PATRICK KINGSLEY

ANKARA, Turkey — The credibility of the judges who oversaw Turkey’s referendum last week is being called into question because most of them were hastily appointed when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan purged the judiciary after last summer’s failed coup.

Assembly.coe.int

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) decided today to reopen the monitoring procedure in respect of Turkey until “serious concerns” about respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law “are addressed in a satisfactory manner”.

KRG Cabinet

Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq (cabinet.gov.krd) - Since the start of military operations in October 2016 to liberate the City of Mosul, the number of internally displaced persons, IDPs, who have taken refuge in the Kurdistan Region has risen to 164,000 people. They are mainly located in camps in Erbil and Duhok Governorates.

Nytimes.com | By PATRICK KINGSLEY

ISTANBUL — A village leader shoves four voting slips into a ballot box. An unknown arm marks three slips with a “yes” vote. An unknown hand adds five more. An election official validates a pile of voting slips — hours after they were meant to be validated.

Publisher Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

The views, opinions, conclusions and other information expressed in this document are not given nor necessarily endorsed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) unless the OSCE is explicitly defined as the Author of this document.

Rudaw.net

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Holding referendum on independence is “not risk-free” and will test the water regarding reactions from other countries before the Kurdish leadership decides on declaring an independent Kurdistan, a senior Kurdish politician and former Iraqi Foreign Minister told Rudaw Sunday night, as he revealed that the issue has been discussed with all permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Nytimes.com | The Opinion Pages | By By ANTONY J. BLINKENJAN

Washingtonpost.com | Twitter: @LallyWeymouth

Massoud Barzani talks with the Post about beating the Islamic State and forging a separate path for his people.