ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - When remarks attributed to Turkish businessman Rahmi Koc about Kurdish women recently sparked public debate, the controversy appeared, at first glance, to concern little more than a single statement. Yet the intensity of the reaction suggested something deeper. Public disputes of this kind rarely revolve around an…

June 6th marks the United Nations’ Russian Language Day. On this occasion, one can’t help but remember the words of Ivan Turgenev (1818 - 1883), a major 19th-century Russian novelist and playwright, who once said, “In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country’s fate, you alone are my comfort and support,…

In the month of May, the Kurdistan Region is covered in lush greenery. Thousands of miles away, Beijing is equally vibrant as a notable wave of diplomatic activity unfolds. Within a single week, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin visited China consecutively, drawing global attention. Steering the course Trump held…

The endless road bore witness to an unprecedented and heart-wrenching journey by Hassan from Garmiyan, who has lost all family members, and Ali Arif from Halabja to the barren and terrifying deserts of southern Iraq. A journey seeking, after 38 years, to deliver a letter to that fortress which to this day remains the clearest trace of…

The history of the Kurds is not only a history of displacement, repression, and denied identity. It is also a history of survival through language, music, poetry, and memory. When states tried to erase names, ban languages, and silence cultures, music often remained the last space of freedom. The voice of the dengbêj, the song of exile,…

The Kurdistan Region’s ruling parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) — have demonstrated their regional influence by playing active and constructive roles in Turkey’s peace process and in efforts to prevent the Iran war from spreading to the Kurdish Region. Yet…

Not long ago, as our friends in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) stepped out from the shadow of war and back into peaceful daily life, the Chinese people, thousands of miles away, also welcomed heartening news in this bright spring season. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, met in Beijing…