nybooks.com | Charles Glass

Archaeologists believe that human beings settled on the hilltop that became Aleppo—some 225 miles north of Damascus—around eight thousand years ago. Cuneiform tablets from the third millennium BC record the construction of a temple to a chariot-riding storm god, usually called Hadad; while mid-second-millennium Hittite archives point to the settlement’s growing political and economic power. Its Arabic name, Haleb, is said to derive from Haleb Ibrahim, Milk of Abraham, for the sheep’s milk the biblical patriarch offered to travelers in Aleppo’s environs.

Interview by HAWAR ABDULRAZZAQ

In this interview with Rudaw, former U.S diplomat and adviser to the Kurdistan Regional Government Peter Galbraith says the time is ripe for Kurdish independence thanks to the thriving oil industry, international investment and the fact that Kurds are America’s only reliable ally in the volatile region. Galbraith says Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is not following the constitution or respecting the rights of Kurdistan.

International Herald Tribune | by JACK HEALY

As their leaders face tough options, refugees trickle across Iraq border.

Inside a muddy village named for a failed revolt against the Syrian authorities, a history of flight and exile is repeating itself.

Aljazeera.net

Hugh Macleod and a special correspondent

After years of Kurdish exclusion in Syria by the ruling Baath regime, there is hope for unity and justice once again.

Reuters

ARBIL, Iraq, Jan 18 - Iraqi Kurdish authorities agreed in a meeting with their Iraqi counterparts in Baghdad to resume halted oil exports from their region "at the start of February," the office of the Kurdish prime minister said.

ASSOCIATED PRESS | CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

ANKARA, Turkey — As a child, Emrah Kilic couldn't understand a word his grandmother was saying. That's because she was speaking Kurdish, the family's ancestral language, whose public use was harshly suppressed in the name of forging a unified Turkish nation.

Ft.com | By Daniel Dombey in Washington

President Barack Obama has personally warned Turkey’s prime minister that unless Ankara shifts its position on Israel and Iran it stands little chance of obtaining the US weapons it wants to buy.

Hürriyet Daily News - ISTANBUL

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the chairman of a group of respected global statesmen, has reportedly called on the Turkish prime minister to take action to bring about a solution to the Kurdish question.

Kurdistan Commentary

PRESS RELEASE: TURKISH EMBASSY IN LONDON REFUSES LETTER FROM ARCHBISHOP TUTU

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and EROL ISRAFIL (AP)

ISTANBUL — On the practice range one day, a Turkish military officer noticed that one of the conscripts under his command, an ethnic Kurd, had a good eye.