The timeline of regional geopolitical changes and the Turkey-initiated peace process shows that the first public indication of the process, Devlet Bahceli's handshake with pro-Kurdish DEM Party MPs, came a full year after October 7, after which the entire regional equilibrium fell apart.
Between late 2024 and mid-2026, the external power competing with Turkey over the future of the Kurdish armed groups changed. Since the 1980s, Iran had been the main outside state shaping the environment in which the PKK operated, and Iranian policy kept the conflict contained while making a final settlement difficult to reach. After October 7, and above all after the fall of the Assad government in December 2024 and the US-Israeli war on Iran in 2026, Israel took over that position. Israel is working to recruit Kurdish armed groups as long-term partners against Iran and, in Ankara's assessment, eventually against Turkey itself.
Iran benefited from a contained PKK conflict and worked to keep it that way. From the 1980s the PKK used Iranian territory for sanctuary and transit, and Tehran, aligned with the Damascus government that hosted Ocalan until 1998, treated the group as usable pressure on Turkey. PJAK's 2011 ceasefire with Tehran ended armed activity on the Iranian front while the war with Turkey continued. In Sinjar, YBS fighters received salaries through the Popular Mobilization structure, which meant an Iranian-aligned institution was funding a PKK affiliate. In Syria, the Assad government's 2012 withdrawal from the northeast gave the PYD its territorial base. The combined effect was that the PKK operated across multiple sanctuaries and patrons, Turkey could not end the conflict militarily, and Iran had no reason to help Ankara end it politically, because the conflict tied down Turkish resources and gave Tehran leverage. Iran's interest throughout was containment: keeping the PKK useful as pressure on Turkey while preventing it from growing into a project that could threaten Iran itself.
The sequence can be dated clearly. Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah on 27 September 2024, demonstrating Israel's capabilities and how far it is willing to go. Four days later, on 1 October, Bahceli shook hands with DEM deputies at the opening of parliament, and Erdogan warned the same day that Israel "will set its sights on our homeland after Palestine and Lebanon." The two moves were prepared in advance: Al-Monitor had already reported secret contacts between the state and the PKK before Bahceli's gesture, and subsequent Turkish reporting described MIT maintaining continuous contact between the security bureaucracy, Imrali and the Qandil leadership.
Israel's interest in the Kurdish groups then became public. On 10 November 2024, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar declared the Kurds a "natural ally" of Israel with political and security dimensions. Sa'ar was restating the periphery doctrine, formulated under David Ben-Gurion in the late 1950s, which built alliances with non-Arab states and the region's minorities, among them the Kurds, the Maronites, the Druze and the southern Sudanese, to weaken and outflank the states surrounding Israel. The Kurds fit the doctrine unusually well for two reasons. They share no border and no territorial dispute with Israel, so there is no bilateral conflict to manage, and their position inside four states that Israel regards as adversaries or competitors makes them usable as an instrument of power deep inside those states, far enough from Israel's own frontiers. On 14 November, KCK Executive Council member Zubeyir Aydar responded on pro-PKK Medya Haber TV that the movement could establish relations with Israel. Assad fell on 8 December, removing Iranian influence from the Syrian file, and the first DEM delegation visited Ocalan on Imrali on 28 December.
The full analysis: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-turkey-israel-layer-of-the-pkk-peace-process1/
Between late 2024 and mid-2026, the external power competing with Turkey over the future of the Kurdish armed groups changed. Since the 1980s, Iran had been the main outside state shaping the environment in which the PKK operated, and Iranian policy kept the conflict contained while making a final settlement difficult to reach. After October 7, and above all after the fall of the Assad government in December 2024 and the US-Israeli war on Iran in 2026, Israel took over that position. Israel is working to recruit Kurdish armed groups as long-term partners against Iran and, in Ankara's assessment, eventually against Turkey itself.
Iran benefited from a contained PKK conflict and worked to keep it that way. From the 1980s the PKK used Iranian territory for sanctuary and transit, and Tehran, aligned with the Damascus government that hosted Ocalan until 1998, treated the group as usable pressure on Turkey. PJAK's 2011 ceasefire with Tehran ended armed activity on the Iranian front while the war with Turkey continued. In Sinjar, YBS fighters received salaries through the Popular Mobilization structure, which meant an Iranian-aligned institution was funding a PKK affiliate. In Syria, the Assad government's 2012 withdrawal from the northeast gave the PYD its territorial base. The combined effect was that the PKK operated across multiple sanctuaries and patrons, Turkey could not end the conflict militarily, and Iran had no reason to help Ankara end it politically, because the conflict tied down Turkish resources and gave Tehran leverage. Iran's interest throughout was containment: keeping the PKK useful as pressure on Turkey while preventing it from growing into a project that could threaten Iran itself.
The sequence can be dated clearly. Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah on 27 September 2024, demonstrating Israel's capabilities and how far it is willing to go. Four days later, on 1 October, Bahceli shook hands with DEM deputies at the opening of parliament, and Erdogan warned the same day that Israel "will set its sights on our homeland after Palestine and Lebanon." The two moves were prepared in advance: Al-Monitor had already reported secret contacts between the state and the PKK before Bahceli's gesture, and subsequent Turkish reporting described MIT maintaining continuous contact between the security bureaucracy, Imrali and the Qandil leadership.
Israel's interest in the Kurdish groups then became public. On 10 November 2024, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar declared the Kurds a "natural ally" of Israel with political and security dimensions. Sa'ar was restating the periphery doctrine, formulated under David Ben-Gurion in the late 1950s, which built alliances with non-Arab states and the region's minorities, among them the Kurds, the Maronites, the Druze and the southern Sudanese, to weaken and outflank the states surrounding Israel. The Kurds fit the doctrine unusually well for two reasons. They share no border and no territorial dispute with Israel, so there is no bilateral conflict to manage, and their position inside four states that Israel regards as adversaries or competitors makes them usable as an instrument of power deep inside those states, far enough from Israel's own frontiers. On 14 November, KCK Executive Council member Zubeyir Aydar responded on pro-PKK Medya Haber TV that the movement could establish relations with Israel. Assad fell on 8 December, removing Iranian influence from the Syrian file, and the first DEM delegation visited Ocalan on Imrali on 28 December.
The full analysis: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-turkey-israel-layer-of-the-pkk-peace-process1/
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As the Iran War stretches on without the U.S. achieving its aims, its strategy has increasingly come to resemble a pressure-to-fracture cycle: sustained pressure designed to split the regime's elite from within. In this reading, time is a central variable, since each turn of the cycle is meant to let the divisions inside the leadership widen further.
The cycle runs as follows. The US escalates, inflicts maximum damage, then pauses, keeping the economic blockade and a steady flow of threats in place in the hope that the pressure will fracture the elite. This appears to be one of the primary aims driving the war at this stage, though not the whole of it. Over the past two to three months there have been roughly twenty statements and reports pointing to division within the Iranian leadership.
Iran's recent escalation appears aimed at breaking this cycle, and it marks a departure from its established pattern. For the first time, it has struck US interests pre-emptively rather than in a tit-for-tat response. The timing matters: over the past two weeks the escalation has coincided with the Houthis resuming attacks on Saudi Arabia and closing the Red Sea route, and with the reactivation of the Iraqi front. Taken together, these moves suggest Iran has concluded that the cycle no longer works in its favour.
The method is to counter-fracture the other side in turn, raising the cost high enough that the cycle can no longer be sustained and eventually stops for good. Only a permanent halt would let Iran begin rebuilding and improve its economic position, even incrementally, which is what it needs in order to stabilise the domestic front.
