MEZOPOTAMIAN KURDISTAN DAILY INDEPENDENT NEWSSERVICE
Mezopotamian Development Society (Registered) GERMANY
THE MOST REQUESTED DAILY & ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWSSERVICE ON KURDISTAN FOR THE HIGHLY INVOLVED PEOPLE – email : mesop@online.de – Watch our website : www.mesop.de
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MESOP :– NO TALKS ANYMORE WITH KANDIL PKK – BUT WITH APO ? – TURKISH GOVERNMENT
Turkey denies resumption of talks with PKK
26 April 2016 – A senior Turkish government member has refuted international calls for Turkey to return to the negotiation table with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Hurriyet daily reported. “These countries should see whether they can guarantee us that the PKK would drop their arms, instead of giving advice to us for the resumption of talks. We took this political risk [in the past]. We sincerely continued the process our president launched,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a group of journalists traveling with him to the United Arab Emirates on April 25.
Cavusoglu’s remarks follow Western countries’ calls on Turkey to return to the negotiation table with the PKK while a senior militant leader has said there has been direct contact between his organization and the United States. “This is the Americans that will reply to this,” Cavusoglu said. “In fact, being in contact with the YPG [People’s Protection Units] in Syria means being in contact with the PKK.” “They talk about a mutual cease-fire. What does this mean? Will we consider a state and a terror organization equal? Can one say that the U.S. and al-Qaeda should mutually drop their arms? Or would the anti-DAESH coalition and DAESH lay their arms down simultaneously?” the minister asked, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State (IS).
US in effort to establish new fighting groups
According to the foreign minister, the rift between Turkey and the U.S. over the PYD’s role has caused the latter to seek alternative fighting groups in Syria that exclude the Syrian Kurdish militias. “Now the Americans are exerting efforts on whether they can establish a force composed of Turkmens and Arabs by excluding the PYD. In fact, there is no complete change in the U.S. policies with regard to the PYD, but they tell us they understand our concerns. The implementation will show us to what extent they have changed their position in regards to the PYD,” the minister said. Recent clashes between the PYD and pro-Syrian government troops are not important as this is “just a scenario written by some international forces” to legitimatize the PYD in the fight against IS, Cavusoglu said. “It’s a theater play. It’s a sham fight,” he said. “No one will buy it.” www.mesop.de
MESOP EXCLUSIV – TODAYS KURDISH YOUTH INITIATIVE : A Kurdish Youth Initiative to Unify the Kurd’s Political Vision?
BY JIWAN SOZ – Jiwan Soz is a Kurdish Syrian journalist who writes for several Arab newspapers and agencies, including al-Quds al-Arabi and al-Jazeera.
Young Syrian Kurds launched a new initiative on April 1 to give voice to the Kurdish youth who demand a unified Kurdish position amongst political movements in Syria. Those in charge of the initiative said, “This initiative is not a movement, a political party, or a new organization. And it will not become one. The only mission is to coordinate and organize activities within the initiative’s framework.” – This initiative is a result of increasing frustration amongst Kurdish youth: Kurdish political parties have failed to reach any kind of political consensus. Read al http://www.mesop.de/?p=73498
MESOP TODAYS RELEVANT TWEETS & SHORT CUTS
U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who has been continuing talks with the Assad regime delegation since the opposition withdrew from discussions, will brief the U.N. Security Council on the state of the peace talks tomorrow evening. https://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2016/Apr-26/349315-de-mistura-to-brief-major-powers-on-syria-talks-on-wednesday.ashx?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=%2AMideast%20Brief
MESOP : PUTIN’S AIRTRAFFIC INCREASING
Leith Abou Fadel @leithfadel – Leith Abou Fadel Retweeted Al-Masdar News
Russian air traffic has doubled in the last three weeks and it’s only increasing. Humaymim Airbase is busy
Al-Masdar News @TheArabSource – Russian air traffic doubles as Humaymim Airbase sees large … http://bit.ly/1MS0PXu #Latakia #Syria
Three foreign YPG volunteers released from jail, going home http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/240420166 … via @RudawEnglish
KRG released YPG UK volunteers arrested at the border https://twitter.com/Hevallo/status/724212784116948992 …
KRG sends medical aid to Rojava http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/17845e04-f98b-4457-9a86-b7bd01184cc3/KRG-sends-medical-aid-to-Rojava … #Syrian Kurds #Kurdistan Region #Masoud Barzani #Rojava #PYD
Just like #Qamislo, #Tuz Khurmato fight will most likely stop after negotiations. Hadi Al-Ameri arrived in Kirkuk
Clashes between Iraqi Kurds, Turkmen kill nine: officials https://www.yahoo.com/news/clashes-between-iraqi-kurds-turkmen-kill-nine-officials-112714920.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw … via @YahooNews — More on : www.mesop.de
MESOP BOOK RECOMMENDATION : Childhood in the Late Ottoman Empire and After
edited by Benjamin C. Fortna, University of Arizona
This volume explores the variety of ways in which childhood was experienced, lived and remembered in the late Ottoman Empire and its successor states. The period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a time of rapid change, and the history of childhood reflects the impact of new expectations, lived realities and national responsibilities on the youngest members of societies undergoing monumental change because of ideological, wartime and demographic shifts. Drawing on comparisons both within the Balkans, Turkey and the Arab lands and with Western Europe and beyond, the chapters investigate the many ways in which upheaval and change affected the youth. Particular attention is paid to changing conceptions of childhood, gender roles and newly dominant national imperatives.
