The political crisis triggered by the Iraqi Supreme Court's recent decision to abolish the quota of 11 seats reserved for religious and ethnic minorities in the Kurdistan Parliament and to amend Kurdistan's electoral law in violation of the clear provisions of the Iraqi Constitution (Articles 141 and 92) has yet to be resolved. Mediation efforts by the United Nations Mission in Iraq and Western diplomats have been unsuccessful.
On April 1, the High Electoral Commission (IHEC), tasked by the Iraqi Supreme Court with organizing parliamentary elections in Kurdistan, closed registration for parties and coalitions of parties wishing to participate in these elections. Kurdistan's main political party (PDK) did not register, maintaining its decision to boycott in protest against the “unconstitutional decisions” of the Iraqi Supreme Court, “infringing the rights and freedoms of the Kurdish people guaranteed by the Constitution”. All of Kurdistan's Christian and Turkmen parties are also boycotting the elections, which are scheduled for June 10 but are now unlikely to be held on that date. The KDP also believes that the organization of these elections is the responsibility of the High Electoral Commission of Kurdistan, in accordance with the autonomy guaranteed by a Constitution approved in 2005 by over 85% of Iraqis. The objectivity of the High Electoral Commission, controlled by pro-Iran Shiite parties, was called into question. The KDP is proposing that the elections be monitored by the United Nations to ensure that they are free and fair.
The President of Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, paid a visit to Baghdad on April 27 and 28, where he met the Iraqi President and Prime Minister, the main Shiite leaders, the Acting President of the Iraqi Parliament and the head of the Federal Supreme Court in Baghdad. Although described as “constructive”, the talks failed to produce any major breakthroughs. The Prime Minister promised once again that the salaries and pensions of Kurdistan's civil servants would be “paid soon”, and that the 3-month backlog would be cleared. But the Iraqi budget law passed a year ago with the decisive votes of Kurdish deputies in the Iraqi Parliament has still not been implemented. The same goes for the promise of the imminent resumption of oil exports from Kurdistan, interrupted in March 2023. The Kirkuk-Turkey pipeline has been renovated, its capacity increased from 350,000 barrels per day to one million barrels. Turkey has been saying for months that it is ready to receive oil from Kurdistan, but the Iraqi government is dragging its feet, citing “ongoing negotiations with the oil companies concerned”. According to the Kurdistan Petroleum Industry Association (APIKUR), Iraq has already lost more than 14 billion in revenue since these exports were halted in March 2023. Revenues that would have covered almost two years of Kurdistan's budget.
In a letter to the US President, 8 US congressmen have asked Joe Biden to demand that the Iraqi Prime Minister, who is visiting Washington, resume oil exports from Kurdistan. President Biden received Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Soudani and his delegation, including Kurdistan's Foreign Minister Safeen Dizayee, at the White House on April 15. Joe Biden said: “Our partnership is crucial for our nations, for the Middle East and, I believe, for the world”. He called on Baghdad and Erbil to resolve their problems and stressed “the importance of Iraq and Kurdistan to American interests”, according to S. Dizayee's account. The delegation had a breakfast meeting with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken as part of the U.S.-Iraq Senior Coordination Committee. According to a U.S. State Department release, the U.S. has provided at least $3.5 billion in aid to Iraq since 2014. The Iraqi Prime Minister also met with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to discuss military cooperation between the two countries. A joint statement, issued after their meeting, highlights “efforts to modernize the Iraqi Security Forces, including Kurdish Peshmerga forces and strengthen their capabilities”. The communiqué also refers to “securing sites in Iraq and Kurdistan against air threats” from unnamed pro-Iranian militias. These militias are calling for the departure of US forces from Iraq, one of Iran's main objectives. To stall, the Iraqi government has set up a “high commission” to discuss the issue and establish a timetable for withdrawal. In Washington, the Prime Minister was reassuring to his American interlocutors. Pressured by Teheran, Baghdad vitally needs Washington's support if it is to avoid becoming a colony of Iran. On an exceptional basis, Washington has exempted Iraq from the application of American and Western sanctions against Iran. It benefits from multi-faceted assistance from the United States, so much so that some American politicians are warning the administration that the influx of dollars into Iraq will not end up supplying Iran and its militias with American currency. A very delicate diplomatic exercise for the Iraqi Prime Minister, whose visit to Washington was supported by the President of Kurdistan.