The calculation turns on the difference between limbo and open conflict. A prolonged state of no-peace and no-war would widen the cracks inside the regime, since it leaves the pressure in place without resolving anything. War, by contrast, tends to produce a rally-around-the-flag effect that narrows the space for internal fracture. Iran's position therefore reduces to a binary: either a permanent ceasefire, or a war on its own terms to impose its demands, because any middle ground raises the likelihood of elite fragmentation.
Beyond forcing that halt, the escalation serves two further goals. The immediate one is to raise costs substantially for the states that host US forces. In the longer term, once a permanent ceasefire is in place, the intention is to open up questions about the value of that presence. These states are unlikely to break with Washington now, given the danger and the lack of alternatives. The point is not immediate reconsideration but the reckoning that will follow the war over whether hosting US bases still serves them.
The second goal is to neutralise Trump's unpredictability. Trump's central boast is that no one can be sure whether he will act on a threat, and that advantage holds only when the other side behaves predictably. By mirroring that unpredictability, acting with no visible red lines and matching recklessness with recklessness, Iran aims to strip the tactic of its value and raise the cost high enough that Trump thinks twice before threatening them.
The full analysis: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-us-it-is-trying-to-crack-it-from-within/
The cycle runs as follows. The US escalates, inflicts maximum damage, then pauses, keeping the economic blockade and a steady flow of threats in place in the hope that the pressure will fracture the elite. This appears to be one of the primary aims driving the war at this stage, though not the whole of it. Over the past two to three months there have been roughly twenty statements and reports pointing to division within the Iranian leadership.
Iran's recent escalation appears aimed at breaking this cycle, and it marks a departure from its established pattern. For the first time, it has struck US interests pre-emptively rather than in a tit-for-tat response. The timing matters: over the past two weeks the escalation has coincided with the Houthis resuming attacks on Saudi Arabia and closing the Red Sea route, and with the reactivation of the Iraqi front. Taken together, these moves suggest Iran has concluded that the cycle no longer works in its favour.
The method is to counter-fracture the other side in turn, raising the cost high enough that the cycle can no longer be sustained and eventually stops for good. Only a permanent halt would let Iran begin rebuilding and improve its economic position, even incrementally, which is what it needs in order to stabilise the domestic front.
The calculation turns on the difference between limbo and open conflict. A prolonged state of no-peace and no-war would widen the cracks inside the regime, since it leaves the pressure in place without resolving anything. War, by contrast, tends to produce a rally-around-the-flag effect that narrows the space for internal fracture. Iran's position therefore reduces to a binary: either a permanent ceasefire, or a war on its own terms to impose its demands, because any middle ground raises the likelihood of elite fragmentation.
Beyond forcing that halt, the escalation serves two further goals. The immediate one is to raise costs substantially for the states that host US forces. In the longer term, once a permanent ceasefire is in place, the intention is to open up questions about the value of that presence. These states are unlikely to break with Washington now, given the danger and the lack of alternatives. The point is not immediate reconsideration but the reckoning that will follow the war over whether hosting US bases still serves them.
The second goal is to neutralise Trump's unpredictability. Trump's central boast is that no one can be sure whether he will act on a threat, and that advantage holds only when the other side behaves predictably. By mirroring that unpredictability, acting with no visible red lines and matching recklessness with recklessness, Iran aims to strip the tactic of its value and raise the cost high enough that Trump thinks twice before threatening them.
The full analysis: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-us-it-is-trying-to-crack-it-from-within/
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As reports of a possible major US and Israeli escalation, including strikes on infrastructure, dominate today's media coverage, it is important to note that the past two weeks have already seen a dozen countries in the region bombed.
With the Houthis, Saudi Arabia and Iraqi armed groups successively drawn into the fighting, the war is now more regionalised than at any point since it began on February 28.
One reason is a shift in Iranian strategy. Since April, the engine underneath the American strategy has been temporal. The sequence that has structured the war since then (escalation, ceasefire, negotiation, deadline, threatened resumption) rests on the assumption that a pause relieves both sides equally. Under blockade, the relief is distributed almost entirely to one side. For the United States, a ceasefire reduces the expenditure of munitions, money and presidential attention while the siege continues to operate at full force. For Iran, a ceasefire suspends the bombing and preserves everything else: the economic strangulation deepens, the threat of renewed attack stands, and each new round of talks opens with Tehran weaker than the round before. Iranian officials have said as much publicly, insisting that a ceasefire which leaves the maritime blockade in place is no ceasefire at all.
As the map shows, Iran has begun escalating pre-emptively in the last week or so to break this cycle and force a settlement. Decision-makers in Tehran have lost hope in the diplomatic track (as, increasingly, has Trump himself) and now believe that only brute force will deter Washington and bring it to terms. Trump is contemplating escalation in response.
Yet Iranian strategists have likely concluded that even this is preferable to remaining stuck in the cycle Trump has imposed for the past several months, watching time erode the rally-around-the-flag effect and fracture the internal front. Instead, Iran has mirrored Trump's unpredictability in ways that have made him think twice before acting. The danger, however, is that the strategy may force Trump's hand and push him to unleash what he calls "hell".
Here is the full analysis: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-us-it-is-trying-to-crack-it-from-within/
And here is an interactive map of regional air, missile and drone attacks over the past two weeks: https://thenationalcontext.com/portal/middle-east-regional-air-missile-and-drone-attacks-15-31-july/
With the Houthis, Saudi Arabia and Iraqi armed groups successively drawn into the fighting, the war is now more regionalised than at any point since it began on February 28.
One reason is a shift in Iranian strategy. Since April, the engine underneath the American strategy has been temporal. The sequence that has structured the war since then (escalation, ceasefire, negotiation, deadline, threatened resumption) rests on the assumption that a pause relieves both sides equally. Under blockade, the relief is distributed almost entirely to one side. For the United States, a ceasefire reduces the expenditure of munitions, money and presidential attention while the siege continues to operate at full force. For Iran, a ceasefire suspends the bombing and preserves everything else: the economic strangulation deepens, the threat of renewed attack stands, and each new round of talks opens with Tehran weaker than the round before. Iranian officials have said as much publicly, insisting that a ceasefire which leaves the maritime blockade in place is no ceasefire at all.
As the map shows, Iran has begun escalating pre-emptively in the last week or so to break this cycle and force a settlement. Decision-makers in Tehran have lost hope in the diplomatic track (as, increasingly, has Trump himself) and now believe that only brute force will deter Washington and bring it to terms. Trump is contemplating escalation in response.
Yet Iranian strategists have likely concluded that even this is preferable to remaining stuck in the cycle Trump has imposed for the past several months, watching time erode the rally-around-the-flag effect and fracture the internal front. Instead, Iran has mirrored Trump's unpredictability in ways that have made him think twice before acting. The danger, however, is that the strategy may force Trump's hand and push him to unleash what he calls "hell".
Here is the full analysis: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-us-it-is-trying-to-crack-it-from-within/
And here is an interactive map of regional air, missile and drone attacks over the past two weeks: https://thenationalcontext.com/portal/middle-east-regional-air-missile-and-drone-attacks-15-31-july/
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Growing indications suggest the PKK has vacated almost all tunnels, hideouts and positions along the border with Turkey, including on Mount Gara, as shown in this map.
Several reports, including by the Turkish newspaper Nefes and the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat, indicate the PKK has abandoned as many as 80 positions, redeploying fighters to Qandil and southward along the Iranian border into Sulaimani province. Several pro-PKK sources have indicated as much.
