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.

Nytimes.com | By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT

Nytimes.com | By ROD NORDLANDDEC. 24, 2016

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — It was the end of the day in an underground tavern with no name. Beneath a domed Ottoman ceiling, with the lights down low and the music muted, patrons could just hear a distant rumbling through the basalt block walls, five centuries old.

Euronews.com

ISIL survivors-turned-activists Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar will receive the 2016 Sakharov Prize in a ceremony in a ceremony in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday.

Nytimes.com | By ROD NORDLANDDEC

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — When Kurdish officials here in Diyarbakir, the biggest Kurdish city in the world, say they’ve been “unavoidably detained,” it is not just an excuse for lateness.

Nytimes.com | By Peter W. GALBRAITHDEC - TOWNSHEND, Vt. — The civil war in Syria is over. Now it is time to stop the fighting.

Aided by Russia, Iran, Shiite militias and Hezbollah, the government of President Bashar al-Assad is on the verge of taking Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city. Supported by its powerful allies, the Syrian Army will then move to eliminate the remaining pockets of resistance, notably around the northern city of Idlib. While Iran has been Mr. Assad’s most important military ally, the Syrian regime would still want to have Russian airpower to finish its reconquest of the country’s populous west.

The New York Times International | By ROD NORDLAND - November 19-20, 2016

Turkey’s Free Press Withers as Erdogan Jails 120 Journalists

ISTANBUL — A prominent columnist wrote recently about how President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey hates cigarettes so much that he confiscates packs from his followers, lecturing them on the evils of smoking.

The columnist, Kadri Gursel, then urged his readers to protest the president’s anti-democratic ways by lighting a cigarette and not putting it out.

Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq (cabinet.gov.krd) – In a statement, Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani, called for the release of the co-presidents and a number of Parliamentarians of the Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party, HDP, after their arrest in Turkey.