A week after this visit, Iraq received the Turkish President in Baghdad, the first since 2011. The highlight of the visit was the signing of a four-party memorandum of understanding between Turkey, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar on cooperation in the construction of a “development road”, a 1,200 km road and rail corridor linking Iraq to Turkey via Baghdad and Mosul by 2030.
Turkey is Iraq's second-largest trading partner after China. The volume of trade between the two countries approaches twenty billion dollars a year. To further develop these exchanges, 24 memorandums of understanding have been signed in various fields, including energy. Difficult issues, such as the sharing of the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which have their source in Turkish Kurdistan and flow through Iraq at ever-decreasing rates, or recurrent Turkish military interventions, have been entrusted to bilateral committees. Security cooperation against the PKK was discussed at length. Baghdad has promised to ban PKK activities on its territory, but is asking Turkey to respect its territorial integrity.
After his visit to Baghdad, the Turkish president made a point of stopping off in Erbil, the capital of autonomous Kurdistan, where he met the main Kurdish leaders. Faced with a Baghdad dominated by pro-Iranian Shiite parties, Ankara is striving to maintain good relations with the Sunni Arabs and the predominantly Sunni Iraqi Kurds. Especially as the Iraqi-Turkish border is populated on both sides by Kurds. Good relations and cooperation with Iraqi Kurdistan, which Turkey continues to refer to officially as “Northern Iraq”, are essential to the security of Turkish-Iraqi trade and the ambitious future “development route”. Geographically landlocked and prey to the destabilizing influence of Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan also needs good-neighborly relations with Turkey, its main window on the outside world. This “marriage of reason” was inaugurated relatively recently, because until 2007, Turkey threatened to intervene militarily to nip in the bud this experiment in Kurdish government, which, in its view, posed an existential threat to it, a reason now invoked to justify its interventions against the Syrian Kurds.
In an attempt to settle their various disputes with the Baghdad government, Iraqi Kurdish leaders are also preparing a diplomatic offensive towards Teheran, which has a decisive influence on Iraqi Shiite factions. Erdogan's visit to Erbil must have worried the Islamic Republic, which will no doubt try to soften up the Kurds so that they don't tip over completely into the Turkish camp.
Meanwhile, pro-Iranian Iraqi militias continue to attack Kurdistan's infrastructure: on April 26, two suicide drones struck the Khor Mor gas field, operated by Dana Gas, in the Qadir Karim district of Suleimanieh governorate. The attack killed four Yemeni employees of Dana Gas and wounded several others. Unidentified perpetrators had targeted the UAE-based company on several occasions. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said the attack had interrupted gas supplies to power plants in Iraqi Kurdistan and reduced the region's electricity supply by around 2,500 megawatts. On April 28, Dana Gas temporarily suspended production at Khor Mor due to concerns about the safety of its workers.
On the same day, a Peshmerga on leave was killed by a Turkish air strike near the Bradost sub-district. The district chief informed Rudaw that the victim, Sarwar Qadir, a father of three, was inside his truck when the air strike targeted him. This incident adds to the toll of civilian casualties, with at least two people losing their lives in the last ten days. One of these victims was killed in the Mawat sub-district of Suleimanieh, where a Turkish drone targeted his home.
Finally, Iraqi pro-Iranian parties, mainly those of the Coordination Framework, responded to US condemnation of an amendment to Iraq's anti-prostitution law passed by the Iraqi Parliament by collecting more than 61 signatures on a petition demanding the expulsion of the US ambassador to Iraq, Alina Romanowski. Iraq's anti-prostitution law had been passed in 1988, under Saddam Hussein. The recent amendment imposes severe penalties for homosexuality, gender transition surgery, the intentional practice of effeminacy and the promotion of “sexual deviance”.
