Kurdistan

The Kurdish Regional Government, or KRG, increased its exports to world markets through Turkey to 300,000 barrels per day, according to Kurdish official sources.

A senior Iraqi official has expressed the new Iraqi government’s intention to demand the money collected in a Turkish bank over the Kurdistan regional government’s unilateral sale of oil through Turkey that sparked a row between Ankara and Baghdad during Nouri al-Maliki’s rule.

The first attempt to resolve the Kurdish problem, known as the Oslo Process, was secretly launched in 2009, but failed after talks between the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and senior leaders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were leaked onto the Internet in 2011.

The resistance in Kobane and the following protests on Oct. 6-7 in Turkey have confronted us with the weaknesses of the peace process in Turkey, as well as the new reality in the region.

The highly anticipated corridor for the Peshmarga fighters has finally opened and they have marched into Turkish soil to move into Kobane. It all looked like a long wedding procession. As BBC and CNN International broadcast the crossing, ordinary Turks who only watch TV series or football matches were not able to see even a glimpse of it on their favorite channels.

The United States is working closely with the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government to clamp down on oil smuggling in a bid to cut off a key source of funding for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a senior U.S. official said on Oct. 30.

The 91st anniversary of our republic was marked this year with a sense of despondency among Turks who believe in a secular democracy based on tried and tested European values that have become the universal benchmarks of advanced societies in the contemporary world.

Iraqi Kurdish forces are traveling to Turkey on their way to cross into Syria to battle Islamic State militants besieging the town of Kobane, the BBC reports.

A plane carrying 150 Peshmerga was said to have left Irbil.

Last week, Turkey agreed to the deployment after refusing to allow Turkish Kurds to cross the border to fight.

Iraqi Kurdistan plans to increase the capacity of its oil pipeline via Turkey to 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) following upgrade work, industry sources and officials said on Oct. 27.

It will raise the flow to 400,000 bpd by year-end, from a current 280,000 bpd, adding further pressure to falling world oil prices already hit by rising supply.

A Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) source has denied a report that the Kurdish Peshmerga forces would start heading for Kobane on Oct 26 The General Secretary of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs of the autonomous Kurdish Regional  Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has denied a report that the Kurdish Peshmerga forces would start their passage to Kobane on Oct 26.