MER Article The Struggle for Syria's Regions In August 2013, as the United States was preparing to attack Syria over the use of chemical weapons, a chant echoed through ‘Alawi areas of Homs: “Strike, strike, buddy, we want to loot Tel Aviv” (idrab idrab ya habib, bidna n’affish Tall Abib). The couplet draws on a familiar position in Baathist d Kevin Mazur, Kheder Khaddour • 25 min read
Current Analysis In Search of the Building Blocks of Opposition in Turkey In early May, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan -- flush with a decade of electoral triumphs and a track record of economic growth dwarfing that of the European Union he once vowed to join -- had the luxury of being magnanimous. Joseph Logan • 9 min read
Current Analysis Syrian Kurds on the Verge of Crisis With the civil war in Syria past the point of no return, the country’s economy is undergoing unprecedented shrinkage. Inflation is running rampant. Purchasing power is plummeting as the value of the Syrian pound falls against the US dollar. Damascus and Aleppo, the main economic hubs, are badly aff Sirwan Kajjo • 2 min read
Current Analysis Behind the Kurdish Hunger Strike in Turkey To hear Mazlum Tekdağ’s story is enough to understand why 700 Kurdish political prisoners have gone on hunger strike in Turkey. His father was murdered by the state in front of his Diyarbakır pastry shop in 1993, when Mazlum was just nine years old. His uncle Ali was kidnapped by an army-backed deat Jake Hess • 17 min read
Current Analysis "The AKP's 'New Kurdish Strategy' Is Nothing of the Sort" Selahattin Demirtaş is co-president of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party of Turkey (BDP), the fourth largest political party in the country. The BDP is not formally tied to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been in armed conflict with the Turkish state since 1984, but it shares th Jake Hess • 13 min read
Current Analysis Syrian Kurdish Cards Upheaval in Syria has given Kurdish groups new opportunities to advance their nationalist agendas while serving as proxies for neighboring states. In Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK has taken advantage of the rift between the regime of Bashar al-Asad and the Turkish government by turning Denise Natali • 12 min read
Current Analysis The Evolution of Kurdish Politics in Syria Over the weekend of July 16-17, representatives of the opposition to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad met in Istanbul to choose a “National Salvation Council.” Among the diverse attendees were delegates speaking for Syria’s Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in the country at more than Sirwan Kajjo, Christian Sinclair • 22 min read
MER Article Deep Traumas, Fresh Ambitions The seeds of future war are sown even as parties fight and, depleted or on the verge of defeat, sue for peace. The outcome is rarely stable and may be barely tolerable to one side or the other. This rule holds true for the two belligerents no less than for their respective sponsors, keen to protect Joost Hiltermann • 19 min read
Current Analysis The PKK and the Closure of Turkey's Kurdish Opening At a community hall in Diyarbakır, a majority-Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey, a shrine is draped with the illegal flag of the Kurdistan Workers Party, otherwise known as the PKK. On top of the flag is a framed photograph of Özgür Dağhan, a young man who died fighting for the outlawed rebel grou Alexander Christie-Miller • 17 min read
Current Analysis “Road Maps” and Roadblocks in Turkey’s Southeast “Whether you call it a terror problem, a southeastern Anatolia problem or a Kurdish problem, this is the first question for Turkey,” Abdullah Gül declared in May. “It has to be solved.” With these words from the president, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish acronym, Andy Hilton, Marlies Casier, Joost Jongerden • 17 min read
Current Analysis A Precarious Peace in Northern Iraq On a stifling August afternoon in 2008, just as Iraq was recovering from the worst of its sectarian civil war, the Arab and Kurdish parties allied with the United States came to the edge of an ethnic bloodbath whose consequences for Iraq and the region would have been every bit as frightening. The t Quil Lawrence • 16 min read
Current Analysis Iraq’s Kurds Have to Choose Kurdish parties have become kingmakers in Baghdad , and they know it. As no federal government can work without them, they are pulling every available political lever to expand the territory and resources they control, trying to build the foundation of an independent Kurdish state. But even more tha Joost Hiltermann • 3 min read