In the municipal elections held on March 31, voters in the Kurdish town of Van elected Abdullah Zeydan, the candidate of the pro-Kurdish DEM party, with a score of 55.48%. In a final and derisory post-electoral maneuver, the local electoral commission, on the orders of the Minister of Justice, invalidated this election and declared the candidate of the governmental AKP party mayor, who obtained only 27.15% of the vote, on the pretext that Mr. Zeydan would in fact be ineligible.
Elected deputy for Van in 2015, Abdullah Zeydan was arrested in October 2016, along with his party leader Salahattin Demirtas and some 50 elected mayors and Kurdish deputies, for “links with the PKK terrorist organization”. Turkish justice accused him of having attended the funerals of PKK members, whereas in Kurdish society, as in most Middle Eastern countries, attending the funerals of neighbors, whoever they may be, even adversaries, is a respected tradition. At the height of the Lebanese civil war, members or leaders of warring factions attended the weddings or funerals of their adversaries. Abdullah Zeydan spent seven years of his life in Turkish jails for this simple “offence”, without any form of trial or evidence. Released in October 2022, and enjoying his civic and political rights, he ran for the post of mayor of his home town of Van, where he remains highly appreciated and popular. He duly completed all the required legal procedures before the Turkish High Electoral Council (YSK), which validated his candidacy. But then, 48 hours before the ballot, and on a Friday evening an hour before the close of polls, on a directive from the Ministry of Justice, the Van Provincial Election Commission questioned the legality of his candidacy and, after the ballot, invalidated his election.
This invalidation, denounced as “a political putsch” by the DEM party and an attempt by the Turkish Ministry of Justice to “confiscate the will of the people of Van”, sparked a public outcry in Van, in the main Kurdish towns, as well as in Istanbul and Ankara. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Van, Diyarbakir and Istanbul to protest against this iniquitous decision. Beyond the DEM party, reactions came from opposition figures. The president of the Republican People's Party (CHP) denounced “a denial of democracy”. His predecessor, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, called on Van's AKP candidate, defeated but declared the winner by the Electoral Commission, to show the dignity to refuse such an infamous gift. The newly re-elected mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, declared: “Not to hand over his mandate to the DEM Party candidate elected mayor of Van is to deny the will of the people of Van. It is unacceptable” (Le Monde, April 2). For his part, from the depths of his Edirne prison, where he has been unjustly detained since 2016, Selahattin Demirtas challenged Turkish President Erdogan: “On election night you declared that you would respect the will of the people. Unfortunately, what happened in Van is not compatible with your declarations”. In a message sent by his lawyers, he called on “all the people, in particular the people of Van and all pro-democracy forces and parties, to oppose this illegal decision”.
Faced with this public outcry, AKP spokesman Omer Çelik held a press conference to assert that this was “a matter of law at the discretion of the Provincial Election Commission. This is not an area where the government can intervene”. In the end, faced with the magnitude of the political reactions and popular protests, the High Electoral Council decided, probably on the instructions of President Erdogan, to validate Abdullah Zeydan's election and thus put an end to the incident. This allowed it not to invalidate two other elections, dubious to say the least, in the Kurdish towns of Sirnak and Bitlis, where the participation of thousands of police and soldiers dispatched from other Turkish provinces “to ensure security” enabled the narrow election of candidates from the government AKP party.
Newly-elected Kurdish mayors are shocked to discover the colossal debts incurred by the “kayum” (administrators) appointed by the government to replace elected and deposed mayors. Audits are currently underway into the destination and use of these funds and the legality of these debts. The administrators stripped these towns of their vehicle fleets and other equipment. Bitter legal battles lie ahead.
For his part, the Turkish president, now free of electoral contingencies until the end of his term, seems keen to devote himself to his beloved role as “regional and global leader”. But the unfavorable international context seems to limit his ambitions. His “friend” Putin, whose visit has been announced as “imminent” on several occasions, is no longer showing any signs. On April 21, he received Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh with great fanfare. On this occasion, he repeated that he considered Hamas to be a “national resistance organization” comparable to the National Forces (Kuvayi milliye) mobilized by Mustefa Kemal during the Turkish War of Independence, which greatly displeased the Kemalists of the Republican People's Party, as well as a number of NATO allies, including the United States. His long-awaited meeting with the US President at the White House, scheduled for May 9, was “postponed” sine die “for scheduling reasons”. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid a friendly visit to Turkey from April 22 to 24, where contacts with his disliked counterpart Erdogan were kept to a strict minimum, with a brief meeting on the Turkish President's return from Baghdad. He paid a visit to earthquake victims in Gaziantep and met mayor Ekrem Imamoglu (AFP, April 22) and civil society figures in Istanbul.
