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As Turkey and Syria contemplate renewed diplomatic ties, the Kurdish perspective remains conspicuously absent from media coverage. Fréderike Geerdink explores why the Kurdish quest for liberation and autonomy is crucial to understanding the region's future, challenging readers to consider the broader implications of excluding Kurdish voices from peace negotiations.

Turkish tanks and soldiers are pouring into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Turkey and Syria have moved a step closer to a rapprochement based on a joint attack against the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, and Turkey continues to oppress Kurdish politicians. Meanwhile the Council of Europe fails in its fundamental purpose of protecting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. 

A relatively quiet week in Kurdish politics is still full of many ongoing problems, but it also allows us time to step back and look at the broader geopolitical context, and the new alliances that are forming with the decline of US hegemony and with the catalysts of war in Ukraine and genocide in Gaza.

Fréderike Geerdink reflects on understanding the Kurdish issue, recalling a villager's remark that the state killed them "because we are Kurds" after the Roboskî massacre. This sentiment is paralleled with Palestinian experiences of Israeli aggression. Understanding suppression requires viewing from the perspective of the oppressed.

This week, the news from Diyarbakır serves as an illustration of the wider Kurdish condition. Here we find threats facing Kurdish co-mayors, the anger of those no longer getting perks from the government trustee system, state impunity in the deeply flawed trial of three police officers for the murder of Human Rights lawyer Tahir Elçi, the whipping up of religious hatred - and also many organisations of resistance. Other news this week includes the latest protests against the imprisonment of the co-mayor of Hakkâri, and his replacement by a trustee, and the changing dynamics between the AKP, the CHP, and the MHP.