We have reported previously that the PKK, while withdrawing from positions along the Turkish border, is simultaneously expanding its presence along the Iranian border. Here: https://thenationalcontext.com/pkk-is-quietly-building-up-along-irans-border/
This also explains the momentum on the legal framework set to be sent to the Turkish parliament in the coming days as final details are negotiated. Details here: https://thenationalcontext.com/turkeys-kurdish-peace-process-presses-ahead/
One point that remains contested and unconfirmed is how many of these positions have been taken over by the Turkish military. For instance, have Turkish troops moved onto Mount Gara, which lies deep inside the KDP zone within the Kurdistan Region? Here is why Gara metters this much: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-point-of-no-return-pkk-reported-to-have-evacuated-gara-stronghold/
It is also becoming increasingly clear that the PKK's residual presence is being funnelled entirely into the PUK zone around Sulaimani.
Several reports, including by the Turkish newspaper Nefes and the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat, indicate the PKK has abandoned as many as 80 positions, redeploying fighters to Qandil and southward along the Iranian border into Sulaimani province. Several pro-PKK sources have indicated as much.
We have reported previously that the PKK, while withdrawing from positions along the Turkish border, is simultaneously expanding its presence along the Iranian border. Here: https://thenationalcontext.com/pkk-is-quietly-building-up-along-irans-border/
This also explains the momentum on the legal framework set to be sent to the Turkish parliament in the coming days as final details are negotiated. Details here: https://thenationalcontext.com/turkeys-kurdish-peace-process-presses-ahead/
One point that remains contested and unconfirmed is how many of these positions have been taken over by the Turkish military. For instance, have Turkish troops moved onto Mount Gara, which lies deep inside the KDP zone within the Kurdistan Region? Here is why Gara metters this much: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-point-of-no-return-pkk-reported-to-have-evacuated-gara-stronghold/
It is also becoming increasingly clear that the PKK's residual presence is being funnelled entirely into the PUK zone around Sulaimani.
In Damascus, a Flag Raising That Serves Erbil and al-Sharaa Alike
• Al-Sharaa gains more from this moment than first appears. With the territorial balance settled, the SDF file has moved from force to political management, and the reception for Barzani belongs to a set of simultaneous steps Damascus is running on the Kurdish file. The first function is confidence-building.
https://thenationalcontext.com/in-damascus-a-flag-raising-that-serves-erbil-and-al-sharaa-alike/
• Al-Sharaa gains more from this moment than first appears. With the territorial balance settled, the SDF file has moved from force to political management, and the reception for Barzani belongs to a set of simultaneous steps Damascus is running on the Kurdish file. The first function is confidence-building.
https://thenationalcontext.com/in-damascus-a-flag-raising-that-serves-erbil-and-al-sharaa-alike/
The National Context
In Damascus, a Flag Raising That Serves Erbil and al-Sharaa Alike - The National Context The National Context
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani was received by Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the People’s Palace in Damascus on Monday, with a giant Kurdistan flag raised beside Syria’s for the occasion. It is the first visit by a Kurdistan Region president…
The giant flag raised today during Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani’s visit to Damascus carries much of the visit’s symbolic weight. Its display means the Kurdistan flag has now been raised officially in all four capitals governing sizeable Kurdish populations.
Iraq came first, where the 2005 constitution recognised the Kurdistan Region and its flag as an official banner. It was then displayed in Ankara in 2015 during then-president Masoud Barzani’s visit and flown publicly elsewhere in Turkey two years later. In 2021, it was raised in Tehran when Nechirvan Barzani attended President Ebrahim Raisi’s inauguration.
Damascus was the remaining capital. Its display there closes the circle a century after the partition of the Ottoman Empire divided sizeable Kurdish populations among three successor states, with Iran governing the fourth part.
More on why this moment matters: https://thenationalcontext.com/in-damascus-a-flag-raising-that-serves-erbil-and-al-sharaa-alike/
Iraq came first, where the 2005 constitution recognised the Kurdistan Region and its flag as an official banner. It was then displayed in Ankara in 2015 during then-president Masoud Barzani’s visit and flown publicly elsewhere in Turkey two years later. In 2021, it was raised in Tehran when Nechirvan Barzani attended President Ebrahim Raisi’s inauguration.
Damascus was the remaining capital. Its display there closes the circle a century after the partition of the Ottoman Empire divided sizeable Kurdish populations among three successor states, with Iran governing the fourth part.
More on why this moment matters: https://thenationalcontext.com/in-damascus-a-flag-raising-that-serves-erbil-and-al-sharaa-alike/
KRG Breaks Government-Formation Record With No Sitting Parliament and No Caretaker Cabinet
The Kurdistan Region’s parliamentary election was held more than 650 days ago. The resulting government-formation crisis has now surpassed the recent deadlock in the Brussels-Capital Region, which lasted more than 600 days, making it one of the longest such impasses in recent history.
What makes the Kurdistan Region exceptional, however, is not simply the duration of the deadlock. The outgoing KRG has continued to exercise virtually full executive authority while avoiding any meaningful recognition that it is a caretaker cabinet. This is despite a firm precedent established by Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court, which has held that the federal government enters caretaker status once parliamentary elections are held and the previous electoral mandate expires.
The executive vacuum is accompanied by an almost complete paralysis of legislative power. The newly elected Kurdistan Parliament has held only one brief session in January 2025, during which MPs took their oaths. It has not subsequently elected its leadership, formed committees, scrutinised the government or exercised any meaningful legislative authority. The session technically remains open, but Parliament has not functioned in practice.
This combination is what makes the situation so unusual: an outgoing executive continues to govern with full powers, refuses the practical limitations associated with caretaker status and faces no operational legislature capable of scrutinising or restraining it.
The explanation lies in what the Region's institutions actually do. Parliament, the presidency and the council of ministers form a formal layer above an administrative order run by two parties along territorial lines. Decisions of consequence are taken inside the KDP and the PUK, and the institutions register the outcome afterwards.
The precedent is recent enough to be instructive. In 2015, when an opposition-led parliament moved to address the expiry of Masoud Barzani's presidential term, the KDP barred the speaker from entering Erbil and the chamber did not convene for nearly three years. The obstruction had no precedent and it held, because the party controlled the ground on which the institution sat and the institution had no independent means of asserting itself. The same mechanism is now operating with the roles partly reversed.
The present crisis reflects the same structural reality, although the balance between the two ruling parties has changed. The PUK has become more centralised and more influential, while the growing importance of gas production in its zone has strengthened its economic position against the KDP’s traditional dominance of the oil sector. Gas is now arguably as strategically important as oil, turning the PUK into a major energy power as well as a political and territorial one.
Each party maintains its own intelligence, security and counter-terrorism services, with distinct chains of command and no unifying structure between them. Fuel supply follows the same division. Each side operates its own refining and distribution arrangements under its own pricing rules, the PUK covering Sulaymaniyah along with the portions of Erbil and Kirkuk provinces it holds, and the KDP covering Erbil and the parts of Nineveh under its control.
Revenue collection has followed the same logic. Rather than channel customs receipts and internal revenue through KRG institutions where the other side could audit them or claim a share, each party has built parallel structures of private companies to collect them. The practice reaches down to routine regulatory functions. Mandatory lift inspections in commercial buildings, to take one example, are carried out by a different private company in each zone, with the fees accruing to that company.
