BEIRUT,— The head of a Lebanese Sunni political and militant group that has joined the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in its fight against Israel on Lebanon’s border said Tuesday that the co...
BRUSSELS,— Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called for calm on Wednesday after escalating tensions between Turkish and Kurdish groups in the country just days before local elections...
DIYARBAKIR (AMED), Turkey Kurdistan,— Many of Turkey’s Kurds are set to put aside party loyalty and back Tayyip Erdogan’s major rival in Istanbul on Sunday, knocking the president’s hopes...
BALTIMORE,— A container ship lost power and rammed into a major bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday, causing the span to buckle into the river below and plunging a construction crew and several v...
BAGHDAD,— Foreign oil firms operating in Iraq’s Kurdistan region are partly to blame for the delay in resuming crude exports after failing to submit contracts for revision, Iraq’s oil minis...
Islamic State claims responsibility for the attack and releases photo of alleged attackers in Russia shooting MOSCOW,— Camouflage-clad gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons at concertgoers...
LONDON,— Kate, Britain’s Princess of Wales, said on Friday she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy after tests taken after she had major abdominal surgery in January revealed that cancer...
Omar Sindi | Exclusive to Ekurd.net The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) should not...
MOSCOW,— Russia has added what it calls the “LGBT movement” to a list of extremist and terrorist organisations, state media said on Friday. The move was in line with a ruling by Russia’s ...
ANKARA,— Turkey has proposed establishing a “joint operation center” with Iraq to combat the Kurdish rebels from Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with Baghdad responding positively to the ...
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has announced the downing of fifteen Turkish military drones over the past year, within the border area between Iraq...
Rauf Naqishbendi | Exclusive to Ekurd.net Let us keep Newroz as our national pride. Let us ask Barzanis and Talabanis how to celebrate Newroz, when Iraqi troops are fencing our borders with their...
SULAIMANI, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— The Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) declared its unwavering commitment to proceed with the parliamentary elections of the Iraqi Kurdistan reg...
https://ekurd.net/puk-committed-holding-elections-2024-03-19
YEREVAN,— Armenia could face a war with Azerbaijan if it does not compromise with Baku and return four Azerbaijani villages it has held since the early 1990s, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan sai...
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— The Barzani clan’s KDP party in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region said on Monday it would boycott local elections, accusing the Baghda...
ISTANBUL,— Around 50 people including an AFP journalist were detained by police on Sunday in Istanbul on the sidelines of the Kurdish New Year (Newroz) celebrations, witnesses said. AFP video j...
Vladimir Putin has been re-elected to a fifth term in office MOSCOW,— President Vladimir Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia’s election on Sunday, cementing his already tight g...
Rauf Naqishbendi | Exclusive to Ekurd.net Barzani and Talabani’s dynasty complacently thought they could drill oil and natural gas forever without challenges. The most they shared with people w...
BEIRUT,— Syria’s war has killed more than 507,000 people, a war monitor said Thursday ahead of the 13th anniversary of the conflict which has displaced millions at home and abroad. The govern...
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— Several Turkmen parties declared on Tuesday their intention to abstain from participating in the upcoming elections in Kurdistan region of Iraq, citing d...
https://ekurd.net/turkmen-christian-parties-boycott-2024-03-13
Michael Rubin | American Enterprise Institute On January 30, 2024, lawyers for the Kurdistan Victims Fund filed an expansive case against Massoud, Masrour, and Waysi Barzani and many of their key...
https://ekurd.net/barzanis-misplaced-hope-closing-2024-03-13
FRANKFURT,— Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that at least 13,000 “terrorists” were among Palestinians killed during Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip a...
https://ekurd.net/israels-netanyahu-says-terrorists-2024-03-12
BAGHDAD,— Nearly 160 Iraqi families have been repatriated from Syria’s Al-Hol camp, home to tens of thousands of people including family members of suspected jihadists, an Iraqi government sp...
BUDAPEST,— Former U.S. leader Donald Trump will not give money to help Ukraine fight Russia if he wins the presidency again and that will hasten an end to the war, Hungary’s right-wing nation...
PARIS,— Moldova’s president on Thursday signed a defence cooperation accord with France, warning that Russia was renewing efforts to destabilise her country and that if President Vladimir Put...
WASHINGTON,— Sweden on Thursday formally joined NATO as the 32nd member of the transatlantic military alliance, ending decades of post-World War II neutrality and centuries of broader non-align...
