Iraqi Kurdistan

Militants gained more ground in
Iraq overnight, moving into two towns in the eastern province of Diyala
after security forces abandoned their posts.

Security sources
said the towns of Saadiyah and Jalawla had fallen to the insurgents, as
well as several other villages around the Himreen mountains, which have
long been a hideout for militants.

There are hopes that the Turks taken hostage by the organization of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), which captured Iraq’s second biggest city Mosul on June 9, will be soon released.

Intense contacts were carried out on June 12 by the Turkish Foreign Ministry and the National Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T) to secure the release.

The march of extremist Islamist fighters on Baghdad and the tearing down of border posts between Iraq and Syria surprise us with their speed. We are not used to seeing such changes on the map, as the years after World War II were devoted to avoiding any change of borders.

Turkey’s two pro-Kurdish parties says they will support the main opposition party’s candidate in the second round of the presidential elections if this nominee is someone who can provide assurances on democracy, freedom and the Kurdish question Two pro-Kurdish parties have indicated that they would consider supporting the presidential candidate of the main opposition party in the sec

Despite Baghdad’s threats, Kurdish Iraqi oil shipped from a Turkish port has been bought by Russian oil giant Rosneft to be delivered to a refinery in Germany, which co-operates with BP Russian oil firm Rosneft bought a cargo of Kurdish oil for a German refinery it co-owns with oil major BP, quietly circumventing Baghdad’s ban on independent oil sales by its autonomous region, accord

The federal government and the autonomous Kurdish region will cooperate against the offensive of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) militants, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoğlu during a phone call June 12.

Iraqi Kurds seized control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk on June 12, while surging Sunni Islamist rebels advanced towards Baghdad, as the central government's army abandoned its posts in a rapid collapse that has lost it control of the north.

There is no doubt Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan excels on brinkmanship, both internationally and domestically.

On the international front, he lashes out against the European Union. As he goes to Brussels, everyone expects Erdoğan to do or say something that will break apart relations. But all of a sudden, he is no longer the angry man.

The fall of Mosul into the hands of Islamist militants, led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), has the potential to ignite a region-wide war, with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announcing that its militants are ready to fight the Islamists together with the peshmerga.

Ankara’s fears have become true, and the Turkish Consulate General in Mosul was raided by invading militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) on June 11. The fate of 48 consulate personnel, including Consul General Öztürk Yılmaz, was not exactly known as the Hürriyet Daily News was going to press.