The full analysis, including an interactive map of the two zones’ energy and industrial infrastructure: https://thenationalcontext.com/krg-cabinet-formation-deadlock-passes-653-days/
The Kurdistan Region’s parliamentary election was held more than 650 days ago. The resulting government-formation crisis has now surpassed the recent deadlock in the Brussels-Capital Region, which lasted more than 600 days, making it one of the longest such impasses in recent history.
What makes the Kurdistan Region exceptional, however, is not simply the duration of the deadlock. The outgoing KRG has continued to exercise virtually full executive authority while avoiding any meaningful recognition that it is a caretaker cabinet. This is despite a firm precedent established by Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court, which has held that the federal government enters caretaker status once parliamentary elections are held and the previous electoral mandate expires.
The executive vacuum is accompanied by an almost complete paralysis of legislative power. The newly elected Kurdistan Parliament has held only one brief session in January 2025, during which MPs took their oaths. It has not subsequently elected its leadership, formed committees, scrutinised the government or exercised any meaningful legislative authority. The session technically remains open, but Parliament has not functioned in practice.
This combination is what makes the situation so unusual: an outgoing executive continues to govern with full powers, refuses the practical limitations associated with caretaker status and faces no operational legislature capable of scrutinising or restraining it.
The explanation lies in what the Region's institutions actually do. Parliament, the presidency and the council of ministers form a formal layer above an administrative order run by two parties along territorial lines. Decisions of consequence are taken inside the KDP and the PUK, and the institutions register the outcome afterwards.
The precedent is recent enough to be instructive. In 2015, when an opposition-led parliament moved to address the expiry of Masoud Barzani's presidential term, the KDP barred the speaker from entering Erbil and the chamber did not convene for nearly three years. The obstruction had no precedent and it held, because the party controlled the ground on which the institution sat and the institution had no independent means of asserting itself. The same mechanism is now operating with the roles partly reversed.
The present crisis reflects the same structural reality, although the balance between the two ruling parties has changed. The PUK has become more centralised and more influential, while the growing importance of gas production in its zone has strengthened its economic position against the KDP’s traditional dominance of the oil sector. Gas is now arguably as strategically important as oil, turning the PUK into a major energy power as well as a political and territorial one.
Each party maintains its own intelligence, security and counter-terrorism services, with distinct chains of command and no unifying structure between them. Fuel supply follows the same division. Each side operates its own refining and distribution arrangements under its own pricing rules, the PUK covering Sulaymaniyah along with the portions of Erbil and Kirkuk provinces it holds, and the KDP covering Erbil and the parts of Nineveh under its control.
Revenue collection has followed the same logic. Rather than channel customs receipts and internal revenue through KRG institutions where the other side could audit them or claim a share, each party has built parallel structures of private companies to collect them. The practice reaches down to routine regulatory functions. Mandatory lift inspections in commercial buildings, to take one example, are carried out by a different private company in each zone, with the fees accruing to that company.
The full analysis, including an interactive map of the two zones’ energy and industrial infrastructure: https://thenationalcontext.com/krg-cabinet-formation-deadlock-passes-653-days/
Turkey's parliament is expected to pass a 12-article law governing the PKK's dissolution within days. The provisions are narrow and tightly sequenced, and the project built around them reaches well beyond Turkey's borders.
The framework law was opened for signatures on Tuesday. MHP leader Devlet Bahceli was among the first to sign, while the ruling AK Party held final consultations with pro-Kurdish DEM Party lawyers and MPs. The proposal, titled the Law on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration, is expected to reach the Speaker's office on Wednesday, clear the Justice Commission on Friday and pass the General Assembly before the weekend ends, ahead of the summer recess.
The full text was not in the parliamentary database as of Tuesday evening. The known provisions rest on briefings to Turkish media and statements from the parties.
The law carries no general amnesty and no article on Abdullah Ocalan's legal status at this stage. Members would apply within a six-month window that opens only after the state verifies that the organisation has dissolved and disarmed irreversibly. Offences before 2005 carrying life or aggravated life sentences stay outside the framework. Other cases enter conditional suspension: five years for sentences below 15 years, ten years for those above. Compliance across the period leads to the case or sentence being dropped. Whether suspension leaves the conviction intact or ends the prosecution entirely will only be clear from the official text, and the two readings carry different consequences. The formula offers immediate physical freedom followed by delayed legal rehabilitation, with returnees under supervision and legal and political restrictions for five or ten years.
Sequencing sits with the state throughout. Ankara decides whether disarmament has occurred, when the window opens, who qualifies and whether individuals have complied.
The deliberation largely preceded submission. The parliamentary commission spent months on the report the law rests on, and the substance was negotiated privately among the AK Party leadership, MHP officials including Feti Yildiz, DEM representatives, Ocalan's lawyers and the security institutions.
The narrowness is by design. The commission presented its report as a road map rather than an endpoint, calling for multidimensional policies and separating the immediate legal framework from a later phase of democratisation. Ocalan has used the same language, describing the law as the "key" to a wider transformation.
Individual reintegration will be gradual. Fighters may return quickly, but full legal and political rehabilitation could take five or ten years.
More: https://thenationalcontext.com/turkeys-pkk-framework-law-sets-a-controlled-first-stage/
The framework law was opened for signatures on Tuesday. MHP leader Devlet Bahceli was among the first to sign, while the ruling AK Party held final consultations with pro-Kurdish DEM Party lawyers and MPs. The proposal, titled the Law on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration, is expected to reach the Speaker's office on Wednesday, clear the Justice Commission on Friday and pass the General Assembly before the weekend ends, ahead of the summer recess.
The full text was not in the parliamentary database as of Tuesday evening. The known provisions rest on briefings to Turkish media and statements from the parties.
The law carries no general amnesty and no article on Abdullah Ocalan's legal status at this stage. Members would apply within a six-month window that opens only after the state verifies that the organisation has dissolved and disarmed irreversibly. Offences before 2005 carrying life or aggravated life sentences stay outside the framework. Other cases enter conditional suspension: five years for sentences below 15 years, ten years for those above. Compliance across the period leads to the case or sentence being dropped. Whether suspension leaves the conviction intact or ends the prosecution entirely will only be clear from the official text, and the two readings carry different consequences. The formula offers immediate physical freedom followed by delayed legal rehabilitation, with returnees under supervision and legal and political restrictions for five or ten years.
Sequencing sits with the state throughout. Ankara decides whether disarmament has occurred, when the window opens, who qualifies and whether individuals have complied.
The deliberation largely preceded submission. The parliamentary commission spent months on the report the law rests on, and the substance was negotiated privately among the AK Party leadership, MHP officials including Feti Yildiz, DEM representatives, Ocalan's lawyers and the security institutions.
The narrowness is by design. The commission presented its report as a road map rather than an endpoint, calling for multidimensional policies and separating the immediate legal framework from a later phase of democratisation. Ocalan has used the same language, describing the law as the "key" to a wider transformation.
Individual reintegration will be gradual. Fighters may return quickly, but full legal and political rehabilitation could take five or ten years.
More: https://thenationalcontext.com/turkeys-pkk-framework-law-sets-a-controlled-first-stage/
What Turkey's 12-Article PKK Law Does, and What It Leaves for Later
The 12-article framework law, whose suggestive content was published in the Turkish parliament today, sets out the first legal structure for the PKK's dissolution and for the treatment of people under investigation, on trial, or already convicted over links to the organisation. It is written in tightly controlled security language, but its substance reflects a negotiated compromise that is more accommodating than the wording suggests.