SULAIMANI, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— Sharifi Haji Rasul, a passionate advocate for wildlife preservation from Sulaimani city in Iraqi Kurdistan region, took another step in his ongoing commitmen...
https://ekurd.net/chukar-partridges-released-wild-2024-03-07
CAIRO,— Egypt on Wednesday floated its currency and announced a deal with the International Monetary Fund to increase its bailout loan from $3 billion to $8 billion, moving to shore up an econo...
Manish Rai | Ekurd.net Last month the Taliban’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai while attending a public program said that there is an absence of an official border betwee...
Michael Rubin | American Enterprise Institute The following is a review of the book: Towards an Independent Kurdistan: Self-Determination in International Law by Loqman Radpey. The Kurds are the ...
https://ekurd.net/book-towards-independent-kurdistan-2024-03-06
PRAGUE ,— French President Emmanuel Macron told expats in Prague on Tuesday it was time for Ukraine’s allies to step up, adding that a moment was being approached “in our Europe where it wi...
PARIS,— French lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill to enshrine abortion rights in France’s constitution, making it the only country to explicitly guarantee a woman’s right to...
UNITED NATIONS,— A team of United Nations experts reported on Monday that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred at several locat...
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— Iraqi Kurds announced Sunday that polls to elect a new parliament in the autonomous region would be held in June, after they were postponed from February...
https://ekurd.net/iraqi-kurds-postpone-parliamentary-2024-03-03
BEIRUT,— Turkey bears responsibility for human rights abuses and violations of land and property rights in swathes of Syrian Kurdistan, northern Syria’s Kurdish region, it controls alongside ...
https://ekurd.net/turkey-responsible-abuses-syria-2024-02-29
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— Armenian president Vahagn Khachaturyan arrived in the capital of Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, Erbil, on Thursday. His agenda primarily focused on ...
https://ekurd.net/armenian-president-khachaturyan-2024-02-29
WELLINGTON,— New Zealand on Thursday listed Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist entity and imposed travel bans on “extremist” Israeli settlers whom it said had c...
BAGHDAD,— The Iraqi government on Tuesday launched a plan to encourage displaced persons to return to their homes from displacement camps in the northern semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, th...
https://ekurd.net/iraq-encourages-displaced-people-2024-02-28
CHISINAU,— Pro-Russian separatist officials in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria have appealed to Moscow for “protection”, according to a resolution passed by a special congress...
https://ekurd.net/moldovas-breakaway-region-russia-2024-02-28
LONDON,— It was 10 minutes of shouted accusations of being a “genocide enabler” and having “blood on your hands” that made a British lawmaker fear for his safety over his decision to vo...
WASHINGTON,— Iraqi Kurdistan region prime minister Masrour Barzani held a meeting with Antony Blinken, the United States Secretary of State, in Washington, D.C. on Monday. During their discussi...
BUDAPEST,— Hungary’s parliament approved Sweden’s NATO accession on Monday, clearing the last hurdle before the historic step by the Nordic country whose neutrality lasted through two world...
https://ekurd.net/hungarys-parliament-approves-sweden-2024-02-26
JERUSALEM,— Israeli warplanes struck Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley on Monday, killing at least two Hezbollah members in its deepest attack into Lebanese territory since hostilities erupted with the ...
https://ekurd.net/israeli-warplanes-strike-hezbollah-2024-02-26
BERLIN,— Germany on Friday joined the small group of countries and jurisdictions that have legalised cannabis (marijuana) when the Bundestag passed a law allowing individuals and voluntary asso...
YEREVAN,— Armenia has frozen its participation in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) because the pact had failed the country, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in ...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.,— A private lander on Thursday made the first U.S. touchdown on the moon in more than 50 years, but managed just a weak signal back until flight controllers scrambled to ga...
BAGHDAD,— Iraq’s prime minister announced Friday the reopening of the Baiji refinery, the country’s largest, which had been shut down for a decade after being damaged in the battle against ...
TEL AVIV, Israel,— The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel on Wednesday said it has found evidence of “systematic and intentional” rape and sexual abuse during the Hamas’ Islamic...
BAGHDAD,— Iraq’s top court on Wednesday ordered the federal government to cover public sector salaries in the autonomous Kurdistan region (Bashur), where some workers have gone for months wit...