Between now and the July NATO summit in Washington, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the only area where the Turkish president can still hope to make his voice heard. His offers of mediation have gone unheeded, but he seems to be competing with Iran, Hamas's other supporter, to establish himself as champion of the Arab cause, while most Arab states are keeping a low profile.
On April 1, an air strike attributed to Israel against an Iranian consulate building in Damascus killed 16 people, including 7 top commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Among the victims were the emblematic General Zahedi and two of his deputies, General Hossein Aminollahi and General Mohammed Hadi-Haj Rahimi, veterans of the Pasdaran's Qods force.
Responsible for coordinating covert operations and pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Lebanon, General Zahedi was known to be close to Iran's “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Khamenei since the Iran-Iraq war. From 2008 to 2014, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Qods Force in Syria and Lebanon, the branch of the Revolutionary Guards responsible for the Iranian regime's external operations. He was also very close to Lebanese Hezbollah leader Nasrallah. His death and that of his experienced deputies are undoubtedly a major blow to the Iranian regime, comparable to the elimination of General Qassem Suleimani by an American drone in Baghdad in January 2020, according to many observers.
The Iranian media gave wide coverage to these assassinations, and on Friday April 4, thousands of supporters of the Iranian regime paid tribute to these “martyrs of the road to the liberation of Jerusalem” at an official ceremony in Teheran, vowing to make “the vicious Zionist regime” pay for its crime. On April 2, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei himself had declared that Israel would be “slapped in the face” and that its “desperate efforts will not save (the Israelis) from defeat” (AFP-Le Figaro, April 5).
The Iranian riposte was all the more inevitable as the attack had targeted a building forming part of the vast complex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, thus constituting an aggression against Iranian territory, even if Israel for its part contests this interpretation, claiming that the building targeted was a military command post of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards coordinating attacks against Israel by multiple militias, including the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Returning to the charge, Ayatollah Khamenei, in a speech broadcast live on April 10 on the occasion of Aid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, declared: “The evil regime has made a mistake (...) it must be punished and will be punished”. After this ultimate fatwa, Iran's response was only a matter of time. Israel and its allies had all the time they needed to assess the threat and prepare for it. On April 12, the US President announced an “imminent” Iranian attack. Several countries in the path of possible Iranian missiles, including Iraq and Jordan, closed their airspace, as did Israel. And on the evening of Saturday April 13, around 300 projectiles including drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles launched from Iranian territory were aimed at targets in Israel. 99% of them were shot down by the anti-aircraft defenses of Israel, the USA, France, Great Britain and Jordan. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain reportedly provided intelligence to their American allies. The few missiles that penetrated Israeli airspace fell in the desert, causing “minor damage without casualties”, according to an Israeli army spokesman quoted in Le Monde on April 13. A 7-year-old Bedouin girl was wounded by shrapnel.
The Iranian operation, dubbed “Honest Promise”, was widely publicized in Iran and celebrated as a “victory”. In fact, the result was to unite the ranks of even Israel's most critical Western and Arab allies in the face of the Iranian threat. It also enabled the West to assess Iran's real offensive capabilities, the performance of its drones and missiles, and the effectiveness of the means used to neutralize them. Drones that took several hours to reach Israel, some of which broke down in Kurdistan or Jordan, did not impress many people. For their part, China and Russia have lent their support to Iran, but none of the Arab states has been able to do so.
In the end, Operation Honest Promise turned out to be a poor communication operation by a humiliated Iranian regime aimed at its public opinion and regional allies. Even in this respect, it was a failure.
