Kurdish farmers return to mountains in peace as PKK tensions calm

Kurdish farmers return to mountains in peace as PKK tensions calm
1 / 4
A Kurdish farmer carries a lamb amid a flock of sheep in the mountains of Turkiye’s southeastern Hakkari province on July 12, 2025. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 22 July 2025
Follow

Kurdish farmers return to mountains in peace as PKK tensions calm

Kurdish farmers return to mountains in peace as PKK tensions calm
  • The conflict has caused 50,000 deaths among civilians and 2,000 among soldiers
  • The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was formed in 1978 by Ankara University students

TURKIYE: Deep in the mountains of Turkiye’s southeastern Hakkari province, bordering Iran and Iraq, Kurdish livestock owners and farmers have gradually returned with their animals after decades of armed conflict between Kurdish militants and the Turkish army.

“We’ve been coming here for a long time. Thirty years ago we used to come and go, but then we couldn’t come. Now we just started to come again and to bring our animals as we want,” said 57-year-old Selahattin Irinc, speaking Kurdish, while gently pressing his hand on a sheep’s neck to keep it from moving during shearing.

On July 11 a symbolic weapons destruction ceremony in Iraqi Kurdistan marked a major step in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from armed insurgency to democratic politics – part of a broader effort to end one of the region’s longest-running conflicts.

The PKK, listed as a terror group by Turkiye and much of the international community, was formed in 1978 by Ankara University students, with the ultimate goal of achieving the Kurds’ liberation. It took up arms in 1984.

The conflict has caused 50,000 deaths among civilians and 2,000 among soldiers, according to Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Alongside with several other men and women, Irinc practices animal husbandry in the grassy highlands at the foot of the Cilo Mountains and its Resko peak, which stands as the second-highest in the country with an altitude of 4,137 meters (13,572 feet).

A place of scenic beauty, with waterfalls, glacial lakes and trekking routes, Cilo has gradually opened its roads over the past few years to shepherds and tourists alike as the armed conflict with PKK died down on the backdrop of peace negotiations.

But the picturesque mountains had long been the scene of heavy fighting between the Turkish army and PKK fighters who took advantage of the rough terrain to hide and strike. It left the Kurdish farmers often at odds with the army.

“In the past we always had problems with the Turkish soldiers. They accused us of helping PKK fighters by feeding them things like milk and meat from our herd,” another Kurdish livestock owner, who asked not to be named, said, rejecting such claims.

“Now it’s calmer,” he added.

Although the peace process brought more openness and ease to the region, tensions did not vanish overnight.

Checkpoints remain present around the city of Hakkari, and also to the main access point to the trekking path leading to Cilo glacier, a major tourist attraction.

“Life is quite good and it’s very beautiful here. Tourists come and stay in the mountains for one or two days with their tents, food, water and so on,” said farmer Mahir Irinc.

But the mountains are a hard, demanding environment for those making a living in their imposing shadow, and the 37-year-old thinks his generation might be the last to do animal husbandry far away from the city.

“I don’t think a new generation will come after us. We will be happy if it does, but the young people nowadays don’t want to raise animals, they just do whatever job is easier,” he lamented.

An open truck carrying more than a dozen Kurdish women made its way to another farm in the heart of the mountains, where sheep waited to be fed and milked.

The livestock graze at the foot of the mountains for three to four months, while the weather is warm, before being brought back to the village.

“We all work here. Mothers, sisters, our whole family. Normally I’m preparing for university, but today I was forced to come because my mother is sick,” explained 22-year-old Hicran Denis.

“I told my mother: don’t do this anymore, because it’s so tiring. But when you live in a village, livestock is the only work. There’s nothing else,” she said.


Thousands in besieged Sudan city at ‘risk of starvation’: WFP

Updated 3 sec ago
Follow

Thousands in besieged Sudan city at ‘risk of starvation’: WFP

Thousands in besieged Sudan city at ‘risk of starvation’: WFP
“Everyone in El-Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,” said Perdison of WFP
“Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost“

PORT SUDAN: Thousands of families trapped in a besieged city in war-torn Sudan’s west are at “risk of starvation,” the World Food Programme warned on Tuesday.

Since May last year, El-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, has been under siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been at war with the army since April 2023.

The RSF has encircled the city, blocking all major roads and trapping hundreds of thousands of civilians with dwindling food supplies and limited humanitarian access.

“Everyone in El-Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,” said Eric Perdison, the WFP’s regional director for eastern and southern Africa.

“People’s coping mechanisms have been completely exhausted by over two years of war. Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost.”

El-Fasher is the last major city in Darfur still held by the army, and has come under renewed attack by RSF fighters this year since the paramilitaries withdrew from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

A major RSF assault on the Zamzam displacement camp near El-Fasher in April forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee, with many seeking shelter in the city.

According to the WFP, prices for staple foods like sorghum and wheat — used to make traditional flatbreads and porridge — are as much as 460 percent higher in El-Fasher than in other parts of Sudan.

Markets and clinics have been attacked, while community kitchens that once fed displaced families have largely shut down due to a lack of supplies, the UN agency added.

Desperate families are reportedly surviving on animal fodder and food waste, while acute malnutrition is soaring, especially among children.

According to the UN, nearly 40 percent of children under five in El-Fasher are now acutely malnourished, with 11 percent suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

The rainy season, which peaks in August, is further hampering efforts to reach the city, with roads rapidly deteriorating.

Last year, famine was first declared in Zamzam, later spreading to two other nearby camps — Al-Salam and Abu Shouk — and some parts of Sudan’s south, according to the UN.

