Kurdistan's Weekly Brief July 4, 2023

A weekly brief of events occurred in the Kurdistan regions of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

Iran

The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported that Iranian security forces arrested 168 Iranians, including 77 Kurds and 50 Balochis, in June. Iranian authorities arrested nine more Kurds in Saqqez, including a female named Shahla Chopani, last week, which raised the total number of Kurds arrested during the past two weeks to 14. The Iranian regime detained several other Kurds in Senna, Mehabad, and Naghadeh. At the same time, Ilam’s Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced a Kurdish man to nine years in prison for “disrespecting the leader of the Islamic Republic” and participating in anti-government demonstrations. Further, a Kurdish protester named Mehdi Sadiqi ended his life two weeks after spending six months in Iranian jails. Several human rights organizations claimed Sadiqi was tortured during his imprisonment. Lastly, Iranian forces continued to attack several villages along the Iranian-Turkish border near Urmia with indirect fire and seized at least 700 cattle owned by local Kurds.

Iran is set to join Russia and China in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization this week. In June, Russia expressed its intent to finalize the establishment of a “free trade zone” with Iran and several other nations by the end of 2023. Separately, the U.K. and the European Union (EU) said they would not lift sanctions on Iran’s use of missiles this October as stipulated in the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement.

Tensions remain high between the Iraqi government, Turkmen, and Kurds in Iraq’s disputed territories over the Iraqi Ministry of Defense’s seizure of Turkmen and Kurdish farmland. On June 18, the High Committee on Article 140 sent a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture that, citing a 2012 Iraqi government decision, demanded it return seized lands to Kurdish and Turkmen farmers. Iraq’s Council of Ministers accepted the Supreme Committee for the Implementation of Article 140’s decision and asked the committee to coordinate the process of returning the land with the Kurdish factions in the Council of Ministers and Council of Representatives. It remains unclear if this will lead to a resolution of the issue, however. Approximately 500 Kurdish and Turkmen farmers continued striking through Eid al Adha celebrations and gathered in a tent to call on the Iraqi government to convey their demands.

On July 3, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al Sudani filed a complaint against 12 articles of Iraq’s new budget bill with the Federal Supreme Court that demanded their suspension until the complaint is resolved. The Council of Representatives has already passed the bill, which has been signed by President Abdul Latif Rashid and approves Iraq’s budget for 2023, 2024, and 2025. That said, the Council of Representatives has been accused of exceeding its constitutional mandate in adding numerous amendments to the bill. Prime Minister al Sudani’s lawsuit addresses articles 2, 16, 20, 28, 57, 62, 63, 65, 70, 71, and 72 but fails to deal with the amendments regarding the budget of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

The Kurdistan Parliament’s Presidency sent a memorandum to the KRG Ministry of Finance and Economy that advised all lawmakers of the current Parliament to retire. The memorandum comes after Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court dissolved the Kurdistan Parliament’s fifth term for extending its period in an “unconstitutional” manner. On June 1, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) announced the “completion” of its parliamentary duties and that it was rejecting salaries for its lawmakers. In March, President of Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani announced parliamentary elections would take place on November 18, 2023, but the scheduled date comes just one month before the Iraqi provincial elections scheduled for December 18. Managing two elections in one month will create multiple logistical challenges for Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission.

On July 3, the Water Directorate of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) declared “disaster areas” in Hasakah, Tel Tamer, and the Washokani and Srekani camps due to water shortages caused by Turkey. Turkey controls the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and has cut off water supplies to AANES-controlled territories more than forty times since 2019, which has affected more than a million Syrian citizens. Meanwhile, a member of a pro-Turkish militia sexually assaulted a child in Afrin on Friday. The next day, the Turkish proxy Jaish al-Watan seized 112 sacrificial animals donated to refugees in northern Hasakah for Eid al-Adha and took them to its headquarters. Turkish proxies also imposed a tax on Kurds in Afrin this week, demanding 100 dollars from each citizen and 1,000 dollars from each merchant.

Local Turks held a massive anti-Syrian refugee rally in Kocaeli Province after a dispute between Syrian and Turkish families. Turkish authorities deported a Syrian family involved in the dispute, but ultra-nationalist lawmakers exploited the event and called for more anti-Syrian demonstrations. Meanwhile, Turkish police in Istanbul attacked demonstrators commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Sivas Massacre, where radical Sunni Islamists murdered 33 Alevi intellectuals and artists. Several demonstrators were arrested, including a journalist. On another note, several pro-Kurdish youth groups launched a social media campaign calling for rallies on the eighth anniversary of ISIS’s (Da’esh) attack on a Kurdish political gathering in Suruç that killed 33. Many Kurds in Turkey believe the Turkish government deliberately failed to stop the attack.

The co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Mithat Sanca, criticized the Turkish government after it disregarded several objections from the HDP’s defense team and held the 52nd hearing of the “Kobane trial” of 108 Kurdish and Turkish politicians. The 108 are being tried on charges related to participation in anti-Da’esh protests during the 2014 siege of Kobane. “The resistance of the peoples in Kobanî against the great threat posed by ISIS at that time was seen as a glorious page by all humanity. The process of decline and collapse of ISIS began with the defeat in Kobanî. In order to make people forget the danger of ISIS and all the threats that ISIS created at that time and that are likely to spread today, the Kobanî Case was put into effect in order for the government to cover up its own responsibility at that time,” said Sincar.