Contributors include: Elif Akşit, Laurence Brockliss, Nazan Çiçek, Alex Drace-Francis, Benjamin C. Fortna, Naoum Kaytchev, Duygu Köksal, Kathryn Libal, Nazan Maksudyan, Heidi Morrison, and Philipp Wirtz.
This title, in its entirety, is available online in Open Access. http://www.mesop.de/?p=73492
MESOP TODAYS COMMENTARY : RED LINE REVISITED – THE COSTS & BENEFITS OF NOT STRIKING SYRIA
By Michael Singh – Wall Street Journal – April 22, 2016 – Michael Singh is the Lane-Swig Senior Fellow and managing director of The Washington Institute. This article originally appeared on the Wall Street Journal blog “Think Tank” .
Rather than debate the hypothetical results if the administration had ordered strikes in 2013, it is more instructive to examine the policy it did execute, which delivered questionable results at significant cost. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=73481
MESOP MIDDLE EAST
MESOP BACKGROUNDER : Why Russia Harasses U.S. Aircraft (STRATFOR ANALYSIS)
APRIL 20, 2016 | –A Russian Su-24 jet makes a close-range and low-altitude pass near the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea on April 12. Russia sometimes uses close interceptions to deter U.S. craft without sparking outright combat. (U.S. Navy)
Summary -Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, tension with the West has been high, affecting eastern Ukraine, Syria and hot spots across the former Soviet sphere . Less overtly, Moscow has been working to protect areas vital to Russian interests by raising the stakes of U.S. operations there. This has manifested in numerous aggressive interceptions of U.S. military aircraft in flight, especially over the Black and Baltic seas. The interceptions, which are reportedly occurring more frequently, aim to dissuade Washington from operating in that airspace. R ead all + watch pics etc. http://www.mesop.de/?p=73483
EAST KURDISTAN (IRAN)
MESOP REPORT : Iran jails 12,000 Kurds in the past 12 months
TEHRAN,— Officials of the Iranian regime have acknowledged that 12,000 ethnic Iranian Kurds were imprisoned in Iran in the last Iranian calendar year, which ended March 19, 2016.The state-run news agency ISNA reported on April 17 that the Provincial Director of Iranian Kurdistan’s Bureau of Prisons confirmed that there had been an influx of Kurdish inmates.Accordingly, Director of Prisons Assadollah Gorjizadeh stated that “statistics indicate nearly 60% of the imprisoned people were the heads of their families, which is tearing apart the social fabric of Kurdish society in Iran”.Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, ncr-iran.org
SOUTH KURDISTAN (IRAQ)
MESOP Report: Iran looks to deploy Hamas in the battle to liberate Mosul from ISIS
JERUSALEM POST – 25 April 2016 – According to the report, Hamas forces would fight for Mosul’s liberation alongside Hezbollah fighters and the Shi’ite Houthi militias which are currently struggling in Yemen. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=73488
MESOP : Iraq Situation Report: April 12 – 25, 2016 (BY ISW) – By Patrick Martin and ISW Iraq Team
Key Take-Away: The U.S. announced additional “accelerants” in the fight against ISIS, reporting on April 18 that it would deploy 217 additional train-and-advise personnel to embed at the brigade and battalion levels with attack helicopters and an additional High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). The limited increase in U.S. military support came in conjunction with an increased number of high-level U.S. military and diplomatic visits between April 8 and April 21 with Iraqi officials during its major political crisis. The Council of Representatives (CoR) split into two parallel parliaments on April 12 over a disagreement regarding Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi’s cabinet reshuffle. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=73490
WEST KURDISTAN (SYRIA)
MESOP REPORT : THE TELEGRAPH – UK
How Isil colluded with Assad to make $40m a month in oil deals / How Isil make their money
Josie Ensor, middle east correspondent, Beirut – 25 APRIL 2016 • – The Syrian government cut deals with Islamic State to help the jihadists earn more than $40 million a month from the sale of oil, documents recovered from a US and British raid on a key commander have revealed.
