Iran's Kurdish Rebellion

[Sally]

:Looks like Iran has trouble with the different groups residing inside the country.


Iran's Kurdish Rebellion

by Stephen Schwartz
The Huffington Post
May 22, 2015

Note: This commentary was written with Veli Sirin.

Violent protests by Iranian Kurds have taken the world by surprise, and mainstream reporting on them is sparse. That is doubtless explained by the general absence of decent journalism under the regime of the Islamic Republic, including restrictions on the entry of foreign correspondents. Yet the events in Mahabad, a city of up to 280,000 mainly-Kurdish inhabitants in the Iranian province of Western Azerbaijan, has fascinating aspects to those who follow Kurdish (and Iranian) affairs.

The demographic profile of Iranian Azerbaijan reveals the ethnic diversity of Iran. The country is not entirely Persian, as many outsiders believe. Turkic, Kurdish, and other non-Farsi languages are spoken by large minorities.

The recent turbulence in Mahabad began as such urban troubles often do, with an alleged abuse of power, a death, and rapid communication through the streets. According to the English-language web portal of the Kurdish newspaper Rudaw, which is professional and reliable, in the first week of May a Kurdish woman, Farinaz Khosrawani, aged 25, died after she fell, jumped, or was pushed from the fourth floor of the Tara Hotel in the city. Ostensibly, the victim, while employed at the hotel, sought to escape a rape attempt by an Iranian state official.

Continue reading at:

Iran s Kurdish Rebellion Middle East Forum

 

[waltky]

Why is the U.S. & Iran converging on the Kurdish referendum?...

The US-Iranian Convergence on Kurdish Referendum Shocks Erbil
10/01/2017 | The Kurds in Iraq will not benefit from the absolute stubbornness against the fury of the governments of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and even the United States over the insistence of their leadership to hold an independence referendum that effectively leads to the partition of Iraq.

It will not be wise for Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to deliver on his threat to send forces to the oil fields in Kirkuk and impose a no-fly zone over Iraqi Kurdistan, if the president of the Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani does not hand over control of the airports in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah to Baghdad. Furthermore, Abadi’s pledge to the Iraqi parliament that the government would not enter in dialogue with the Kurdish leadership unless it abolishes the referendum and its outcomes, blocks any possible political accord and opens the door to a military confrontation between Arabs and Kurds, and may even invite Turkish and Iranian intervention. The accumulated mistakes and stubbornness of the Kurdish leaders led to the dangerous current situation, where the Kurds have backed themselves into a difficult corner emerging from which safely will not be easy.

The supporters of the referendum believe backing down from it would have been political suicide for Barzani, without international guarantees and a firm timeline for independence. But critics blame Barzani for taking such a big risk against all advice and entreaties to postpone the vote, so that the Kurds do not trigger the partition of Iraq. These critics now say that the Kurds are committing suicide between the fangs of Turkey and Iran and the claws of the Iraqi state because of their determination to hold the referendum at this time. Now, there is no other option but to back down for all players. There is a dire need for preemptive American and Russian intervention to prevent further deterioration and a military confrontation.

The Saudi-led Gulf engagement of Iraq recently could pave the way for a positive role in the context of internal power dynamics in Iraq, especially in light of improving relations with Haider al-Abadi. The Kurds are saying the state of Iraq is a sectarian Iranian-dominated entity, where one of the leading goals of their referendum is to engage in serious dialogue with Baghdad, using the results of the vote as a card to secure a confederate democratic state in Iraq, instead of continuing to allow Iraq to be subjected to Iran’s will. But what now after tension reached dangerous levels, with threats issued not only for Erbil to abolish the referendum, which Baghdad deems to be illegitimate and unconstitutional, but also giving Kurdish leaders 72 hours to handover airports, crossings, and northern oil fields in Kirkuk and disputed areas to the control of the central government in Baghdad.

MORE

See also:

Kurdistan Region suffers international flight ban by Iraq
Saturday 30th September, 2017 -- Miffed at the referendum, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said that the flight ban is set to go into effect on Friday evening.

In a written statement released by his office on Friday, Al-Abadi, however, clarified that the “central government control of air and land ports in the Kurdistan region is not meant to starve, besiege and prevent (the delivery of) supplies to the citizens in the region as alleged by some Kurdistan region officials.” Following the order, all international flights travelling to and from the Kurdish region halted at 6 p.m. local time on Friday. Experts believe that a prolonged flight ban has the potential to further restrict the Kurdish region’s already struggling economy. Despite the flight ban, land border crossings, which form the vast majority of trade passes, remain open. The general director of Irbil International Airport, Talar Saleh said that Kurdish authorities were unaware of how to comply with Baghdad’s demand to hand the airport over to federal authorities before Friday evening.

Saleh said of the demand, “We didn’t understand what it meant. An airport isn’t an item that can be handed over to someone.” Saleh added that authorities in Baghdad did not respond to requests for clarification. Condemning the ban, she accused the central government of “just punishing their own people.” Saleh said that according to the information relayed from Baghdad - the military, humanitarian and diplomatic flights will continue from the airport uninterrupted. Meanwhile, on Friday, airport officials said that the volume of passengers was higher than usual but no additional flights were added to accommodate people attempting to depart the region.

The move by Baghdad comes after the controversial Kurdish independence referendum held this week, in which the Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Iraq. The vote was billed by Kurdish leaders as an exercise in self-determination. Meanwhile, following Baghdad’s criticism, Turkey too threatened to cripple restrictions on oil trading with Iraqi Kurds after they backed independence from Baghdad. The referendum has alarmed Ankara as it faces a separatist insurgency from its own Kurdish minority.

Kurdistan Region suffers international flight ban by Iraq