Russia’s ambassador to Iraq addressed plans to export natural gas from the Kurdistan Region to Europe in an interview yesterday, May 11.

Jailed Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas, a former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), has called on Turkey’s writers, artists, academics and journalists to unite and help establish full democracy in the country by taking “an active stance” for it in the period towards June 2023 elections, local media reported on Thursday, May 12.

On January 6, 1955, Turkey’s late Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, flew to Baghdad at the invitation of the Iraqi and Lebanese governments respectively. The visit was organized to reciprocate the state visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said to Turkey in the fall of 1954. Nuri Said (Pasha) who graduated from an Ottoman military academy was no stranger to Turkey and enjoyed a close personal relationship with his counterpart, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. The Baghdad Pact signed at that time symbolized the friendship between the two leaders. In fact, in 1958, the Democratic Party government ordered Turkish security forces to save Nuri Said Pasha and King Faisal from a coup d’état and a team was sent to Jordan for this purpose. They were too late; King Faisal and Prime Minister Said were killed by the forces of putschist General Kasım.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power since 2002, has found itself losing support amid soaring inflation and high unemployment. Millions of Syrian refugees are at increased risk of xenophobic attacks from the nationalist segment of Turkish society who blame Syrians for the worsening economic situation. The AKP has opened the country’s border to millions of Syrians since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011. Ultranationalist figures in Turkey today are recognized as the descendants of the Ottoman Empire’s Union and Progress Party (CUP), also known as the Young Turks, a political group that embraced a Turkification policy which excluded the empire’s ethnic identities such as Arab and Kurdish citizens.

As anti-refugee sentiment rises higher in Turkey during the Eid, Erdogan pledges a build-and-return project enabling more than a million Syrians to return “voluntarily” to northern Syria.

In an interview with Kurdpress, James Carey, an expert on Turkey affairs, spoke about the external and internal challenges of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the upcoming elections in 2023 and his specific actions to address them, including the opposition's efforts to oust him, the future of Turkey Kurds, many other issues in Turkey and the war in Ukraine as well as the unprecedented confrontation between the West and Russia after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

The representative of the Syrian Democratic Assembly in the Iraqi Kurdistan region said the self-government administration had prepared itself for any confrontation with possible dangers and was taking the threats seriously, politically and diplomatically, as well as socially and militarily.

A member of the Central Committee of the Syrian Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK.S) said: "We are part of the Syrian opposition coalition, which is present at international meetings, but we are not part of the military actions and inhumane behavior of armed groups and we have no force within them."

The director of the Sharpress Media Institute in the Kurdistan Region and a prominent political analyst said about the region's gas export project that "What can be seen now is that the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) sees this project (gas export) as its monopoly project, although it is being pursued in the name of the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) and the Prime Minister himself, but the other parties have not participated. And the Iraqi central government is not involved in this project."

The United States seeks to conclude stalled talks between the Syrian Kurds.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that the international community was refusing to return thousands of ISIS prisoners to their home countries, adding that the international community had left the Syrian Kurdish forces tasked with protecting the camps.

A Kurdistan Region media outlet reported that the Kar Oil Company has taken control of part of the Kirkuk oil fields with the help and support of the Kurdistan Regional Government's military forces.

The Council of Secretaries of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said in order to resume talks with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Kurdistan Region internal affairs and issues related to the Iraqi central government should be discussed in two separate sections.

There are “serious doubts” regarding Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan allowing peaceful transition of power if he loses the elections scheduled for 2023, Kurdish politician Ahmet Turk told Independent Turkish on Saturday.

An advisor to the Kurdistan Regional Government president announced Nechiron Barzani will make a visit the UAE to attend the funeral of the late UAE president.