Kurdish language

The amount of Iraqi Kurdish crude oil shipped to third countries via Turkey has reached 6.5 million barrels with the seventh tanker now sailing away, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız has said.

Iraqi Yazidis are afraid to return to their ancestral lands due to fears of a future genocide, Feyyan Dahil, who has worked to bring attention to the plight of besieged members of her community, has said.
      

Yazidi women fleeing from northern Iraq have described to Hürriyet horrific scenes of the genocidal attacks of the militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), while also voicing confidence in ISIL’s ultimate defeat.
 

A New York Times reporter and a photographer have been brought to Turkey after being injured when a helicopter carrying aid to displaced members of the Yazidi community crashed in Iraq, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said via Twitter on Aug. 13.

Forty children from northern Iraq's Yazidi minority are reported to have died as a result of a jihadist attack on the Sinjar region, the United Nations Children's Fund said Aug. 5.
      

Presidential hopeful Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu has lent support to the government’s efforts in finding a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question, which includes the possible release of Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Hundreds of Kurdish fighters have entered the predominantly Syrian Kurdish region known as Rojava in recent days to battle jihadists besieging the Kurdish city of Kobane, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdul Rahman said July 14, as the Turkish army beefed up its security on the border.

‘Kurdish Life in Contemporary Turkey: Migration, Gender and Ethnic Identity’ by Anna Grabolle-Çeliker
(I.B. Tauris, £62, 299 pages)

External as well as internal factors are leading to the redistribution of cards, the redrawing of borders in the region. The idea of Turkey expanding its borders to include oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan is nothing new for the abundant “deep strategists.” While trying to expand borders, however, Turkey may find itself bidding farewell to some fundamental parts of the motherland.

Murat Yetkin murat.yetkin@hdn.com.tr “I am happy with the meeting.