As part of the ongoing “peace process,” the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) announced on October 26 the withdrawal of all its military units from Turkey.
These units have been redeployed to its bases in Iraqi Kurdistan pending the adoption by Turkey of “legal measures” that would allow the return of fighters who have laid down their arms.
In the statement announcing this withdrawal, the PKK emphasized that “the process is going through an extremely important and critical phase. (...) We are withdrawing all our forces from Turkey, which pose a risk of conflict within Turkish borders and are vulnerable to potential provocations.”
No specific figures were given regarding the number of fighters withdrawn. Observers estimate it could involve 200 to 300 guerrillas who had remained discreet since the ceasefire announced on March 1.
The PKK is urging Ankara to take the necessary legal steps “without delay” to save the peace process. Launched a year ago, the process calls for accelerating negotiations and enacting laws that guarantee “freedoms and the democratic integration” of PKK members into society.
The Turkish government reacted through Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz, who welcomed “an important step in the right direction,” stressing that the main objective remained “the elimination of all elements of the terrorist organization.”
For his part, Ömer Celik, spokesperson for the ruling party, viewed the withdrawal announcement as “concrete results” of efforts to end the conflict.
In Baghdad, the Foreign Relations Committee of the Iraqi Parliament warned on October 26 that the relocation of PKK fighters from Turkey to Iraq constituted a threat to national security and could drag the country into regional conflicts.
Meanwhile, the ad hoc parliamentary commission continued its hearings. Its chairman, Numan Kurtulmus, who is also President of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, traveled to Diyarbakir, the political and cultural capital of Turkish Kurdistan, on October 17.
Accompanied by 30 MPs from the Assembly Bureau and the Dialogue Commission, he attended the opening ceremony of the academic year at Dicle University.
Addressing an audience largely composed of Kurds, he declared that “the mother tongue is a right as legitimate as mother’s milk,” ending his speech with a few words in Kurdish about peace and brotherhood — a first in the annals of the Turkish Republic from such a high-ranking Turkish official.
He stated that the goal of the ongoing process was to end the bloodshed and that “this time we will succeed, peace will triumph, brotherhood will prevail.” He also invoked the spirit of tolerance and unity of the Kurdish prince Saladin, saying it should inspire and guide us.
As devout Muslims, the Speaker of Parliament and the MPs accompanying him then attended Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque (Mizgefta Mezin) of Diyarbakir, dating back to the 9th century and considered the oldest in Turkey.
In a gesture of outreach, he also visited the Diyarbakir municipality, where his delegation was received by the two co-mayors of the Kurdish capital. It was the first time in 26 years that a Speaker of Parliament had visited this city hall, where several previously elected mayors had been dismissed and jailed, replaced by state-appointed trustees (kayyum).
Some Turkish political parties continue to oppose these “negotiations with terrorists,” notably the ironically named Iyi Parti (Good Party), an ultra-nationalist Turkish formation that splintered from the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), an Erdoğan ally.
On October 15, Iyi Parti Vice President Turhan Çömez launched a fierce verbal attack from the parliamentary podium against Kurdish MP Pervin Buldan, Vice President of Parliament and a member of the DEM party delegation that shuttles between the prison island of Imrali — where she visits the PKK leader — and Turkish officials.
Her mediation mission with “the head of the terrorists,” according to Çömez, tarnished the reputation of Parliament and was a disgrace.
Kurdish MP from Ağrı, Sırrı Sakık, responded from the same parliamentary podium in these terms:
“Do you know what true disgrace is? Disgrace is those who, after founding Turkey together with the Kurds, denied their existence.
Disgrace is those who banned the language of a people.
Disgrace is those who confiscate the rights of a people.
Do you know who is disgraceful? Those who murdered tens of thousands of Kurds with unpunished assassinations and remained silent.
Disgrace is those who burned down 3,500 Kurdish villages.
Those who want the killings to continue are disgraceful. Those who say the war must go on are stains on our nation.”
These sharp exchanges within the Turkish Parliament provoked the anger of Ümit Özdağ, leader of another ultra-nationalist party, the Victory Party. On his X (Twitter) account, he stated that if he had been in Parliament, he would have “beaten up” MP Sakık for “insulting Atatürk, our war of independence, and the Turkish Republic” (Rudaw, October 16).
