Turkey Is Waging a Brutal Campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan
In its latest assault against the Kurds, Erdoğan’s Turkey is targeting civilians and refugees along the Iraq border — a brutal campaign to stamp out democracy and self-determination in Kurdistan.
Syrian Kurds demonstrate on June 10 in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli against the Turkish offensive in northern Iraq. (Delil Souleiman / AFP via Getty Images)
On April 24, 2021, the anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide, the Turkish state launched a military attack in Iraqi territory against Kurdish forces.
For over a month, aerial bombardment has been carried out against civilian targets. Border villages have been targeted, alongside the Maxmur refugee camp, which is home to thousands of Kurdish refugees who fled the Turkish state’s village destruction campaign in North Kurdistan during the 1990s.
Since the early 2000s, the more than 10,000 people of Maxmur have been democratically self-organizing. Their assemblies were one of the first to practice democratic confederalism — known internationally from Rojava (an autonomous region in northeast Syria) — which is a system based on the principles of direct democracy, ecology, and women’s liberation.
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