Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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The Jazira’s Long Shadow over Turkey and Syria — Map courtesy of Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı Osmanlı Arşivi.Aerial view of Deir ez-Zor, 1934, by the French 39th Artillery Regiment. Source: IFPO.Mardin, Turkey, looking south toward the Jazira. Photo courtesy of Chris Gratien.

MER Article

The Jazira’s Long Shadow over Turkey and Syria

In September of 2019, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for the United Nations to establish a security zone in northern Syria east of the Euphrates. If the line extended south to Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, he suggested, some 3 million Syrian refugees could be resettled not only from Turkey

Samuel Dolbee • 14 min read

Turkish Opposition Parties Grapple with the Kurdish Question — Turkey’s main opposition parties, dubbed the “table of six,” meet to announce their joint plan to slash presidential powers and strengthen the role of parliament if they win the next election, in Ankara, February 28, 2022. Cagla Gurdogan/Reuters

Current Analysis

Turkish Opposition Parties Grapple with the Kurdish Question

Özlem Kayhan Pusane argues that the Kurdish question in general, and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in particular, will occupy a critical place on the Turkish political agenda in the run up to the summer 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections. After the leader of Turkey’s mai

Özlem Kayhan Pusane • 14 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

Kurdish Green Line, Turkish Red Line

Election day on January 30 was a day of celebration for the Kurds in Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city just below the Zagros Mountains in northern Iraq. Despite the threat of car bombs, Kurds stood in long lines for hours awaiting their chance to cast a vote. A teenager was

Quil Lawrence • 10 min read

MER Article

Between Guerrilla Warfare and Political Murder

The most spectacular development of the past several years in Turkey’s Kurdish provinces has been the resumption, in the late summer of 1984, of guerrilla activity. The attacks consist mainly of hit-and-run actions against military personnel and against Kurdish civilians considered “traitors” or “co

Martin Van Bruinessen • 18 min read