JERUSALEM POST ┃AUGUST 5, 2016

Meet the female fighters combating ISIS on the front lines

Kurdish women take up arms alongside men to defend their people

The presence of women fighting ISIS became an exotic and sensational topic in 2014 and 2015, but the reality of life for many women is more complex.

Last December on “Kurdish Flag Day,” young Kurdish women turned out in Dohuk in the northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan to celebrate their nation’s desire for independence. Typically, Kurdish women would wear traditional clothes on this day: a brightly colored dress and sash around the waist with a see-through shawl sometimes draped on the shoulders. But last year many women turned out in green forest-camo uniforms. It wasn’t only in Dohuk; as I drove across Kurdistan that day, teenage girls in small towns were dressing up as fighters for Peshmerga, the national defense forces of Kurdistan.

INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES | By ERIC SCHMITT SEPT. 21, 2016

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is weighing a military plan to directly arm Syrian Kurdish fighters combating the Islamic State, a major policy shift that could speed up the offensive against the terrorist group but also sharply escalate tensions between Turkey and the United States.

Nytimes.com By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Shaken by a failed coup attempt, Turkey’s government and many of its citizens are desperate for someone to blame. Instead of undertaking a thorough investigation of the facts, though, they have accused the United States of complicity in the insurrection. This has ignited a new wave of anti-Americanism that, combined with a sweeping government crackdown against enemies real and imagined, poses a serious risk to NATO, relations with the United States and Turkey’s long-term stability.

Nytimes.com | By ROBERT F. WORTHMAY 24, 2016

A simmering conflict with the Kurds threatens to consume an American ally and inflame an already unstable region.

Newsbomb.com.cy

European Parliament rapporteur on Turkey's accession progress Kati Piri (Dutch, PES) in her report on Turkey's accession negotiations, deplored Turkey´s refusal to fulfil its obligation of full, non-discriminatory implementation of the Additional Protocol to the EC-Turkey Association Agreement vis-a-vis all member states, the fulfillment of which could provide a significant boost to the negotiation process.

By SELAHATTIN DEMIRTAS

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — When Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently paid a visit to Washington, he gave Americans a taste of the kinds of policies he employs at home. His guards reportedly roughed up reporters outside a think tank while an LED-lit van that said “Truth + Peace = Erdogan” drove around the United States capital.

By Saleh M. Mohamed

This week, United Nations talks meant to chart a path toward a peaceful, democratic future for Syria are set to resume in Geneva. But, in an absurd twist, the legitimate representatives of a large, democratically governed area in the country will not be invited to attend.

AL-MONITOR | Author Amberin Zaman | Posted March 22, 2016

ERBIL, Iraq — These are critical times in the quasi-independent Kurdish entity in Iraq better known as the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, or simply Iraqi Kurdistan. Buoyed by a burgeoning energy sector, its leaders loved to boast that Kurdistan was going to be the “new Dubai.” Today its economy is collapsing, and so are its spirits.

INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES | MARCH 21, 2016

The Opinion Pages

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Kurds’ Push for Self-Rule in Syria

Dw.com

Parts of Diyarbakir, the de facto capital of Turkey's Kurdish regions, have been under a Turkish army imposed curfew for two months now. Tom Stevenson reports from a destroyed city under siege.