While these "niceties" were being exchanged in the Turkish Parliament, the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), continues to face its Calvary. The arrests of its mayors and elected officials under various, often dubious pretexts continue unabated. Judicial proceedings are multiplying.
Reflecting this grim atmosphere, Le Monde headlines:
“Even after two decades of Erdoğan, no one expected such an escalation of arbitrariness.” (Le Monde, October 16)
A politicized, weaponized judiciary that is quick to prosecute political opponents, but shows extreme inertia when it comes to shedding light on the darkest episodes of the country’s recent history.
The murders of thousands of Kurdish civilians, lawyers, doctors, students, writers, union leaders, and human rights activists in the 1990s remain unsolved, as do the identities of their sponsors.
The Ankara train station bombing on October 10, 2015, which killed 104 people in a crowd of protesters calling for an end to the war with the PKK and a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish issue, remains unresolved. The victims — mostly Kurds — and their families believe that justice has not been served, and their status as victims has not even been officially recognized (RFI, October 9).
The economic and social crisis is hitting the working class hard.
Le Monde published a report by its correspondent in the October 29 edition, with a headline that alone captures the severity of the situation:
“Turkey risks losing an entire segment of its youth — neither employed, nor in school, nor in training.”
According to this well-documented article:
“Several reports have highlighted the dramatic decline of higher education in Turkey, and, as a result, the decline of an entire generation — nearly 30% of those aged 18–24 are neither employed, in school, nor in training; 42% of women are entirely excluded from these systems; and more than a million children are in the labor force.”
Meanwhile, Erdoğan's Turkey, which seeks to position itself as a “global power”, is investing heavily in the arms industry, building an aircraft carrier larger than France’s Charles-de-Gaulle aircraft carrier, and has just signed a €9 billion deal with the UK to purchase 20 Eurofighter jets.
It is also strengthening its military cooperation with Germany and the United Kingdom, both of which now prefer to remain silent on the Turkish regime’s authoritarian drift. (Le Monde, October 31).
The new Syrian regime is seeking to give itself a minimum of democratic legitimacy. To this end, in the absence of holding parliamentary elections by direct universal suffrage, it organised a consultation of around 6,000 electors. These were designated by local electoral committees set up by an electoral commission appointed by Interim President Al‑Charaa, who personally assumed the power to appoint one‑third of the members of this “Parliament”.
Most of the people forming the electoral college are Islamists or close to the government and are for the most part Sunni Arabs. The provinces under the control of the Kurdish‑led Syrian Democratic Forces, such as Hasakah and Raqqa, as well as the Druze‑majority province of Suweida, were excluded from this unusual consultation on account of security challenges. Thirty‑two seats out of 210 will therefore remain vacant. According to the Electoral Commission, 1,578 candidates, of which only 14% were women, were authorised to stand. Under the electoral rules, candidates must not be “supporters of the former regime” nor promote “secession or partition”. (Le Monde, 5 octobre)
It is the Kurds and the Druze who are demanding decentralisation of the regime, who are thus considered “secessionist” and are therefore disqualified outright.
The approximately 6,000 electors were thus called upon to choose from among the 1,578 candidates 140 deputies. At the end of this unusual consultation, the results of which were announced on 6 October by Nawar Najmeh, the spokesman for the electoral commission, it is found that women account for only 4% of the deputies thus designated and Christians obtain 2 seats. No representative of a Kurdish, Alevi or Druze party.
In response to criticism, Mr Najmeh acknowledged a “imbalance”. “The Christian component has only two seats, a weak representation relative to its share of the Syrian population,” he admitted. “The place of women in the Parliament neither reflects their role in Syrian society nor in political and social life,” he added. He nevertheless affirmed that the upcoming appointments by the President of the remaining 70 deputies “could compensate” for the under‑representation of “certain components of society” (Le Monde, 6 octobre).
The Kurdish authorities as well as some fifteen Syrian NGOs have denounced this “electoral farce” and emphasised that it was rather an unprecedented appointment in the country’s history. Even the deposed dictator Bashar al‑Assad insisted at least on the forms of a direct universal suffrage vote, even if he excluded opponents and manipulated results.
This transitional “Parliament” has a term of two and a half years, renewable. It will be charged with proposing and amending laws, approving international treaties and adopting the State budget.