For its part, the Israeli government seems to have been tempted to respond to this attack by massively bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. This exceptional window of opportunity for Israel could not be used, as Washington seems determined to prevent any extension of the conflict and, above all, an Israeli-Iranian confrontation with incalculable consequences for the region. Finally, on April 19, an attack attributed to Israel destroyed the radars and anti-aircraft defenses of an Iranian military base near the city of Isfahan, home to some of Iran's most sensitive nuclear facilities. The message was clear: “We can attack and reach your nuclear sites”. Faced with this “measured” retaliation, Iran also adopted an attitude of minimizing the attack and its consequences.
The incident appears to be over for the time being, but the same cannot be said of the regime's repressive operations against its own citizens, particularly women and non-Persian minorities.
On April 4, clashes with Baluchi independence fighters left 28 people dead, including 10 Iranian soldiers, in the towns of Chabahar and Rask. Sunni Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice) fighters attacked the bases of the Shiite Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who were accused of persecuting the local Baluchi population. In a statement quoted by the New York Times on April 4, this organization, also known as Junduallah, claims to have mobilized 168 fighters in these attacks, and that it wants to alert public opinion to the demographic change that Iran is working to impose on this Sunni region.
Throughout Iran, the morality police are back in force (Le Monde, April 30). The authorities have launched a new operation called the “Light Plan” against women who refuse to veil. Jeremy Laurence, spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, claimed that Iranian authorities had closed down hundreds of businesses for failing to enforce hijab laws. At the same time, more than 160 Iranian legislators voiced their support for a new “mandatory hijab law”.
On April 25, protest rapper Toomaj Salehi was sentenced to death. He is accused, among other “crimes”, of “inciting sedition” for his participation in the popular uprising “Femme, Vie, Liberté” provoked by the death of Jina Mahsa Amini (Libération, April 25). According to Amnesty International, 853 prisoners were executed in Iran in 2023.
The hunt for Iranian protesters and dissidents continues abroad too. According to a report in Le Monde on April 25, journalists working for Persian-language media in London, such as Iran International and BBC Persian, are under constant threat, and attacks on them have recently intensified.
In Kurdistan, on April 13, Iranian border guards killed a Kurdish border porter (kolbar) near Sardasht and another near Saqqez. The killed kolbars, Omid Saidi and Mehrdad Abdullah Zadeh, were shot dead while transporting cargo near the Iran-Iraq border. Meanwhile, the Iranian authorities arrested several Kurds, including a teacher for organizing a Newroz celebration in Ilam. The regime also arrested an activist in Kermanshah, a civilian in Mehabad, as well as the father of a deceased protester and a journalist in Senna. In addition, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported that the regime had arrested an academic, Loqman Qanbari, for translating a book on the Kurds in the Middle East written by Israeli researcher Orfa Bengio.
On April 18, the intelligence services (Ettela'at) arrested two Kurds in Miandoab and Ourmia. In addition, security forces arrested two athletes in Ourmia and Dewlan, a 20-year-old in Qorveh and six civilians in Mahabad and Senna. Meanwhile, the NGO Hengaw reported a five-year prison sentence against Kamal Lotfi by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Senna for “insulting the Iranian Supreme Court and the regime's founder”. The same court also sentenced a woman teaching the Kurdish language to 11 years' imprisonment for her cultural activism. Similarly, a Kurdish man was sentenced to three years and five months in prison in Piranshahr, while a rapper who attacked poverty in Iran was sentenced to five years in prison. In addition, the regime continued to ambush border carriers (kolbars), resulting in the death of at least two people and the injury of several others along the borders of the Kurdish region. At the same time, the regime arrested other Kurds, including a member of the Senna Teachers' Union, Khaled Ahmadi, an activist Matin Hassani in Bokan, an athlete from Ourmia Afshin Nejadaziz and two religious activists in Saqqez.
The countries of the European Union (EU) have also reached agreement on sanctions to be imposed on Iran. These sanctions aim to halt the flow of European products used in Iran's missile and drone industry. In addition, on April 23, the US Treasury Department named two companies and four individuals for cyberattacks perpetrated on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) against US companies and government agencies.
The month of April in Rojava was marked by clashes against episodic ISIS attacks, intermittent harassment by pro-Turkish militias and a failed operation by Assad's army commandos.
