If Ankara can be tactful about Stockholm and Helsinki’s possible membership in NATO, it has a chance to see its concerns addressed.

Iranian newly-appointed ambassador to Iraq Mohammad-Kazem Al Sadeq presented his credentials to Iraqi President Barham Salih on Tuesday, May 17.

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.

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.

Dozens of prominent women, intellectuals and activists from around the world, have written a letter to the United Nations calling for an end to the Turkish government's attacks and occupations against Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria and Makhmur as well as Shingal.

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) described Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent rejection of Finland and Sweden's NATO membership as an attempt to seize NATO control and create a mentality against Kurdish groups in the region.

The Judicial Council of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said on Tuesday, May 17, all of the KRG’s oil contracts meet the guidelines of the Iraqi constitution enacted in 2005.

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.