The war, now in its third year, has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.

The country is effectively split in two, with the army controlling the north, east and center of Sudan and the RSF dominating nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.

Netanyahu says Israel must complete defeat of Hamas to free hostages

Netanyahu says Israel must complete defeat of Hamas to free hostages
Updated 14 min 59 sec ago
Follow

Netanyahu says Israel must complete defeat of Hamas to free hostages

Netanyahu says Israel must complete defeat of Hamas to free hostages
  • “It is necessary to complete the defeat of the enemy in Gaza,” Netanyahu said

Jerusalem: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday Israel must “complete” the defeat of Hamas to free hostages held in Gaza, a day after Israeli media reported the army could occupy the entire territory.

“It is necessary to complete the defeat of the enemy in Gaza, to free all our hostages and to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said during a visit to an army training facility.


US house speaker condemned over West Bank visit

US house speaker condemned over West Bank visit
Updated 23 min 49 sec ago
Follow

US house speaker condemned over West Bank visit

US house speaker condemned over West Bank visit
  • Mike Johnson tells Israeli settlers their country is ‘rightful owner’ of Palestinian territory
  • Palestinian Foreign Ministry: Trip ‘undermines Arab and American efforts to stop cycle of violence’

LONDON: US House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican officials visited the occupied West Bank on Monday in support of Israeli settlements, The Guardian reported.

Johnson met Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar before his visit to the Palestinian territory.

The last high-profile American visit to the West Bank was in 2020, when then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Psagot, an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

Johnson’s private trip was hosted by a pro-Israel organization and was not part of an official delegation from Congress, Axios reported.

He was joined by Republicans Michael McCaul, Nathaniel Moran and Michael Cloud of Texas, as well as Claudia Tenney of New York.

Johnson told settlers that their country is the “rightful owner” of the Palestinian territory, which “must remain an integral part” of Israel. “Even if the world thinks otherwise, we stand with you.”

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned Johnson’s visit, and said Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is a “blatant violation of international law.”

The trip “undermines Arab and American efforts to stop the war and cycle of violence, while flagrantly contradicting the declared US position on settlements and settler violence,” it added.

Johnson also appealed to religious sensibilities in the US, saying his country should use its 250th independence anniversary next year “to remind the American people of its Judeo-Christian foundations that were formed here in the land of Israel.”

He is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before returning to the US on Sunday.


Islamist militants free Moroccan truck drivers held since January, Mali says

Islamist militants free Moroccan truck drivers held since January, Mali says
Updated 27 min 6 sec ago
Follow

Islamist militants free Moroccan truck drivers held since January, Mali says

Islamist militants free Moroccan truck drivers held since January, Mali says
  • The men and their three trucks disappeared in January while crossing without an escort from Dori in Burkina Faso to Tera in Niger

BAMAKO: Islamic State-affiliated militants have released four Moroccan truck drivers kidnapped in January, Mali said late on Monday, according to state media, highlighting growing intelligence cooperation between the two countries.

The men and their three trucks disappeared in January while crossing without an escort from Dori in Burkina Faso to Tera in Niger, an area known for jihadist threats, a diplomatic source said at the time.

They were shown alongside Mali junta leader Assimi Goita in footage broadcast on Monday night by state media, which reported that they had been freed on Sunday.

Junta-led Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali are battling militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State that have been destabilising West Africa’s Sahel region for more than a decade.

All three countries have halted defense cooperation with France and other Western forces and turned toward Russia for military support. And last year they announced their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), raising the risk of diplomatic isolation.

Morocco has meanwhile drawn closer to the three landlocked countries.

In April, the foreign ministers of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali endorsed an initiative offering them access to global trade through Morocco’s Atlantic ports. Morocco also mediated to secure the release in December of four French nationals who had been held in Burkina Faso for a year.

The release on Sunday of the four truck drivers came as a result of cooperation between the security and intelligence services of Mali and Morocco, Malian state media reported.


Turkish parliamentary committee begins work on PKK peace initiative

Turkish parliamentary committee begins work on PKK peace initiative
Updated 05 August 2025
Follow

Turkish parliamentary committee begins work on PKK peace initiative

Turkish parliamentary committee begins work on PKK peace initiative
  • Fighters from the group began laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq last month
  • The PKK announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities

ANKARA: A newly formed parliamentary committee tasked with overseeing a peace initiative with a Kurdish militant group held its inaugural meeting on Tuesday, marking a further significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency.

The 51-member committee, comprised of legislators from most major parties, has been charged with proposing and supervising legal and political reforms aimed at advancing the peace process, following the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK’s, decision to disband and lay down arms.

Fighters from the group began laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq last month, the first concrete step toward disarmament.

In his opening remarks, Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus called the committee’s launch a “historic turning point.”

“The commission gathered here is no ordinary delegation; it is a historic one, demonstrating the courage to repair our future and the will to strengthen social integration,” he said.

“In this hall, we are witnessing the beginning of a new era, representing the will of the nation,” he said, before the proceedings were closed to journalists.

The committee was on Tuesday expected to decide on how to proceed and to select an official name.

The PKK announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally disband and disarm.

The PKK has waged an armed insurgency against Turkiye since 1984, initially with the aim of establishing a Kurdish state in the southeast of the country. Over time, the objective evolved into a campaign for autonomy and rights for Kurds within Turkiye.

The conflict between militants and state forces, which has spread beyond Turkiye’s borders into Iraq and Syria, has killed tens of thousands of people. The PKK is considered to be a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union.

Previous peace efforts between Turkiye and the PKK have ended in failure — most recently in 2015.