Turkey, busy digesting the heavy consequences of the municipal elections and President Erdogan's diplomatic offensive towards Iraq and Hamas, Iran in direct confrontation with Israel, have somewhat relegated their Rojava endeavors to the background. The Turkish president reiterated his threats of military intervention “when the time comes”. In the meantime, the Rojava authorities are preparing to hold elections in the territories they control. The date of these elections, announced for the end of May, remains uncertain due to the security situation.
The conditions of detention of ISIS prisoners and their family members in the Al-Hol and Roj camps are increasingly criticized by human rights NGOs, including Amnesty International. The local authorities, for their part, denounce the lack of solidarity on the part of the International Coalition, which is not acting with sufficient determination to repatriate these prisoners from their countries of origin and, in the meantime, is not providing them with the financial means to set up modern, secure detention centers and education and rehabilitation centers for the children of jihadists.
Here's a chronicle of April's key events in Rojava.
On April 3, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported that it had conducted 94 anti-ISIS operations in Syria and Iraq. These operations resulted in the capture of 63 terrorists and the neutralization of 18. According to CENTCOM, 9,000 terrorists remain captive in Syria, with 45,000 ISIS families spread across two camps: the al Hol and Roj camps. The release estimates that there are currently 2,500 active ISIS terrorists. ISIS terrorists have intensified their attacks in Syria and Iraq, including the recent mass beheading of Syrian soldiers and the killing of two members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). In another incident, a Turkish drone strike on April 3 resulted in the deaths of two female fighters, including a commander of the Kurdish-led Women's Defense Forces (YPJ) in Kobani. The Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES) condemned the Turkish attacks as “real war crimes” and accused Turkey of using them to divert attention from internal crises and recent election results. AANES pointed out that the YPJ commander had fought on all fronts against ISIS terrorists.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has documented the installation of new settlements on Kurdish land in Turkey-occupied Afrin. According to the report, 48 new apartments and a mosque have been allocated to families affiliated to Turkey's Syrian proxies. Since the Turkish occupation of Afrin, numerous settlements have been established by Turkish and Islamic organizations, with the aim of changing the demographic composition of the region.
The High Electoral Commission of the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES) has invited international and local organizations to observe the forthcoming local elections scheduled for May 31. These elections are the second since the region's liberation from the Assad regime in 2011, following the first, which took place in three phases in 2017 and 2018.
According to a North Press report, Iran-backed militias are recruiting fighters in Homs and Hama and preparing them to fight the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Deir Ez Zor, in the same way that last year they supported tribes fighting the SDF. The region remains unstable due to increasing attacks by the Islamic State (ISIS) and the presence of Iranian-backed militias. The Public Security Service (Asayesh) announced the arrest of a terrorist responsible for a “guest house” in al-Shaddadi. ISIS terrorists and Iranian-backed militias attacked the SDF in several areas. In addition, internal clashes between Turkish-backed factions in the occupied region of Afrin resulted in the death of two activists against a backdrop of ongoing human rights violations against the population by these groups.
Amid escalating attacks by Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists in the region, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched a new security operation in the Hassaké suburb on April 20. According to the SDF, the operation resulted in the capture of 40 suspects associated with the terrorist organization, including a group responsible for terrorist attacks in Hassaké. In addition, weapons and ammunition were confiscated during the operation. On April 23, a car bomb hit Raqqa without causing any casualties. Terrorist attacks in the Syrian desert (Badia) increased, resulting in the loss of some twenty Syrian soldiers. Kurdish officials issued repeated warnings about the resurgence of ISIS. In another incident, Iranian-backed militias fired several rockets from Iraq at an American base in Syria. Although no casualties were reported, this attack was the first since February 6. On another front, at least seven civilians were arbitrarily arrested by Turkish-backed factions in the occupied region of Afrin.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the US-led Coalition, arrested three Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists and killed one in raids in the Deir ez Zor governorate. Meanwhile, the Kurdish-led Internal Security Forces (Asayesh) announced the arrest of three Assad regime commandos and the confiscation of an improvised explosive device (IED) and several remote detonators in a “special security operation”. In addition, the Asayesh announced the arrest of 25 dangerous Daesh members responsible for the murder and torture of women and men and the propagation of extremist ideology in the Al Hol camp. The Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES) repatriated 17 women and 33 children from Daesh families in Tajikistan. At the same time, AANES responded to an Amnesty International report criticizing its treatment of ISIS detainees and including allegations of torture. AANES said it appreciated the reports from human rights organizations, but then asserted that it could not manage the huge financial costs of the facilities and reiterated its calls for help from the international community to solve the detainee problem. AANES also claimed that Amnesty International's report was based on interviews with active terrorists or agents of influence rather than those living in the camps.