The bulk of this budget, notably the salaries of civil servants and the pay of the soldiers, has since the beginning of the year been paid by Qatar, the co‑sponsor alongside Turkey of the new power. On its side, Saudi Arabia has begun to deliver oil to Damascus. Investors from the petromonarchies are awaiting the official and total lifting of international sanctions on Syria to participate in the gigantic reconstruction project for the country, whose cost is estimated at 216 billion dollars by the World Bank in a report published 21 October. The infrastructure like communication routes represent nearly half of the total expenditure to be engaged, followed by residential buildings. The interim Syrian President himself estimates the budget needed for country reconstruction at 1,000 billion euros, a round figure which rests on no known study (RFI, 21 octobre).
To cement its legitimacy and create a climate of stability favourable to foreign investment, it is pursuing an all‑round diplomacy of outreach. After visits to Middle Eastern countries, France, the United Nations, and before an expected visit to Washington in November, he went to Moscow where on 15 October he was received with respect by President Putin, his worst enemy during the civil war in Syria.
In his preliminary welcome address, President Putin emphasised “decades of friendly relations between Moscow and Damascus since Syria’s independence in 1944” and expressed the desire for a new chapter in relations between the two countries.
Moscow expressed its wish to keep its air base at Hmeimim and to continue using the port of Tartus on the Mediterranean coast. The air base and the port of Tartus are the only stops in the Eastern Mediterranean for Russian aircraft and ships going to or coming from Africa. In return, Russia would continue to supply Syria with wheat, oil, steel and likely also armaments, notably anti‑air defence systems, indispensable against regular incursions by the Israeli air force. The Syrian President also evidently wished to secure Russia’s diplomatic support at the UN Security Council for the lifting of sanctions against him personally, and for his movement HTS, former branch of the Al‑Qaida terrorist organisation.
During this meeting, he also allegedly asked for the extradition of the ex‑dictator Bashar al‑Assad to Syria so that he might be tried, a request that will presumably remain without result. Rather than extradite this inconvenient exile, Moscow will know, when the time comes, how to get rid of him quietly.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the ex‑President of Syria, after an “imprisonment attempt,” was admitted on 20 September to a hospital near Moscow in a “critical condition in intensive care.” Only his brother Maher al‑Assad was allowed to visit him during his hospitalisation, together with former presidential affairs secretary Mansour Azzam, claims the SOHR in a report published 2 October (Le Figaro, 6 octobre).
According to The New York Times of 15 October, Al‑Charaa’s visit to Moscow had been advised by the Turkish President in order to balance the risks of his relations with the Western allies. In September, in preparation for that visit, Moscow had dispatched to Damascus a large delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, main energy strategist of Mr. Putin. Mr Novak had notably been received by Al‑Charaa’s brother, Maher al‑Charaa, in charge of the economy, who speaks Russian and is married to a Russian. After this visit, a Syrian Defence Ministry delegation went to Russia where it visited a training centre for anti‑air defence systems. The two parties appear willing to turn the page on the hostilities and grievances of yesterday to engage on new foundations of military and economic cooperation (New York Times, 15 octobre).
Domestically, tension remains palpable between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with a Kurdish majority, and the various Islamist militias hastily “integrated” into the new Syrian army in formation, but who still obey their gang‑leaders and continue to commit many abuses in the Kurdish Syrian territories under Turkish occupation, such as the Afrin canton. To counter their abuses, the SDF have maintained a protective force in the majority‑Kurdish districts of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh in Aleppo, where more than 400,000 Kurds live. On 6 October the SDF resisted an intrusion attempt by one of these militias wearing Syrian army uniforms. The clash caused two deaths, including one militiaman and one civilian.
To avoid a derailment, the Syrian government and the Kurdish autonomous administration concluded a cease‑fire. According to the SOHR, government forces had used explosive drones in the majority‑Kurdish neighbourhoods encircled, whose communications had been cut. On 7 October the interim Defence Minister announced on X “an immediate cease‑fire between government forces and Kurdish forces. All axes and military deployment points in northern and north‑eastern Syria are concerned by this cease‑fire which must be applied immediately.”
