Slider

Newroz (Kurdish: نەورۆز /Newroz; Persian: نوروز /Nowruz) is one of the most ancient Aryan festivals. It is celebrated by different national groups and communities in the Middle East, as well as in other parts of central Asia. The celebration is an annual festival which marks the beginning of the new year among various national groups, […]

In that year (1988), three newborn babies (all female) and the football team of our village were named ‘Halabja’. Although incomprehensible to us – at such an early age – it was in that year too when we first heard of chemical weapons, when they were used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein near the end […]

On March 18, 2018, the Erdoğan regime in Turkey announced that the Turkish Armed Forces and their affiliated ‘Syrian National Amy’ (SNA) jihadist factions had fully occupied the Kurdish region of Afrin (Efrîn) after 58 days of encirclement and unrelenting attack from artillery and the air. Both being devastating military means of war that Afrin’s […]

There are very few painters alive today who can match the explosively vivid use of colors as Lukman Ahmad. The following is an exclusive KCS interview with the acclaimed Kurdish artist and painter Lukman Ahmad in anticipation of his solo exhibition entitled “The Other Side of My Journey” debuting on March 11th at the Cross […]

International Women’s Day, observed annually on March 8th, honors women worldwide for their accomplishments, bravery in the pursuit of equal rights, and resistance to gender-based violence. But this year, the 2023 International Women’s Day had a special relevance in Eastern Kurdistan, Balochistan, and Ahwaz – because of the ongoing revolution taking place throughout ‘Iran’. A […]

In January 2018, Turkey’s military launched an unprovoked cross border operation against the Afrin (Efrîn) region of Rojava in northwest Syria. The military invasion was cynically named “Operation Olive Branch” (an Orwellian reference to somehow offering peace through war), which went on to cause massive infrastructural damage and civilian suffering to those in the city […]

What do you call a country where athletes risk their life for competing on behalf of an occupied city? To find the answer, we have the football match between Amedspor and Bursaspor on Sunday March 5th at Bursa Metropolitan Stadium (two hours south of Istanbul), which was yet another example of what it means to […]

The earthquake that occurred on February 6 was one of the largest natural disasters this century. It has also been argued that it constitutes the biggest natural disaster in the history of Turkey. And while it is true that natural disasters cannot be prevented, it is possible to minimize the damage they cause by taking […]

In the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6, a considerable change has occurred amongst many civilians in Turkish occupied northwest Syria regarding the public perception of the Kurds. Previously, many of these Syrians cynically adhered to the xenophobic discourse and propaganda spread by Ankara in order to continue to […]

On March 1, 2003, Turkey’s Grand National Assembly (TBMM) failed to pass a motion to allow the participation of Turkish armed forces in the US-led invasion of Iraq, and concurrently give assent for foreign troops to be deployed on Turkish soil to serve that end. That failure, or rather democratic rejection, has ever since marked […]

“Although the enemy thinks their captivity will silence me, let them know that every corner of a prison cell is a library. My thoughts of freedom only expand in captivity. Doomed are those enemies who believe prison will break us.” — Zara Mohammadi, after being released (February 2023) The modern history of the Kurdish people […]

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 (with all of its relentless ramifications) and the Arab Spring in 2011, have had colossal impacts on Assyrians in the Middle East in general, and in Syria (Rojava) and Iraq (Kurdistan Region) in particular. These impacts have been magnified by the fact that Assyrians have continually fallen prey […]

This article was initially written in Arabic and published in the Arabic section of The Kurdish Center for Studies. The recent earthquake that devastated southeast Turkey (Northern Kurdistan) and north Syria (including Rojava) is re-drawing the political situation in the region in new directions. The result appears to be similar to the repercussions of the […]

This two part article was originally written in the Arabic section of The Kurdish Center for Studies and has been translated to English for wider viewing. Part I can be read → here Syria, a fledgling successor state to the Ottoman Empire, could not withstand early Turkish aspirations, had it not been for the French […]

This two part article was originally written in the Arabic section of The Kurdish Center for Studies and has been translated to English for wider viewing. Part II can be read → here There are assumptions among policy makers that the potential of normalization talks between Ankara and Damascus may serve as a prelude to […]

On the 24th anniversary of Abdullah Öcalan’s kidnapping by Turkey (February 15, 1999)—a day known to his supporters in Kurdish as “Roja Reş” (Dark Day)—the following is a chronological outline of the months and events that led up to that fateful moment. Understanding the international conspiracy against him—and for all intents and purposes the Kurdish […]