The law avoids calling the process an amnesty. Convictions are not cancelled, offences are not reclassified, and criminal responsibility is not formally erased. Instead, investigations, trials and sentences are conditionally suspended, and the state keeps the legal file for five or ten years, reactivating it if the terms are breached.
However, the long-term effect, for those who qualify, is close to a structured amnesty. The framework can stop an investigation becoming a prosecution, end an ongoing trial, release a prisoner, treat a sentence as served, and lift the restrictions attached to a conviction. Criminal liability is held as a guarantee of compliance, and once the conditional period passes it converts into legal closure.
In some respects the eventual outcome is more generous than the Northern Ireland model. There, prisoners were released on licence, so their convictions and original sentences stayed in force and they remained liable to recall. Turkey sets a substantially higher entry threshold, but for those who qualify it delivers greater finality: after five or ten years, investigations are closed, prosecutions dismissed, and sentences treated as served. It also reaches people not yet convicted, whereas the Northern Ireland legislation focused mainly on prisoners.
The framework also presents itself explicitly as the first stage of a broader process, not the final settlement. This is a very important detail as it explicitly says so. That points to a government sequencing further measures gradually, to reduce political shock and limit the openings for opponents to disrupt it.
Today reinforced that reading. MHP leader Devlet Bahceli - a key player in the peace process - suggested Abdullah Ocalan should eventually receive the "right to hope," indicating his status may be handled in a later phase, and the ruling AKP officials suggested visits to Ocalan by journalists and public figures could widen soon even before any formal legal change.
The staged design also helps explain why the pro-Kurdish DEM Party backed the framework despite its security language: it reads as an initial confidence-building step rather than a full settlement.
Much remains unresolved. The clearest case is PJAK, the Iranian Kurdish organisation, which says it does not intend to dissolve. The framework refers to the dissolution of the PKK and of regional structures linked to the KCK umbrella, but how that applies to organisations outside Turkey, particularly on the Iranian file, is among the largest open questions, and likely to be left to later stages.
More details: https://thenationalcontext.com/what-turkeys-pkk-law-does-and-what-it-leaves-for-later/
The 12-article framework law, whose suggestive content was published in the Turkish parliament today, sets out the first legal structure for the PKK's dissolution and for the treatment of people under investigation, on trial, or already convicted over links to the organisation. It is written in tightly controlled security language, but its substance reflects a negotiated compromise that is more accommodating than the wording suggests.
The law avoids calling the process an amnesty. Convictions are not cancelled, offences are not reclassified, and criminal responsibility is not formally erased. Instead, investigations, trials and sentences are conditionally suspended, and the state keeps the legal file for five or ten years, reactivating it if the terms are breached.
However, the long-term effect, for those who qualify, is close to a structured amnesty. The framework can stop an investigation becoming a prosecution, end an ongoing trial, release a prisoner, treat a sentence as served, and lift the restrictions attached to a conviction. Criminal liability is held as a guarantee of compliance, and once the conditional period passes it converts into legal closure.
In some respects the eventual outcome is more generous than the Northern Ireland model. There, prisoners were released on licence, so their convictions and original sentences stayed in force and they remained liable to recall. Turkey sets a substantially higher entry threshold, but for those who qualify it delivers greater finality: after five or ten years, investigations are closed, prosecutions dismissed, and sentences treated as served. It also reaches people not yet convicted, whereas the Northern Ireland legislation focused mainly on prisoners.
The framework also presents itself explicitly as the first stage of a broader process, not the final settlement. This is a very important detail as it explicitly says so. That points to a government sequencing further measures gradually, to reduce political shock and limit the openings for opponents to disrupt it.
Today reinforced that reading. MHP leader Devlet Bahceli - a key player in the peace process - suggested Abdullah Ocalan should eventually receive the "right to hope," indicating his status may be handled in a later phase, and the ruling AKP officials suggested visits to Ocalan by journalists and public figures could widen soon even before any formal legal change.
The staged design also helps explain why the pro-Kurdish DEM Party backed the framework despite its security language: it reads as an initial confidence-building step rather than a full settlement.
Much remains unresolved. The clearest case is PJAK, the Iranian Kurdish organisation, which says it does not intend to dissolve. The framework refers to the dissolution of the PKK and of regional structures linked to the KCK umbrella, but how that applies to organisations outside Turkey, particularly on the Iranian file, is among the largest open questions, and likely to be left to later stages.
More details: https://thenationalcontext.com/what-turkeys-pkk-law-does-and-what-it-leaves-for-later/
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The Syrian Army has been restructuring at the division and corps levels, marking a shift from absorbing factions to dismantling their internal power structures.
Damascus initially brought roughly 130 armed formations into the Defence Ministry while allowing many commanders to retain their fighters and networks. It is now separating faction leaders from those forces and placing them inside wider corps and institutional commands.
Reports differ over whether the final structure will contain five or six corps, but the direction is consistent. Divisions are being reduced, reorganised or placed under wider regional commands, and faction leaders transferred away from direct control of formations built around their personal networks.
The treatment of Abu Amsha, Saif Abu Bakr and other former SNA commanders illustrates the method. Commanders can receive equal or higher-ranking positions while losing direct control over the fighters, weapons, bases and subordinate officers that gave them independent power. Once salaries, logistics, ammunition, appointments and deployments are controlled centrally, their authority derives from the state rather than their faction.
This fits al-Sharaa's established pattern of centralisation. In Idlib, he repeatedly accommodated armed groups first, incorporated their leaders into a broader system and then gradually dismantled the structures that allowed them to operate autonomously. The current process is more institutional and nationwide, but the logic is the same: integration first, dilution afterwards.
The SDF has clear reasons to welcome the weakening of Abu Amsha and similar commanders. Their forces were involved in Afrin and other areas where Kurdish civilians in reported displacement, property seizures and serious abuses. Both Abu Amsha and Saif Abu Bakr have been under US sanctions since 2023 over their factions' conduct there. Removing them from direct command addresses a genuine Kurdish concern. However, it serves Al-Sharaa much more.
The SDF's apparent plan to enter the state while retaining a concentrated military and political bloc is unlikely to survive al-Sharaa's centralising strategy.
The timing serves al-Sharaa in three ways. He reduces the power of former National Army commanders while making integration look safer to Kurdish officers and fighters, who watch commanders associated with abuses lose control and may conclude they are joining a genuinely national army. That confidence makes the SDF more willing to dissolve its separate command, register its personnel and accept deeper integration. Once that process is complete, the same centralised hierarchy can be turned on the SDF's own autonomous power. And by sidelining sanctioned commanders, he simultaneously addresses a Western demand without appearing to act on external pressure.
For the SDF, the restructuring is useful in the short term. It weakens former enemies, offers senior positions to Kurdish commanders and helps its leadership justify integration to fighters and supporters. Its longer-term effect runs against what the SDF is trying to preserve.
More details: http://thenationalcontext.com/syria-army-restructuring-shows-al-sharaas-sdf-plan/
Damascus initially brought roughly 130 armed formations into the Defence Ministry while allowing many commanders to retain their fighters and networks. It is now separating faction leaders from those forces and placing them inside wider corps and institutional commands.
Reports differ over whether the final structure will contain five or six corps, but the direction is consistent. Divisions are being reduced, reorganised or placed under wider regional commands, and faction leaders transferred away from direct control of formations built around their personal networks.
The treatment of Abu Amsha, Saif Abu Bakr and other former SNA commanders illustrates the method. Commanders can receive equal or higher-ranking positions while losing direct control over the fighters, weapons, bases and subordinate officers that gave them independent power. Once salaries, logistics, ammunition, appointments and deployments are controlled centrally, their authority derives from the state rather than their faction.
