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Iran
- On Saturday, Iranian border guards killed 28 horses used by Kurdish border porters known as Kolbars near Piranshahr. On Friday, a Kolbar named Daniel Aziz lost one of his legs when he was wounded by a mine from the Iran-Iraq War near Sardasht.
- Several fires burned large amounts of forest and farmland in the Kurdish region of Iran. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Association (KMMK), forest fires were deliberately set in the Hawraman region, Marivan, and Javanrud. 17 acres of forest were incinerated in the Hawraman region near Sarvabad. In Merivan, fires were set in Asraway village. On Thursday, the Banehsar District of Javanrud experienced fires that destroyed a sizeable portion of forested land. On Monday, 55 acres of farmland were eradicated in the Sarpol Zahab District of Kermanshah city. In 2018, the Kurdish region experienced a similar series of fires which occurred mostly in wooded areas. Kurdish environmental activists accused the Iranian regime and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of deliberately setting these fires.
- The Islamic Revolutionary Court of Urmia sentenced a Kurdish singer named Paiman Mirzada to two years imprisonment for “propaganda against the government.” Mirzada is already serving a previously imposed 20-month sentence and will now serve a total of 44 months in prison. Mirzada’s sentence includes a life-time ban on signing or producing music.
Iraq
- On Monday, the Kurdistan region held the inauguration ceremony for newly elected President Nechirvan Barzani. The ceremony was held in the capital of Erbil and attended by Kurdish and Iraqi officials and heads of the nation’s various political parties. Attendees included Turkish Foreign Minister Mawloud Cavusoglu, Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Mohammed al Halbousi, and several heads of Shiite and Sunni parties. Despite outstanding issues between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP), both of the PUK’s top-ranked officials, Iraqi President Barham Salih and First Deputy Secretary Kosrat Rasul, were present at the inauguration. Barzani is expected to call upon Massrour Barzani to become the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and form a cabinet.
- The Turkish military continued to target the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraqi Kurdistan. On Wednesday, three Peshmerga were injured by Turkish airstrikes in the Sadikan District of Erbil, two of which were siblings injured while tending their orchard. Last Tuesday, Turkish forces shot and killed a 20-year-old Yazidi man near the border town of Zakho. Civilian casualties in the region have increased in 2019 due to the Turkish military’s increasing use of airstrikes. Simultaneously, hundreds of villages on both sides of the Iraqi-Turkish border have been abandoned due to the ongoing war between the Turkish government and the PKK.
- Kurdish-owned farmland in the “Disputed Territories” continued to be targeted by arson attacks last week. In Kirkuk, Kurdish-owned farmlands and crops were attacked by ISIS (Da’esh) terrorists for the third consecutive week. Last Wednesday, hundreds of acres of farmland were set ablaze in Quach village near the Sargaran District of Kirkuk. Additional fires consumed large amounts of Kurdish farmland and resulted in the death of two farmers trying to extinguish the fires near the Yazidi town of Shingal. Da’esh officially claimed responsibility for attacks on farmlands in Iraq and Syria, which occurred two weeks ago.
Syria
- On June 6, a car bomb wounded one civilian in Manbij. On June 8, a motorcycle bomb targeting one of Hasakah’s residential neighborhoods wounded two civilians. Da’esh remnants have steadily increased terror attacks on civilians following the fall of the “Caliphate” in March. On June 9, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the arrest of a Da’esh sleeper cell and seizure of ammunition and light weapons belonging to the terrorist organization in the al-Jaradi village of Deir Ez Zor Governorate.
- Since Friday, the Kurdish region of Syria has been targeted by numerous arson attacks that have incinerated thousands of acres of farmland and created issues in all major cities and towns. The Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria (AANES) called upon locals to help authorities extinguish fires in affected areas. Wheat crops were set alight in the Al Jazeera region near Hasakah and Qamilshi while further acts of arson were committed against Kurdish-owned agricultural lands near the Syrian-Turkish border.
- The AANES Foreign Relations Department handed over fourteen orphaned children of Da’esh members to France and Holland. The handover of the children, who were rescued during the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani, took place during a meeting with a joint French-Dutch delegation in Ain Essa. Twelve of the children were French and two were Dutch.
Turkey
- The campaign for the Istanbul rerun election continued between the two candidates of the ruling party of Justice and Development (AKP) and the opposition party of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Both parties continued with attempts to appeal to the Kurdish voters of Istanbul. The AKP candidate Binali Yildirim even went so far as to use the word “Kurdistan” in defiance of a government ban on the term. Many Turkish opposition parties, including the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), withdrew from the rerun election to indirectly support the opposition candidate Ekram Imamuglu.
- After lifting the visitation ban on imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and allowing consultation with his attorneys, the Turkish government granted Ocalan’s family permission to visit him on Wednesday.