Traditionally, when we hear the voices of Kurdish women from exile in the diaspora, it is often from the lens of the colossal tragedy of post-conflict issues, involving the tirade of political violence, ethnic cleansing, and forced assimilation that has resulted in the murder of her mother tongue and that of her children. Modernity and […]

[Excerpt from the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers] Reporter: “Mr. Ben M’hidi, isn’t it a filthy thing to use women’s baskets to carry explosives for killing people?” Larbi Ben M’hidi: “Doesn’t it seem even filthier to drop napalm bombs on defenseless villages, wreaking even greater havoc? It would be better if we, too, had […]

What happens when the most dangerous earthquake is Erdoğan himself? In light of the upcoming June elections in Turkey, nothing has highlighted the stark nature of Turkish ultra-nationalism and racism than the treatment of the Kurdish affected regions following the 7.8 Richter scale earthquake that hit early on the morning of February 6th. At the […]

Since the start of the 20th century, the discipline of Kurdish studies and the West’s understanding of Kurdish culture lagged behind all other ethnographic analyses produced on the Middle East. Consequently, the images produced about Kurdish culture and identity were often fragmented and incomplete at best. At worst, they were erroneous and demonstrated a total […]

Jin, Jiyan, Azadî (woman, life, freedom), a Kurdish slogan, is the leading motto for a revolutionary movement in Iran since September 16, 2022. It was triggered by the killing of Jîna Aminî at the hands of the infamously brutal ‘morality’ police. Since then, men and women have been chanting Jin, Jiyan, Azadî across Iran. This […]

The death of a Kurdish woman, Jina (Mehsa) Amini galvanized the diverse ethno-religious groups across Iran towards an uprising that has reverberated across the globe. Jina’s death at the hands of the Iranian morality police highlighted not only the plight of women as second-class citizens across Iran, but also the deeply oppressed and persecuted nature […]

Since the revolt of Sheikh Ubeydullah of Nehri in 1880, the Kurdish people have been struggling to achieve a form of political liberty based explicitly on the notion of Kurdish national unity.[1] Despite this continuous struggle, the Kurds are still dominated. This leads to an important question: why have the Kurds failed to achieve political […]

The genocidal campaign perpetrated by fighters of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) against the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar in 2014 brought the ethno-religious Kurdish minority in Iraq and Syria into the spotlight. While Yazidis in Iraq are heavily concentrated in the Sheikhan district of Duhok and Sinjar, adherents of the faith in Syria have lived […]

After a decade of enmity, the end of 2022 saw a sudden move towards rapprochement between Syria and Turkey. For Turkish President Erdogan, normalization with Syria serves three important goals for his leadership, particularly with difficult elections coming up in 2023. These are the eventual withdrawal of Turkish troops from their increasingly unpopular entanglement in […]

The year 2022 saw the rise of the plight and situation of the Kurds to international attention. From South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq, Basur) being repeatedly bombed and subject to drone strikes both from Turkey and Iran, to Northern Syria (Rojava) subjected to chemical weapons use, airstrikes and drone attacks and the Kurds in Iran (Rojhilat) […]

On December 28, 2011, the Dutch journalist Fréderike Geerdink was in Istanbul when the Turkish army massacred members of a Kurdish convoy transporting goods between Turkey and Iraq. Witness reports revealed during the investigation that it occurred with the knowledge of the authorities. The government of northern Kurdistan made sure that people remained absorbed in […]

The battle for Kobane was a turning point for ISIS, its first big defeat. It marked as well the beginning of the collaboration between Rojava’s revolutionary forces and the US military in the war against ISIS. The YPG and YPJ cum SDF provided the crucial boots on the ground to stop ISIS and push them […]

It has been broadly argued that one of the prominent and distinctive features of the recent revolutionary movement in Iran is the solidarity and unity of all Iranian peoples despite ethnic, religious, linguistic, and even gender differences under the all-encompassing umbrella of Jin Jiyan Azadî (Woman, Life, Freedom). However, the recent developments of this revolutionary […]

Dear KCS readers, After having launched a Kurdish language version, we gladly inform you that we have now set up an English language edition, as part of the Center’s commitment to developing its activities since its establishment in Arabic in 2014. We hope the English edition will provide an important platform for academics, researchers, writers, […]