The Minister said he had met with Mazlum Abdi, Commander‑in‑Chief of the SDF, and had agreed on a “global cease‑fire on all axes and dispositions in northern and north‑eastern Syria.” General Mazlum Abdi met the same day in Damascus with the transitional President under U.S.‑mediated delegation. Discussions reportedly covered fundamental issues for the Kurdish authorities: the return of displaced Kurdish populations, the fight against terrorism and the amendment of the provisional Syrian constitution in order to better guarantee the protection of the country’s minorities, according to the communique issued by the Kurdish side at the conclusion of this summit.
The question of integrating the SDF into the new Syrian army was also discussed in detail during this summit. Technical discussions continued between the two delegations and led to a “principle agreement” announced on 13 October by General Abdi to AFP. He did not specify the mechanisms for integrating the SDF and the Kurdish internal security forces (Asayish) into the Ministries of Defence and Interior.
On 17 October, in an interview with AP News, he stated:
“We have tens of thousands of soldiers and internal security forces. The forces will join the national army not individually, in small groups, but as constituted military units according to the rules set by the Ministry of Defence.”
On his side, Abu Omar al‑Idlibi, senior commander of the Northern Democratic Forces, a component of the SDF, declared in an interview with the Kurdish news channel Rudaw that the SDF will be integrated into three military units and several independent brigades, including a Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) brigade. Some of these brigades, battle‑hardened in the fight against jihadist terrorism, could be deployed to other regions of Syria to assist the interim government in fighting the Islamic State (ISIS).
The implementation of this “principle agreement” may still take long negotiations. No timetable has been set for the modification of the provisional constitution, to guarantee the rights of the Kurdish people and other components of Syria’s mosaic, nor for the recognition of Newroz, the Kurdish New Year, as a national holiday and public holiday in Syria.
Iraq has become one of the countries most affected by water scarcity, drought, and advancing desertification year after year, particularly in the South where the marshes have now dried up. This country, known for millennia as Mesopotamia, is today largely deprived of the water resources from its two life-giving rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates, which originate in the mountains of Northern Kurdistan. Since the 1970s, Turkey has built a vast system of dams, known as the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP), to control and use the waters of these two rivers and their tributaries for its own benefit. As a result, it deprives its neighbors Iraq and Syria of their share of this vital resource.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the regime in Damascus welcomed and supported the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in its armed struggle against Turkey in order to hold a bargaining chip for a fairer share of the Euphrates waters when the time was right. Similarly, in the 1960s and 1970s, the Shah of Iran had supported General Barzani’s guerrilla movement against the Baghdad regime to gain concessions over control of the Shatt al-Arab, the delta where the Tigris and Euphrates meet before flowing into the Persian Gulf and which forms the border between Iran and Iraq.
Today, in the face of Turkey, Iraq can only leverage its trade relations and market. Turkish exports to Iraq exceed $30 billion annually, with nearly a third (around $10 billion) destined for the Kurdistan Region. The Kurdish capital, Erbil, hosts the largest Turkish consulate in the world, according to an interview given on October 29 by the Turkish Consul General to the Kurdish news channel Rudaw. The highly ambitious railway project linking Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul to the Turkish port of Mersin requires a good relationship with Baghdad for its realization. The end of Sunni Arab irredentism through the al-Qaeda and Daesh insurgencies, and the recently announced end of the PKK’s guerrilla operations—whose rear bases are located in the Iraq-Turkey border region, significantly reduces the risks of insecurity along major trade routes between Turkey and Iraq, all of which pass through Kurdistan.
In this relatively calm context, Iraqi Foreign Minister Dr. Fuad Hussein, during his visit to Ankara on October 10, began talks for a fairer distribution of the Tigris and Euphrates waters between the two countries. According to the Memorandum of Understanding agreed upon at the end of the visit, Turkey will release a certain amount of water from the Tigris and Euphrates to Iraq for 50 days, until the start of winter and the expected rainfall and snowfall. A longer-term agreement involves managing water resources with the help of Turkish companies, which have some expertise in the field. The agreement covers areas ranging from dam construction in Iraq, to wastewater recycling, rainwater collection, and seawater desalination. This “strategic” agreement is expected to be signed in early November during a visit to Baghdad by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
Thanks to better management of its resources, the Kurdistan Region has so far not suffered greatly from water scarcity, despite the significant drop in water levels in its dams (Rudaw, October 22).