Thousands of spreadsheets and accounts kept by the group’s oil boss Abu Sayyaf, retrieved in the biggest intelligence raid in US Special Forces’ history last year, reveal how the two sides forged a mutually beneficial arrangement despite being at war with one another.Isil fighters captured some of the state’s best-producing oil fields of eastern Syria in 2013. The Telegraph reported claims two years ago that the regime had been purchasing oil from the jihadists, but the documents, seen by the Wall Street Journal, show the scale of the collusion. At the height of production in late 2014 to early 2015, Isil recorded $40.7m profit each month – the lion’s share of which made from sales to the Syrian government, according to the US Treasury Department. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=73494
NORTH KURDISTAN (TURKEY)
MESOP : ERDOGAN’S HOOLIGANS AGAINST KURDISH FOOTBALL
Attack to Amedspor in Ankara: An attempt to lynch the club directors – By Rumet Serhat – BasNews – ANKARA – Amedspor has been the object of racist attacks by other football teams and the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) as well as hooligans since their name changed from Diyarbakır Spor and the new team logo consists of green, red and yellow, the Kurdish colours. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=73500
MESOP SPECIAL : Sweden’s Green Party ‘infiltrated by Islamists’ & pro Nazis’s
One party member refused to shake hands with a female journalist, and another compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
26 Apr 2016 14:31 GMT | al Jazeera – The behaviour of some Muslim members of Sweden’s Green Party – part of a coalition government – has sparked concerns among the Swedish that the small environmentalist group may have been infiltrated by “Islamists”.”In our eagerness to embrace a diverse and multicultural society, we have turned a blind eye to undemocratic views,” said Gulan Avci, a politician for the Liberals, a centre-right opposition party.
The party’s problems started when one member refused to shake hands with a female journalist. Another compared Israel to Nazi Germany. A third was seen doing hand signs associated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in the background of a live TV broadcast.Green Party leaders said on Monday there was no evidence of Islamists influencing party policies.Housing Minister Mehmet Kaplan, a Green Party member and former leader of a Swedish Muslim youth group, resigned last week after media reports that he had contacts with ultra-nationalists and Islamists in his native Turkey.”In our eagerness to embrace a diverse and multicultural society, we have turned a blind eye to undemocratic views,”
Gulan Avci, a lawmaker for the Liberals
He denied any wrongdoing and the party leadership defended him until the end, but he stepped down when a video surfaced of Kaplan comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to how the Nazis persecuted Jews.
Later, new images emerged in which Kaplan and other Muslim members of the Green Party were seen holding up four fingers, a hand gesture used by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. One of them, a Green Party youth leader, walked into the picture during a live broadcast on Swedish television and flashed the sign behind the presenter. The gesture is not illegal in Sweden, but many Green Party members questioned whether the brotherhood’s conservative views are compatible with the feminist and gay-friendly platform of the Swedish Greens.
Too “intimate”
Green Party co-leader Asa Romson described the September 11 attacks as “accidents” in a TV interview. She later clarified that she condemns the attacks. The biggest outcry came after Yasri Khan, a 30-year-old running for a seat on the Green Party’s executive board, refused to shake the hand of a Swedish TV reporter.
He said shaking hands with someone from the opposite sex is too “intimate”, and instead put his hand on his heart in a Muslim greeting.A debate ensued in Sweden, with Khan’s critics calling his behaviour insulting to women and his supporters dismissing the criticism as Islamophobia.Prime Minister Stefan Lofven weighed in, saying that in Sweden “you shake hands with both women and men”.
Khan withdrew his candidacy for the Green Party executive board and also quit his seats on a regional board and city council.He told the AP news agency he was keeping his party membership for now, though he questioned whether practising Muslims are still welcome in the party.”I think the Green Party needs to work on their inclusive values,” he said. “How do you combine diversity and religion with an ethnocentric and prejudiced idea of gender equality?”
Asked whether he would describe himself as an Islamist, he said he did not even know what the word meant. “If it means a practising Muslim who is contributing to politics, then I’m an Islamist – or was, since I’m leaving. But if it means a terrorist or against gender equality then I am as far away from an Islamist as you can get,” Khan said. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/sweden-green-party-infiltrated-islamists-160426130534157.html
THE GERMAN KURDISH CHAPTER
MESOP : PUTIN’S PRAVDA „SPUTNIK“ – IMMER WAHR – NIE VERLOGEN – OPTIMISTISCH
Trotz Terror: Reisebranche in Syrien im Aufwind
Die Tourismusbranche in Syrien funktioniert weiter – trotz allen Versuchen der Terroristen, archäologische Sehenswürdigkeiten zu zerstören. Das sagte der syrische Tourismusminister Bishr Yazigi bei einem Treffen mit Mitgliedern der Europartei „Allianz für Frieden und Freiheit“ (APF), wie die syrische Nachrichtenagentur SANA am Dienstag meldet. Weiterlesen: http://de.sputniknews.com/politik/20160426/309475813/reisebranche-syrien-aufwind.html#ixzz46we1fJRg
MESOP “OPEN SOCIETY” : “STOLZ WEHT DER GOLDENE SCHRIFTZUG ‘ALLAH IST GROSS’ AUF DER FRÜHEREN KIRCHE (FAZ 26 4 2016 – Seite 3)
Kapernaumkirche heute als Al-Nour-Moschee eingeweiht
Von der Kapernaumkirche zur Al-Nour-Moschee: Auf dem Teppich beten die Muslime, die … Die Umwidmung der Kapernaum-Kirche in eine Moschee sorgte für viel Wirbel. www.mesop.de