This fits al-Sharaa's established pattern of centralisation. In Idlib, he repeatedly accommodated armed groups first, incorporated their leaders into a broader system and then gradually dismantled the structures that allowed them to operate autonomously. The current process is more institutional and nationwide, but the logic is the same: integration first, dilution afterwards.
The SDF has clear reasons to welcome the weakening of Abu Amsha and similar commanders. Their forces were involved in Afrin and other areas where Kurdish civilians in reported displacement, property seizures and serious abuses. Both Abu Amsha and Saif Abu Bakr have been under US sanctions since 2023 over their factions' conduct there. Removing them from direct command addresses a genuine Kurdish concern. However, it serves Al-Sharaa much more.
The SDF's apparent plan to enter the state while retaining a concentrated military and political bloc is unlikely to survive al-Sharaa's centralising strategy.
The timing serves al-Sharaa in three ways. He reduces the power of former National Army commanders while making integration look safer to Kurdish officers and fighters, who watch commanders associated with abuses lose control and may conclude they are joining a genuinely national army. That confidence makes the SDF more willing to dissolve its separate command, register its personnel and accept deeper integration. Once that process is complete, the same centralised hierarchy can be turned on the SDF's own autonomous power. And by sidelining sanctioned commanders, he simultaneously addresses a Western demand without appearing to act on external pressure.
For the SDF, the restructuring is useful in the short term. It weakens former enemies, offers senior positions to Kurdish commanders and helps its leadership justify integration to fighters and supporters. Its longer-term effect runs against what the SDF is trying to preserve.
More details: http://thenationalcontext.com/syria-army-restructuring-shows-al-sharaas-sdf-plan/
The Turkish parliament’s PKK peace-framework law is expected to formally pass today. The bill cleared the Justice Committee on 8 August and moved to the General Assembly yesterday.
One particularly interesting change was made at committee stage. Article 2 defines the “organisation” covered by the legislation. After a joint amendment from the ruling AK Party and its nationalist coalition partner the MHP, the wording covering "the PKK/KCK terrorist organisation and all formations affiliated with it" became "the PKK/KCK terrorist organisation and all types of formations connected to it."
Part of the reason was to standardise Article 2 with the broader wording already used in Article 1. But the standardisation could just as easily have gone in the opposite direction, making the choice of the broader formulation notable.
The amendment potentially has two important effects:
First, it broadens the condition for disarmament and dissolution. Activation does not follow automatically from the PKK dissolving. Turkish security institutions must first determine that the PKK/KCK and its connected formations have ended their effective existence and surrendered the weapons under their control, with the MGK, the National Security Council, then confirming that assessment.
Second, the same expansion can work in the opposite direction. Article 2 fixes the meaning of örgüt throughout the law, and later provisions repeatedly refer to offences committed within the activities of "the organisation." Broadening the statutory definition therefore gives the framework the legal space to address individuals from these connected structures, without passing a separate law for each component.
This is very likely relevant to the Syrian dimension of the process. However, under the law’s current scope, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi may not be fully cleared because of the nature of some of the cases Turkey associates with him. That makes recurring claims that he could soon visit Turkey considerably less certain. By contrast, senior Syrian Kurdish official Ilham Ahmed appears much more likely to fall within the framework, based on the publicly available information about her legal case in Turkey.
The following sets out what the framework covers and what it leaves out. The bill itself makes clear that this is the first stage of the process and not a final settlement:
https://thenationalcontext.com/what-turkeys-pkk-law-does-and-what-it-leaves-for-later/
One particularly interesting change was made at committee stage. Article 2 defines the “organisation” covered by the legislation. After a joint amendment from the ruling AK Party and its nationalist coalition partner the MHP, the wording covering "the PKK/KCK terrorist organisation and all formations affiliated with it" became "the PKK/KCK terrorist organisation and all types of formations connected to it."
Part of the reason was to standardise Article 2 with the broader wording already used in Article 1. But the standardisation could just as easily have gone in the opposite direction, making the choice of the broader formulation notable.
The amendment potentially has two important effects:
First, it broadens the condition for disarmament and dissolution. Activation does not follow automatically from the PKK dissolving. Turkish security institutions must first determine that the PKK/KCK and its connected formations have ended their effective existence and surrendered the weapons under their control, with the MGK, the National Security Council, then confirming that assessment.
Second, the same expansion can work in the opposite direction. Article 2 fixes the meaning of örgüt throughout the law, and later provisions repeatedly refer to offences committed within the activities of "the organisation." Broadening the statutory definition therefore gives the framework the legal space to address individuals from these connected structures, without passing a separate law for each component.
This is very likely relevant to the Syrian dimension of the process. However, under the law’s current scope, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi may not be fully cleared because of the nature of some of the cases Turkey associates with him. That makes recurring claims that he could soon visit Turkey considerably less certain. By contrast, senior Syrian Kurdish official Ilham Ahmed appears much more likely to fall within the framework, based on the publicly available information about her legal case in Turkey.
The following sets out what the framework covers and what it leaves out. The bill itself makes clear that this is the first stage of the process and not a final settlement:
https://thenationalcontext.com/what-turkeys-pkk-law-does-and-what-it-leaves-for-later/
The National Context
What Turkey's PKK Law Does, and What It Leaves for Later The National Context
Turkey’s new twelve-article framework establishes the first legal structure for the dissolution of the PKK and for the treatment of people who are under investigation, on trial or already convicted over their links to the organisation. The proposal is written…
What happens now after Turkey's PKK framework law has been approved?
The PKK-related framework law that passed in the Turkish parliament is historic because it is the first law to emerge from direct negotiations conducted with the PKK and with Abdullah Ocalan, the organisation's imprisoned founding leader, and the first to translate those talks into substantive legal provisions.
Also significant: a supermajority of 467 votes to 87 approved the framework, including pro-Kurdish deputies, giving it very broad cross-party backing.
1. Following presidential promulgation and publication in the Official Gazette, the law takes effect, triggering the establishment of a powerful executive board and a much weaker parliamentary Monitoring Commission.
The executive board does far more than oversee disarmament. Under Article 7 it can establish subcommittees; invite officials and other persons; assign subcommittees specifically to advance the process "with the organisation"; periodically assess whether the organisation has actually been completely dismantled; request judicial, administrative and legislative measures; and initiate the eventual restoration of rights. An especially notable power sits in Article 3(3): if an investigation is opened after the National Security Council decision for a covered offence committed before that decision, the investigation itself requires the board's permission. That gives the board a significant gatekeeping role over prosecutorial discretion during the transition.
By contrast, the parliamentary Monitoring Commission monitors and may make recommendations. It does not operate the scheme or make the key implementation decisions.
2. Practically, the law will not trigger anything substantive until formal state verification that the PKK/KCK and the formations covered by the legislation have ended their de facto organisational existence and surrendered all weapons and ammunition under their control. This will be especially important to watch because the law refers not just to the PKK or KCK but to "all types of formations connected to it," raising the question of how compliance is measured and which affiliated structures are expected to disarm. Two cases stand out: the SDF in northeast Syria, which is undergoing integration into the Syrian army but has not yet surrendered its heavy weapons to the state, and the Iran-focused PJAK, the PKK's affiliate in Iranian Kurdistan, which has become significantly more active in recent months.
