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A weekly brief of events occurred in the Kurdistan regions of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
Iran
- An Ilam court sentenced Kurdish artist Mohammed Abbaszadeh to one year in prison for singing “woman, life, freedom” during anti-government protests. In addition, three Kurdish youths in Piranshahr were each sentenced to more than eight years in prison on charges related to anti-government demonstrations, and a Kurdish imam in Sewilawa, Jala Akbara, received a two-year sentence for “disseminating propaganda.” The regime also arrested several more Kurds, including a 67-year-old mother of a prisoner, a Kurdish athlete in Senna, a female Kurdish wrestler in Khorram, and five others in Saqqez, Mehabad, Dewalan, and Diwandarah. Simultaneously, the regime disregarded the United Nations’ (UN) criticism of its extensive use of the death penalty and hanged three more people for participating in protests. Three more protesters in Isfahan are awaiting execution this week. That said, Iranian workers defied the regime’s ongoing crackdown and continued striking in Kermanshah, Ahwaz, and Shiraz. Lastly, the U.S. announced plans to deploy additional forces to the Persian Gulf in response to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) seizure of several merchant tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iraq
- The U.S. Consulate General Erbil welcomed the return of Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Qubad Talabani to the KRG cabinet after a six-month boycott. The Council of Ministers approved a draft law that would restructure public finance in Iraqi Kurdistan by centralizing revenues, liquidity, public expenses, and salaries. Meanwhile, the leadership of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) met for the first time this year on Tuesday. A joint statement issued by the KDP and the PUK after their meeting affirmed the commitment to bolster the “constitutional framework “of the Kurdistan Region and “expedite the necessary legal and political procedures to ensure the timely conduct of parliamentary elections within the region this year.”Tuesday’s meeting comes after KDP leader and former President of Kurdistan Region Massoud Barzani called for a national reconciliation initiative during the inauguration of the Barzani National Memorial, which was attended by Iraqi President Latif Rashid, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al Sudani, and numerous party representatives and diplomatic envoys. Iranian diplomats boycotted the event to protest the attendance of a representative from an Iranian opposition party. The Iranian government also summoned Iraq’s ambassador in Tehran to protest the presence of “Iranian terrorists” on Iraqi soil on Sunday. General Secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) Mustafa Hijri told Rudaw he was expecting such a move from the Iranian regime because it “seeks to ethnically cleanse Kurds and other nations, so when they see a representative of a Kurdish party in a meeting, they do not like it.”
- On May 11, the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) announced all procedures to prepare for the resumption of oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan were completed. The MNR statement noted Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) officially asked the Turkish government to resume exports through the Ceyhan pipeline on May 10. Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Ghani then confirmed the oil exports would resume on May 13, but that had not happened as of May 16. Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil exports have been paused since the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris ruled in favor of Iraq over the KRG regarding the independent export of oil from Iraqi Kurdistan via Turkey. The ruling also halted the export of Kirkuk’s oil because the North Oil Company (NOC) uses Iraqi Kurdistan’s pipelines to export to Turkey.
Syria
- The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the capture of a senior ISIS (Da’esh) terrorist and seven other Da’esh suspects during a raid in Deir Ez Zor Governorate’s Deshisha town on Monday. “The terrorist leader was active in carrying out terrorist attacks against our military and security forces and civilians and posed a threat to the security and stability of the region. He also facilitated the movement of terrorist cells,” said the SDF.
- Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad travelled to Saudi Arabia to participate in the Arab League summit that will be held on May 19. “We are here to work with our Arab brothers to determine the parameters to meet the challenges that we are all exposed to,” said Mekdad. It is unclear whether Syrian President Bashar al Assad will participate, but he received a formal invitation from Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz. Assad was also invited by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to attend the Conference of the Parties on Climate in Dubai from November 30 to December 12.
- According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Turkish-backed factions in the occupied regions of Afrin and Azaz have released five Kurdish civilians after receiving ransom payments. The report states that each civilian had to pay 4,000 USD to the Turkish-backed authorities for their release.
Turkey
- On Monday, Turkey’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) officially announced that a runoff would be held between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his opponent Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on May 28. The announcement came after both presidential candidates failed to secure the 50 percent of the vote required to win the election outright. Erdogan won 49.51 percent of the vote, and Kılıçdaroğlu received 44.85 percent. Ultra-nationalist candidate Sinan Ogan received just over five percent and conditioned his support for Kılıçdaroğlu during the runoff on the opposition alliance’s making “no concessions” to the pro-Kurdish Green Left Party (YSP), which has thrown its support behind Kılıçdaroğlu. Ogan met with Kılıçdaroğlu on Monday, and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) described the meeting as “very positive.” Kılıçdaroğlu performed best in Turkey’s Kurdish provinces and received 71.88 percent of the vote in Diyarbakir (Amed) Province. Concurrently, the YSP, a sister entity to the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), won 8.8 percent of the vote and secured 61-63 seats in Turkey’s Grand National Assembly. At the same time, the Erdogan-allied Kurdish Islamist party known as the Free Cause Party (HUDA PAR) won four seats. The leadership of the HDP and YSP acknowledged a slight decrease in support, blaming the government’s “politically motivated detention and arrest operations every day.”