Iraq news
Much has been said and written about the assassination of journalist Kawa Garmiyani. But fundamentally, the killing has two aspects: First, this is a normal criminal case, which needs a response from the government and authorities. Second, the attack is on press freedom in Kurdistan. If the authorities are taking what happened seriously, the...
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The influx of refugees into Iraqi Kurdistan is not because they are afraid or to seek a better life. It is because they feel abandoned and insecure in their land. Their leaders are not with them, the international community does not want to know anything about them, Turkey is not helping and Kurdistan Region...
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Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani’s visit to Baghdad, shortly after the political saga over the two-year extension of his presidency, carries a different symbolism from the visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to Erbil. The message of Maliki’s visit was to show that Erbil matters to Baghdad. But the only message one can...
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The relationship between politics and media in Iraqi Kurdistan has oscillated between bad and unhealthy. Neither political interests nor the media have managed to overcome their disabilities, failing to create a healthy relationship that would shape citizens who are educated, informed and aware of the place and region where they live. By political interests,...
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The phased withdrawal of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas from Turkey into Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region must be followed up with serious moves by Ankara to settle the Kurdish issue. Otherwise, it will create many problems. The peace agreement, which is hoped to settle a three-decade conflict in Turkey, seems to have been made...
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As a frontline reporter of the 2003 war in Iraq, as a reporting instructor in the years that followed, and as someone who lived in Baghdad during the insurgency and sectarian war I was disturbed by the way the Kurdistan Region reacted to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s dispatching of Dijla forces into the...
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