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Turkey’s Kurdish Calculus

The Wall Street Journal – The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has made a bloody comeback in Turkey. According to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, PKK-related violence has killed some 700 people since the summer of 2011. This deadly toll recalls the horrors of the 1990s, when thousands of civilians were killed in PKK terror attacks and a brutal war in eastern Turkey between the government and Kurdish militants.

In the U.S. Exit From Iraq, Failed Efforts and Challenges

The New York Times – The request was an unusual one, and President Obama himself made the confidential phone call to Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president. Marshaling his best skills at persuasion, Mr. Obama asked Mr. Talabani, a consummate political survivor, to give up his post. It was Nov. 4, 2010, and the plan was for Ayad Allawi to take Mr. Talabani’s place.

Kerry calls for swift confirmation of Beecroft as Ambassador to Iraq

United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations – This morning, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) delivered the following statement on the nomination of the Honorable Robert Stephen Beecroft, of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Iraq.…