MOSCOW,— President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday Russian troops would push further into Ukraine to build on their success on the battlefield after the fall of the town of Avdiivka where he sai...
Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to Ekurd.net After decades of collusion between the Iraqi Kurds and Iran, now their job is done, have they become expendable? The Iraqi Shi’a fundamentalists loyal to K...
BAGHDAD,— Rejin Doski, a Kurdish woman pilot, has been promoted to the rank of captain, and she just completed her first flight from Baghdad to Dubai. This is a big deal for Iraqi Airways and f...
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced on Monday that citizens from 53 countries can now enter Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region without prio...
DUHOK, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— Guhdar Zebari, one of the journalists detained during the 2020 anti-government demonstrations in Duhok within the Barzani-controlled regions of Iraqi Kurdistan, ...
https://ekurd.net/iraqi-kurdistan-frees-journalist-2024-02-19
MOSCOW,— Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, said on Monday that she would press on with her husband’s fight for a free Russia and called on supporters to ...
Serwan Zangana | Ekurd.net The meeting between President of Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani and Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler on Wednesday, February 7, in Erbil was supposedly about sec...
COLOGNE, Germany,— About 15,000 Kurds marched in the German city of Cologne Saturday to demand the liberation of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has spent the past 25 years in a Turkish jai...
BAGHDAD,— A visit by the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force to Baghdad has led to a pause in attacks on U.S. troops by Iran-aligned groups in Iraq, multiple Iranian and Iraqi sources told R...
Michael Rubin | American Enterprise Institute Could U.S. Military Support For Iraqi Kurdistan End? On February 9, 2024, President Joe Biden issued a Presidential Memorandum to condition U.S. mi...
MOSCOW,— Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable opponent, collapsed and died on Friday after a walk at the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony where he was servin...
ATHENS,— Greece’s parliament approved a bill allowing same-sex civil marriage on Thursday, a landmark victory for supporters of LGBT rights that was greeted with cheers by onlookers in parlia...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida,— A moon lander built by Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines was launched from Florida early on Thursday on a mission to conduct the first U.S. lunar touc...
LONDON,— Royal Dutch Shell announced on Tuesday its decision to halt the Nebras petrochemical project in southern Iraq amidst a comprehensive review of its operations within the sector, which h...
CAIRO,— Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in the Egyptian capital on Wednesday on his first visit since 2012, sealing a thaw in ties between the regional heavyweights. Erdogan was ...
SAQEZ, Iranian Kurdistan,— Iranian authorities have handed down a jail sentence of over five years to the uncle of Jina Mahsa Amini, the young Iranian-Kurdish woman whose custody death sparked ...
WASHINGTON,— The Democratic-led U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a $95.34 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, amid growing doubts about the legislation’s fate in the Republican-c...
NEW DELHI,— Qatar has released eight former officers of the Indian navy after dropping their death sentences, India’s foreign ministry said on Monday, crediting the Qatari emir for the decisi...
SULAIMANI, Iraqi Kurdistan region,— A new care center catering specifically to patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s has recently opened its doors in Sulaimani city, Iraqi Kurdistan region, mar...
https://ekurd.net/church-sulaimani-opens-alzheimers-2024-02-12
JERUSALEM,— Israel freed two Israeli-Argentinian hostages in Rafah on Monday under the cover of airstrikes, Israeli military said. A joint operation by the Israeli military, the domestic Shin B...
YEREVAN,— Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview published on Sunday that his country was not Russia’ ally in its war against Ukraine, but stressed its military cooperat...
NATO leader says Trump puts allies at risks by saying Russia can ‘do whatever the hell they want’. Republicans blast Trump over threat to abandon NATO allies NEW YORK,— Republican front-run...
KYIV,— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has named Oleksandr Pavliuk, the former first deputy defense minister, as the new head of Ukraine’s ground forces, according to a decree issued o...
ISTANBUL,— Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM party, formerly known as HEDEP, on Friday selected two low-profile candidates to run for mayor of Istanbul after the wife of the repressed community’s j...
BAGHDAD,— The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) has revoked the operating licence of Iran’s largest bank, Bank Melli Iran, citing international sanctions and the bank’s limited operations in Iraq,...
BAGHDAD,—A commander from Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed armed group in Iraq that the Pentagon has blamed for attacking its troops, was killed in a U.S. strike on Wednesday, the U.S. military...