Author: Mirzan Birusk

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Thursday received Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Erbil, praising the strong relations between Erbil and Ankara and pledging to resolve issues between the two. Fidan arrived in the Kurdistan Region’s capital Erbil earlier in the day and was received by the Region’s interior minister and other officials, in his first visit to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region since assuming the role of foreign minister. He later met with Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, discussing bilateral relations and ways to expand ties.  Barzani and Fidan talked about “the significance…

Geneva, London (29/7 – 50) Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, condemned the arrest and imprisonment of journalists, bloggers and civil society activists in Tajikistan, and questioned the credibility of the evidence presented in court against them. Lawlor was on a two-week official visit to Tajikistan last December. The report prepared by her and members of the delegation on the results of this visit was published in May of this year, but only now became available to the public. The authorities of Tajikistan will have to prepare an official response to the document, which…

A man in Erbil province’s Soran is accused of killing his two wives and turning himself in to police. A police investigation is ongoing. According to family members who spoke to Rudaw, the accused, who they said was a member of the Peshmerga forces, killed his two wives in their respective homes on Saturday morning. His brothers said he has been suffering psychologically for five years after a problem at work. “In 2018, an incident happened where he injured another man. It affected his mental health,” Barzan Salim, a brother of the accused, told Rudaw’s Andam Jabbar. “His condition worsened…

The Ministry of National Defense of Poland on Tuesday evening confirmed that two Belarusian helicopters had violated Polish airspace. Details: The Polish Ministry of Defense claims that the Polish airspace was violated by helicopters that carried out exercises near the border – Minsk informed Warsaw about these exercises in advance. “The border crossing took place in the area of ​​the city of Bialowieza at a very low altitude, which made it difficult for radar systems to detect it. Therefore, this morning, the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces reported in a communiqué that Polish radar systems did not record violations…

More than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers are being trained in the UK to take part in operations to recapture the annexed Crimea from Russia. This was reported by the British edition of the Daily Express on Sunday, citing sources. This was not officially reported, although it is known that the Ukrainian military is being trained, including in Britain. It is alleged that the test site is equipped in Dartmoor in Devon in the south-west of England. It is closed to the public and to the press. British specialists are helping to train the “elite special forces” of the Ukrainian forces, which are supposed to be “at the…

Frankfurt, London (12/08 – 80) It seems that the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) has become a hostage to its investments in Tajikistan. In mid-July, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) appealed to the Supreme Economic Court of Tajikistan with a demand to annul the land certificate for the campus of the University of Central Asia in Khorog, which is owned by the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). The university’s administration, local authorities, and the prosecutor’s office have not commented on this matter. However, it is evident that if the authorities manage to revoke the land certificate,…

Russian diplomats jetted to Africa and the Middle East hours after Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin attempted an armed rebellion to reassure allied leaders that the Russian government was in control. According to the Wall Street Journal, diplomats with Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations flew to Mali and Syria after Prigozhin announced a mutiny on Moscow last week. The diplomats made their way to countries where Russia has relied on Wagner mercenaries to fight their proxy wars — telling the leaders that Wagner would report to the Kremlin now. Kremlin diplomats personally reassured Syrian president Bashar al-Assad that Wagner would continue operating in the…

When Iraqi and Kurdish officials met in Baghdad this week over a long-running dispute that has halted oil exports from Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, insiders said the presence of international executives underscored a new resolve. In the room on Monday was Russell Hardy, head of the world largest oil trader Vitol, alongside executives from trading houses Petraco and Energopole, and representatives from U.S.-based producer HKN Energy and Kurdish oil company KAR Group, three sources familiar with the talks told Reuters. The executives, whose companies play a major role in Kurdish oil production and development, were there to offer ideas…

Belarus can deploy up to 8,000 Russian mercenaries of the Wagner PMC on its territory. The Defense Forces are aware of an additional potential threat and are in constant combat readiness. Source: State Border Service Speaker Colonel Andriy Demchenko in a commentary to Ukrayinska Pravda Details: As Demchenko explains, the situation at the border at the moment remains fully controlled. At the moment, no Russian offensive groups are observed on the territory of Belarus. At the same time, the terrorist country of the Russian Federation continues to use the Republic of Belarus as a base for the training of its units and military aviation…

Two local civilian officials and their driver were killed in Syria’s Kurdish-run northeast on Tuesday when their car was targeted by a Turkish drone strike, regional Kurdish authorities said. In a statement, they named the dead as Yusra Darwish, co-chair of the Qamishli canton’s administrative council; Liman Shawish, an adviser to the Kurdish-led autonomous administration, and their driver. The Syriac co-chair of the Qamishli council, Gabriel Chamoun, was wounded. Kurdish medical sources and a security source said a Turkish drone had targeted their car in the village of Tal Shaeer in northeast Syria. The Turkish defence ministry did not immediately…