Finally, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Turkish-backed groups killed one civilian and wounded two others in the Shara district of occupied Afrin at the end of April.
The Institut kurde de Paris and the Association de cinéma franco-kurde Cinebêj organized, in partnership with the Centre culturel Wallonie-Bruxelles, the 3rd edition of the Festival des fims kurdes de Paris.
The festival, supported by the Ministry of Culture and Paris City Hall, was held from April 9 to 13 at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles. It featured over twenty films ranging from shorts to documentaries, cartoons and fiction, echoing the personal and collective representations of Kurdish filmmakers and testifying to the great diversity of their inspirations.
The opening evening, sponsored by TV5 MONDE and reserved for journalists, filmmakers and personalities from the world of culture and the arts, presented to this select audience of 150 guests the beautiful documentary “HAWAR, Nos enfants bannis” by Pascale Bourgaux, on the fate of children born of the rape of Yezidi women by ISIS jihadists, a topical subject that has remained taboo and little explored. A second screening of this documentary has been scheduled for April 13 for the many who were unable to attend the opening night.
The theme of the war against ISIS was also the focus of the documentary ROJEK (One Day) by young Kurdish-Canadian director Zaynê Akyol. This documentary was selected to represent Canada at the Oscars.
Another topical Kurdish drama, the fate of the thousands of Kurds, lawyers, students, doctors and trade unionists murdered in 1993-1996 by Turkish gendarmerie death squads and still unpunished to this day. The German-Kurdish director Ayse Polat has made a powerful and rigorous documentary entitled “The Blind Spot”, which has been very well received by the public and has been nominated on several occasions for the Lola (equivalent to the César) awards for German cinema, to be presented at the beginning of May.
The diverse program also featured documentaries on the Kurdish diaspora. These included “Translating Ulysses” by Aylin Kuryel and Firat Yucel, about the ambitious undertaking of translating James Joyce's particularly difficult work into Kurdish by Kawa Nemir, who has already produced some fine translations of Shakespeare into Kurdish. The young Belgian-Kurdish director Nevine Gerith presented a moving documentary entitled “Le Pacha, ma Mère et moi” about her mother, a tireless campaigner for the Kurdish cause and descendant of the illustrious Cemil Pacha family of Diyarbekir.
Another documentary, “Allihopa”, about the exploits of the Kurdish soccer team “Dalkurd” in Sweden, was enthusiastically received by audiences of all ages. Hussein Hassan's “The Rain Bride”, filmed in Kurdistan, dealt with ancient beliefs in djins and spirits in the Kurdish rural world.
The Festival closed with Florian Hoffmann's critical documentary “Whispers of War” on urban guerrilla warfare in Turkish Kurdistan.
This third edition of the Paris Kurdish Film Festival was dedicated to the great Kurdish filmmaker Yilmaz Güney, who lived the last years of his short life in Paris, and who passed away forty years ago.
Actor, writer, screenwriter, director and winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Yilmaz Güney saw cinema as a powerful and popular means of bearing witness to the realities of his time. In Turkey, he was the first filmmaker to bring to the screen not only the reality of Kurdish society, but also that of the small Anatolian people, with a Shakespearean vision that criticizes not only state violence, but also the tenacious patriarchal traditions hindering the emancipation of the people, especially women.
Yilmaz Güney would have been happy to see his example inspire many young talents in all regions of Kurdistan and in the diaspora, of which this third edition of the Kurdish Film Festival presented a representative selection.
The Festival paid tribute to him by presenting his last film, “Le Mur”, shot in France, about child prisons in Turkey, which, alas, is still relevant today. The presentation was followed by a round-table discussion.