The future of these projects will largely depend on the parliamentary elections of November 11, which, according to Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani, will be the most important since those held in 2005. The election campaign is unfolding calmly. Prime Minister al-Sudani is generously distributing benefits and subsidies to ensure his Shiite coalition secures first place among Shiite voters. Sunni Arabs seem more mobilized this time than in previous elections to send as many representatives as possible to the federal Parliament. Their two main parties, supported by the financial power of Gulf countries, are spending lavishly to win over voters.
In Kurdistan, besides the two historic parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), two Islamic parties (Yekgirtû and Komal), New Generation, Halwast (from the Gorran/Change Party), Bereyi Gel (People’s Front) and the Social-democrate Party are running.
The KDP aims to win over a million votes, up from around 781,670 in the previous elections. The campaign is active but fails to ignite much passion among voters, disillusioned by the unfulfilled promises of successive federal governments that have failed to uphold the Constitution or coalition agreements.
“Democratic fatigue” is even more pronounced in Arab Iraq, where the population criticizes the poor state of infrastructure, the lack of electricity and water, endemic corruption and nepotism, the absence of political renewal, and the political class’s dependence on the Iranian regime. The country spends $6 billion a month on salaries for civil servants and wages for thousands of members of the pro-Iranian Hashd al-Shaabi militias, which the United States demands be disbanded and replaced with a professional army, well-trained, well-equipped, and capable of defending the nation’s borders.
The Iranian regime, having lost its regional footholds and strategic ally in Syria, is deploying all its resources to maintain its grip on Baghdad and is heavily financing the Shiite parties aligned with it.
In Iraq, there is still no law governing the financing of political parties, electoral campaigns, or media funding. In this competition, despite freedom of speech and opinion, independent candidates and underfunded parties have little chance of gaining visibility, let alone winning seats.
Iranian news in October was dominated by a video circulating on social media showing a Western-style wedding involving a senior official of the Islamic Republic.
The bride, Fatima Shamkhani, appeared in a strapless wedding gown, escorted by her father, Ali Shamkhani, former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and still a senior adviser to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A video clip released on October 17 showed Fatima Shamkhani wearing a white strapless wedding dress and a transparent veil, walking alongside her father, as well as her mother, who was dressed in a low-cut blue gown.
Many female guests attending the wedding, held in a luxury hotel in Tehran and visible on screen, were not wearing a hijab, this, in a strict Islamic Republic where Kurdish student Jina Mahsa Amini died in a police station for not sufficiently covering her hair. The wedding reportedly took place in April 2024, but the leaked footage only emerged on social media shortly after the announcement by Ronhollah Momen-Nasab, head of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, regarding the imminent mobilization of 80,000 new morality police officers to enforce Islamic dress codes.
The leak, widely disseminated by the Anglo-Iranian channel Iran International and opposition circles, has been attributed to Israeli intelligence services. Ali Shamkhani himself responded by posting a message in Hebrew on X (formerly Twitter): "You bastards, I’m still alive."
Having narrowly escaped an Israeli strike during the 12-day war, Shamkhani now finds himself mired in what is seen in Iran as a major moral scandal. For the Iranian public, it represents a dual scandal: a political one, exposing a regime that imposes medieval dress codes on its female citizens while its elite live Western-style lives in villas and send their children to study in Western universities; and a social one, as a majority of Iranians struggle with rampant inflation and the dramatic devaluation of the national currency, while the ruling class spares no expense in marrying off their children in lavish hotels.
The Islamic Republic, once proud of avenging the poor against the Westernized and corrupt elite of the monarchy, now stands exposed as hypocritical, corrupt, and increasingly out of touch with the concerns and aspirations of its population.
The regime responded through the president of the Government Information Council, Elias Hazrati, stating: “We must remain vigilant because the main goal of this media war is to sow distrust and despair in society, not to criticize individual behavior.”