More: https://thenationalcontext.com/what-happens-now-after-turkeys-pkk-framework-law/
The PKK-related framework law that passed in the Turkish parliament is historic because it is the first law to emerge from direct negotiations conducted with the PKK and with Abdullah Ocalan, the organisation's imprisoned founding leader, and the first to translate those talks into substantive legal provisions.
Also significant: a supermajority of 467 votes to 87 approved the framework, including pro-Kurdish deputies, giving it very broad cross-party backing.
1. Following presidential promulgation and publication in the Official Gazette, the law takes effect, triggering the establishment of a powerful executive board and a much weaker parliamentary Monitoring Commission.
The executive board does far more than oversee disarmament. Under Article 7 it can establish subcommittees; invite officials and other persons; assign subcommittees specifically to advance the process "with the organisation"; periodically assess whether the organisation has actually been completely dismantled; request judicial, administrative and legislative measures; and initiate the eventual restoration of rights. An especially notable power sits in Article 3(3): if an investigation is opened after the National Security Council decision for a covered offence committed before that decision, the investigation itself requires the board's permission. That gives the board a significant gatekeeping role over prosecutorial discretion during the transition.
By contrast, the parliamentary Monitoring Commission monitors and may make recommendations. It does not operate the scheme or make the key implementation decisions.
2. Practically, the law will not trigger anything substantive until formal state verification that the PKK/KCK and the formations covered by the legislation have ended their de facto organisational existence and surrendered all weapons and ammunition under their control. This will be especially important to watch because the law refers not just to the PKK or KCK but to "all types of formations connected to it," raising the question of how compliance is measured and which affiliated structures are expected to disarm. Two cases stand out: the SDF in northeast Syria, which is undergoing integration into the Syrian army but has not yet surrendered its heavy weapons to the state, and the Iran-focused PJAK, the PKK's affiliate in Iranian Kurdistan, which has become significantly more active in recent months.
More: https://thenationalcontext.com/what-happens-now-after-turkeys-pkk-framework-law/
Iran’s Kurdish Attribution War: Who Really Has Fighters Inside Iran?
• A battle over attribution is now emerging around claimed attacks inside Iran. Behind it appears to be a wider intra-Kurdish struggle for relevance, influence and, above all, proof of an actual armed presence on the ground.
• Israel's wartime plan to mobilise Iran's Kurdish opposition may have collapsed, but the competition it helped unleash has not. Since the ceasefire, armed activity has gradually shifted inside Iran, even as the large Kurdish front once anticipated during the war never materialised.
• The result is increasingly a war of branding as much as a war on the ground. PJAK, the traditional Iranian Kurdish parties and newly emerged militant brands are all competing to demonstrate that they, rather than their rivals, possess an active network inside Iran.
• For groups pushed into exile and under growing pressure in Iraqi Kurdistan, even a small number of attacks can carry disproportionate political value. The objective is not necessarily to hold territory or trigger an uprising, but to demonstrate a proof of concept: that they still possess an internal armed capability that can be activated.
• That proof is itself a political commodity. It matters not only in competition between Kurdish groups, but in demonstrating relevance to potential foreign backers, to the Kurdish population inside Iran, and to regional actors deciding which organisations still have meaningful capacity on the ground.
• So far, the scale remains limited. But that may miss the point: this is increasingly a competition over option value. Each group is trying to show that, should Iran enter another period of war or internal crisis, it has something its rivals cannot easily claim: people, weapons and networks already inside the country.
https://thenationalcontext.com/irans-kurdish-attribution-war-who-really-has-fighters-inside-iran/
• A battle over attribution is now emerging around claimed attacks inside Iran. Behind it appears to be a wider intra-Kurdish struggle for relevance, influence and, above all, proof of an actual armed presence on the ground.
• Israel's wartime plan to mobilise Iran's Kurdish opposition may have collapsed, but the competition it helped unleash has not. Since the ceasefire, armed activity has gradually shifted inside Iran, even as the large Kurdish front once anticipated during the war never materialised.
• The result is increasingly a war of branding as much as a war on the ground. PJAK, the traditional Iranian Kurdish parties and newly emerged militant brands are all competing to demonstrate that they, rather than their rivals, possess an active network inside Iran.
• For groups pushed into exile and under growing pressure in Iraqi Kurdistan, even a small number of attacks can carry disproportionate political value. The objective is not necessarily to hold territory or trigger an uprising, but to demonstrate a proof of concept: that they still possess an internal armed capability that can be activated.
• That proof is itself a political commodity. It matters not only in competition between Kurdish groups, but in demonstrating relevance to potential foreign backers, to the Kurdish population inside Iran, and to regional actors deciding which organisations still have meaningful capacity on the ground.
• So far, the scale remains limited. But that may miss the point: this is increasingly a competition over option value. Each group is trying to show that, should Iran enter another period of war or internal crisis, it has something its rivals cannot easily claim: people, weapons and networks already inside the country.
https://thenationalcontext.com/irans-kurdish-attribution-war-who-really-has-fighters-inside-iran/
A subtle but intensifying war is unfolding among Iranian Kurdish groups over relevance, attribution and, ultimately, who can prove they still have cells operating inside Iran.
A revealing example came yesterday, when pro-PKK networks published videos of the assassinations of two pro-regime auxiliary figures. Both attacks had taken place several days earlier and had already been claimed by a little-known group calling itself Khori Hiwa (Sun of Hope), which announced responsibility through its Instagram account using AI-edited graphics but provided no operational footage.
Importantly, this pattern of assassinations did not begin with Khori Hiwa. Similar attacks had already been taking place before the group emerged. What changed with Khori Hiwa was the attribution landscape.
Since its appearance, armed attacks claimed by the established non-PKK Iranian Kurdish groups have largely disappeared, while Khori Hiwa has begun claiming a number of operations through its Instagram account. That does not mean those earlier groups' operations have somehow been transferred to Khori Hiwa, nor is there evidence that Khori Hiwa directly represents them. They are two separate observations. But the timing is notable, particularly given how little is known about the group itself.
Despite being virtually unknown beyond its Instagram presence, Khori Hiwa has been extensively amplified by figures and networks close to the traditional Iranian Kurdish opposition, including individuals associated with the Hengaw organization, who were among the first to disseminate the group's claims, as well as members and supporters of the KDPI and Komala milieu.
What makes the latest videos interesting is that their publication appears intended not simply to publicise the assassinations, but to settle an attribution dispute by demonstrating that the operations were carried out by PKK-aligned cells and that Khori Hiwa had subsequently claimed them as its own.
The dispute became even more explicit afterward. Khori Hiwa responded through an Instagram story by portraying its refusal to publish operational footage as "responsible behaviour" and suggesting that the videos circulated by the PKK-aligned side had come from regime CCTV.
The insinuation was obvious. It echoed a longstanding talking point among traditional Iranian Kurdish groups that PJAK and the PKK are somehow connected to, manipulated by or useful to Tehran.
But the footage itself does not support the CCTV claim. One of the videos is clearly filmed by someone participating in the assassination. The second is also handheld and moving rather than fixed surveillance footage. It is clear that neither of the videos come from CCTV material.
For years, traditional Iranian Kurdish parties have portrayed PJAK as being pro-regime. But if PJAK and its affiliates are now demonstrably carrying out more armed activity inside Iran while the older parties, despite themselves coming under repeated Iranian attack, remain largely inactive, that creates an uncomfortable political problem.
