Amberin Zaman
@amberinzaman · Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Yemen
Amberin Zaman is Al-Monitor's chief correspondent covering Turkey and the Kurds.
⬇️⬇️What the Houthis are saying about controlling Bab al-Mandan via @BashaReport ⬇️⬇️
This Israeli government has raised the bar for atrocities so high that drawing attention to rights abuses elsewhere has become a near impossible task.
There is so much disinformatin floating around regarding the status of Mocha port. @BashaReport says Mocha has NOT fallen to the Houthis yet ⬇️⬇️
“Riyadh is unlikely to invoke the Mecca pact at this time, as it remains in its infancy both operationally and institutionally. More importantly, both Turkey and Pakistan share borders with Iran, and neither wants to get embroiled in a war in which they have no real stake and which could be construed as targeting Iran.”
Riyadh has been pressing countries to designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization.
🇸🇦🇾🇪🇮🇷🚨NEW: How Saudi Arabia seeks to contain Yemen's Houthis without provoking Iran https://t.co/1QGXPaANbE
The PJAK is generally regarded as the most operationally capable of the Iranian Kurdish opposition groups. While a 2011 ceasefire reduced the group’s conflict with the Islamic Republic’s security forces, the group was involved in nearly 60% of armed events inside Iran involving an identified Iranian Kurdish opposition group in the past decade. The YRK maintains mobile units in western Iran across several border areas with support from clandestine local networks and recruitment channels. ACLED records 12 armed events involving the YRK in 2026, already the highest annual total since ACLED’s coverage of Iran began in 2016 (see graph below). Turkey’s PKK peace process is likely to strengthen the PJAK in its confrontation with the Islamic Republic https://t.co/LeelNBrely via @ACLEDINFO
Turkey's equivalent of @TheOnion on what Erdogan's AKP came up with when it joined in the "how I would have looked in the 1980's" trend. The image is of Kenan Evren, the Turkish general who led the bloody 1980 coup ushering in an era of repression.
A very timely important interview delivered by @irfanaktans one of three reporters who spoke to @MazloumAbdi & İlham Ahmed last week ⬇️
I conducted the first interview with dear @banuguven about the legendary interviews she did with @MazloumAbdi and Ilham Ahmed
Translated from TurkishMy fantastic colleague @banuguven was the first journalist from a mainstream Turkish news channel to interview @MazloumAbdi Tune in to hear her thoughts on him and Ilham Ahmed & how things are going generally for the Kurds in Turkey & Syria. https://t.co/n1LfvFqVre?
🩸"As Marcus ultimately concludes: “there can be no solution to the Kurdish ‘problem’ in Turkey, and no stability in the region, without taking the [PKK’s] history and supporters into account.” In publishing Resurgence and Revolution, she is both asking and enabling us to do so, which is a significant contribution at a critical time for Kurds in Turkey, Syria, and the broader Middle East." 🩸Fantastic review by @wrodgers2 of @AlizaMarcus timely new book. https://t.co/j6W21Gdcb9
The turn was mine in 2017. The turn has long since been yours, dear @Nezahatdogan3 @MazloumAbdi As the SDF commander, he gave me his first interview in September 2017. Kudos for your writing
Translated from TurkishThis is a funny article considering that @MazloumAbdi revealed all of these points in three separate television interviews with opposition Turkish media that were aired yesterday.
When the source is right, the result is productive too. Compared with the sensationalist approach of Türkiye newspaper’s interviews with Sipan Hemo and Mahmud Berwexdan, the difference in quality is clearly apparent. I hope @KararHaber and @medyascope also interview @MazloumAbdi. The more the public gets to know @MazloumAbdi, the more they will appreciate him. @banuguven @irfanaktans @Nezahatdogan3
Translated from TurkishIn this essay for @ForeignPolicy @GiranOzcan makes compelling arguments as to why the upending of the regional status quo in the wake of Oct. 7 drove Turkey's efforts to cut a deal with the PKK.
I haven’t watched any of the @MazloumAbdi interviews with the Turkish media yet. However, a few thoughts on his “choices.” The idea that he could have turned his back on a movement that shaped him since the age of 15, saved his life—literally—& engineered his return to Rojava, laid the ground for autonomy there, militarily & otherwise, and was the driving force behind the SDF & the war against ISIS was always naive if not idiotic. Assuming he had, what kind of deal would Sharaa have been making with him? What would it be worth unless @MazloumAbdi could credibly claim all the military & civilian structures would follow him? So before piling on @MazloumAbdi it’s useful to place him in the proper context. He belongs to a movement that is led against all odds from prison by someone else: Abdullah Öcalan. Read @AlizaMarcus books. She explains the mechanics better than any.
Interesting that @MazloumAbdi does the interview in Kurdish. I interviewed him at least a dozen times since 2017 and always in Turkish as he speaks it fluently.
Turkey’s Président Erdogan says Turkey is seeking to pursue cooperation “in all fields” with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. He calls the Sino-Russian led outfit “a rising star.”
Excellent overview by @vvanwilgenburg on the impact of the US defunding of the KRG’s peshmerga forces: https://t.co/1a2GG5T36V
Among the most impressive diplomats I have ever met. Well done 🇸🇦
A thoughtful piece by @Hiwaosman on the unjust vilification of @MazloumAbdi reminding readers of his valor & leadership in the most desperate of times. | Thank you, General https://t.co/0UIsWdTa9n
Obviously terrified of being poisoned so Aliyev carries his own water. Normal. A lot of leaders do. But if I am Pezeshkian and knowing Azerbaijan’s close ties to Israel would I accept his offer, drink his water? 😀🕵️♂️👀
I also want to share a few things about the PKK. But in the face of this state of mutual accusations, blaming, and insults, I am staying silent. For context: In 1989, I stayed at the home of Zübeyir Aydar in Siirt, who at the time worked at the IHD together with his wife and practiced law. It was like a Vietnam movie. We were in the middle of the war. Let no one wrong anyone. It is easy to hurl abuse and curse without having lived through history where it happened. Ask the state as well: Were so many lives sacrificed for this? Ask this brutal state. Then perhaps you will understand, at least somewhat, the difficulty of the struggle and how nearly impossible it was to achieve even this much. I am not glorifying the PKK or Öcalan. Some of them led a lynching campaign against me during my most painful days, around the death of my mother, whose funeral I could not attend, because of news reports of mine they did not like. Those are details. I know there will be some among you who latch onto the nonsense that Öcalan is Erdoğan’s or who-knows-whose agent. I know what I lived through and the atrocities I witnessed. And I know what was resisted. If people had not been subjected to so much oppression, would so many have joined? Were they all “deceived” for forty years? Please respect the Kurdish people. This was a popular movement. Period.
Translated from TurkishIf Deniz Göktaş had said this about Sunnis, they would have reinstated the death penalty.
Translated from Turkish