(Le Figaro, October 23 – The New York Times, October 20)
On the nuclear front, following the reinstatement of international sanctions by the UN Security Council on September 28, Iran declared, via its Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, that cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was “no longer relevant.” (Le Figaro, October 5)
On October 12, the same minister stated that “Iran sees no reason” to resume nuclear negotiations with the Europeans, even as France, the United Kingdom, and Germany expressed on October 10 their “determination” to restart talks. (Le Figaro, October 12)
On October 18, Iran announced that it was no longer bound by “restrictions” tied to its nuclear program, following the expiration of the 2015 nuclear agreement. (Le Monde, October 18)
Having already violated the uranium enrichment clauses of the deal, Iran now has free rein to accelerate its nuclear program and potentially build one or more atomic bombs. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei stated on October 20 that former U.S. President Donald Trump “is dreaming” if he thinks Iran’s nuclear sites have been destroyed.
Adopting a defiant tone on the nuclear issue, Iran is simultaneously working behind the scenes to improve relations with certain European countries, notably France, by reactivating its “hostage diplomacy.” On October 6, Franco-German cyclist and world traveler Lennart Monterlos, aged 19, was released after nearly four months in detention. (Le Monde, October 6)
On October 16, French hostages Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris were sentenced to 20 and 17 years in prison, respectively, on charges of “espionage.” However, they could be released in exchange for Iranian activist Mahdieh Esfandiari, who had been detained in France for seven months on charges of “glorifying terrorism.” She was released on October 22 and placed under judicial supervision, barred from leaving French territory until her trial in January 2026. (Le Monde, October 22)
This gesture by French authorities is expected to trigger the conditional release of the French hostages in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the crackdown on dissent continues in a now-routine fashion.
The Kurdish human rights NGO Hengaw reported eight executions of women and two death sentences in October:
Executed women include:
Zeinab Khodabandeh (Isfahan)
Nahid Hemmati (Nahavand)
Kafieh Ghobadzadeh (Shiraz)
Saleheh Khodabadi (Isfahan)
Narges Ahmadi (Qom)
Mahbubeh Jalali (Rasht)
Mitra Zamani (Khorramabad)
Katayoun Shamsi (Mashhad)
The two women sentenced to death are:
Nassim Eslanzchi, a Baloch activist
Zahra Shahbazi Taberi, a Gilaki activist from Rasht
Two Kurdish women from Turkey, Rojda Saadoun and Safiye Dursun (Curso), were each sentenced to 5 years in prison. Iranian women Forough Khosravi, Nahid Behrouzi (Karaj), and Elham Salehi (Shiraz) received prison sentences of 15, 5, and 1 year, respectively.
Nineteen women were arrested without known cause.
Also according to Hengaw, nine women were murdered in October by relatives in so-called “honor killings,” related to divorce requests, refusal of arranged marriages, or other domestic violence.
The NGO describes the Islamic Republic as a “gender apartheid regime” where systematic violence against women is institutionalized and legally protected.
On the first anniversary of the passing of Joyce Blau, the Kurdish Institute paid tribute to her with a photography exhibition entitled The Journeys of Joyce Blau in Kurdistan. The exhibition, inaugurated on October 25 in the Institute's reception halls before a large audience, presents a selection of photographs taken by Joyce Blau during her travels throughout all regions of Kurdistan from 1967 to the mid-1990s.
On October 30, in Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, the foundation stone for an educational complex bearing Joyce Blau’s name was laid during an emotional ceremony attended by the president of the Kurdish Institute, the governor of Erbil, the Minister of Municipalities, and many prominent Kurdish figures. The Joyce Blau Educational Complex is located at the heart of the French Quarter currently under construction in the suburbs of Erbil, not far from the Danielle Mitterrand High School. Through this initiative, Kurdistan seeks to honor the memory of this scholar who, through her publications and her work at the Kurdish Institute, made a significant contribution to the Kurdish cause and Kurdish studies.
Later that same day, a tribute was also paid to Dr. Najmaldin Karim, neurosurgeon, former vice-president of the Kurdish Institute, and former governor of Kirkuk, on the fifth anniversary of his death. The ceremony took place at the Erbil Congress Palace, in the presence of his family and several hundred friends and close acquaintances. Among the speakers who paid tribute to this great Kurdish patriot, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 70, were Kendal Nezan, Iraqi Foreign Minister Dr. Fuad Hussein, Kurdistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, PDK Political Bureau Secretary Fazil Mirani, and former U.S. ambassador Peter Galbraith. Excerpts from the tribute ceremony were broadcast on local television channels.