There is also an external audience. Iran's Kurdish opposition received renewed international attention during the recent war, particularly amid indications that Israel explored bringing Kurdish groups into the conflict. In that environment, demonstrating the existence of functioning cells inside Iran becomes more than an intra-Kurdish prestige contest. It can also become a selling point to foreign governments and intelligence services looking for actors with genuine access, networks and operational capability inside the country.
And that creates another contradiction. Turkey's current peace process envisages the dissolution of PKK-linked structures, with the framework adopted by parliament extending beyond the PKK itself to connected formations. PJAK and its affiliated structures would clearly sit within that wider ecosystem.
Here is more on the strategic and political implications of this war of attribution: https://thenationalcontext.com/irans-kurdish-attribution-war-who-really-has-fighters-inside-iran/
A revealing example came yesterday, when pro-PKK networks published videos of the assassinations of two pro-regime auxiliary figures. Both attacks had taken place several days earlier and had already been claimed by a little-known group calling itself Khori Hiwa (Sun of Hope), which announced responsibility through its Instagram account using AI-edited graphics but provided no operational footage.
Importantly, this pattern of assassinations did not begin with Khori Hiwa. Similar attacks had already been taking place before the group emerged. What changed with Khori Hiwa was the attribution landscape.
Since its appearance, armed attacks claimed by the established non-PKK Iranian Kurdish groups have largely disappeared, while Khori Hiwa has begun claiming a number of operations through its Instagram account. That does not mean those earlier groups' operations have somehow been transferred to Khori Hiwa, nor is there evidence that Khori Hiwa directly represents them. They are two separate observations. But the timing is notable, particularly given how little is known about the group itself.
Despite being virtually unknown beyond its Instagram presence, Khori Hiwa has been extensively amplified by figures and networks close to the traditional Iranian Kurdish opposition, including individuals associated with the Hengaw organization, who were among the first to disseminate the group's claims, as well as members and supporters of the KDPI and Komala milieu.
What makes the latest videos interesting is that their publication appears intended not simply to publicise the assassinations, but to settle an attribution dispute by demonstrating that the operations were carried out by PKK-aligned cells and that Khori Hiwa had subsequently claimed them as its own.
The dispute became even more explicit afterward. Khori Hiwa responded through an Instagram story by portraying its refusal to publish operational footage as "responsible behaviour" and suggesting that the videos circulated by the PKK-aligned side had come from regime CCTV.
The insinuation was obvious. It echoed a longstanding talking point among traditional Iranian Kurdish groups that PJAK and the PKK are somehow connected to, manipulated by or useful to Tehran.
But the footage itself does not support the CCTV claim. One of the videos is clearly filmed by someone participating in the assassination. The second is also handheld and moving rather than fixed surveillance footage. It is clear that neither of the videos come from CCTV material.
For years, traditional Iranian Kurdish parties have portrayed PJAK as being pro-regime. But if PJAK and its affiliates are now demonstrably carrying out more armed activity inside Iran while the older parties, despite themselves coming under repeated Iranian attack, remain largely inactive, that creates an uncomfortable political problem.
There is also an external audience. Iran's Kurdish opposition received renewed international attention during the recent war, particularly amid indications that Israel explored bringing Kurdish groups into the conflict. In that environment, demonstrating the existence of functioning cells inside Iran becomes more than an intra-Kurdish prestige contest. It can also become a selling point to foreign governments and intelligence services looking for actors with genuine access, networks and operational capability inside the country.
And that creates another contradiction. Turkey's current peace process envisages the dissolution of PKK-linked structures, with the framework adopted by parliament extending beyond the PKK itself to connected formations. PJAK and its affiliated structures would clearly sit within that wider ecosystem.
Here is more on the strategic and political implications of this war of attribution: https://thenationalcontext.com/irans-kurdish-attribution-war-who-really-has-fighters-inside-iran/
Iraq’s Weapons Deadline: What Is Actually Being Negotiated Before 30 September
• The battle over militia weapons is increasingly an internal struggle over how best to preserve the post-2003 Shia-led order: through continued autonomous coercive power, or by converting that power into deeper control of the state while avoiding an economic confrontation with Washington that could threaten the system itself. Iran is adapting to both positions at once with the objective being institutionalise the mass base; clandestinise the strategic coercive capability.
https://thenationalcontext.com/iraqs-weapons-deadline-what-is-actually-being-negotiated/
• The battle over militia weapons is increasingly an internal struggle over how best to preserve the post-2003 Shia-led order: through continued autonomous coercive power, or by converting that power into deeper control of the state while avoiding an economic confrontation with Washington that could threaten the system itself. Iran is adapting to both positions at once with the objective being institutionalise the mass base; clandestinise the strategic coercive capability.
https://thenationalcontext.com/iraqs-weapons-deadline-what-is-actually-being-negotiated/
The National Context
Iraq's Weapons Deadline: What Is Actually Being Negotiated Before 30 September
The argument over Iraq's armed factions is an argument inside the Shia political establishment about how to protect what it has held since 2003. One camp
As the September 30 deadline to integrate pro-Iran factions in Iraq nears: the dispute over restricting weapons to the state is not simply a division between factions that support the government and factions that oppose it. It reflects two competing strategic calculations within the same post-2003 Shia armed-political establishment over how best to preserve the power it has accumulated over two decades. What is at stake is not the surrender of weapons but the location of command authority.
For the institutionalising camp, most clearly represented by Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, the Iran-aligned group led by Qais al-Khazali: US leverage threatens the Iraqi state, so preserve it by removing the militia file as a pretext for pressure. On this reading, these Shia groups have already converted much of the power they accumulated through armed activity into parliamentary seats, ministries, security appointments, public financing, businesses, patronage networks and influence inside Iraqi state institutions. They therefore have far more to lose from the collapse or severe weakening of that state than when they operated primarily as armed movements outside it.
From this perspective, restricting weapons to the state does not necessarily mean surrendering power. It can mean converting exposed autonomous military capability into more durable institutional power. Fighters can be absorbed into recognised security structures, commanders can advance further into politics and government, and the organisations can preserve much of their political, economic and bureaucratic influence while ceding at least part of their independent operational authority.
For the rejectionist camp, most clearly Kata'ib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba, both of which maintain closer operational ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: US leverage proves that the Iraqi state remains vulnerable to external coercion, so an autonomous chain of command must be retained as insurance against both foreign pressure and the possibility that Iraqi institutions could later be turned against the resistance itself.
This is also why the holdout factions treat integration as only the opening stage of a wider sequenced process. Their fear is that once independent command disappears, pressure will move next to the Popular Mobilisation Forces, political parties, economic networks, appointments and relationships with Iran. They believe the gun is what ultimately underwrites everything else.
The greatest weakness in this position is economic. The rejectionists acknowledge Iraq's exposure to American financial pressure and frequently call for greater monetary and economic sovereignty. But they offer no convincing near-term answer to what would happen if confrontation with Washington escalated far enough to disrupt salaries, imports, public spending and the wider distributive architecture on which the Iraqi political order rests.
Iran's More Nuanced Position: Iran's position is more complicated than opposing integration and demanding that every Iraqi militia preserve its existing structure.
Tehran has spent two decades helping allied Iraqi groups acquire not only armed capability but also political representation, formal security positions, state financing, economic networks and influence over Iraqi institutions. Those are major strategic assets in their own right. Iran therefore has little reason to oppose the political and institutional advancement of factions such as Asa'ib simply because it embeds them more deeply in the Iraqi state.
Institutionalisation can in fact strengthen Tehran's influence, anchoring friendly organisations more deeply within parliament, the Popular Mobilisation Forces, ministries, economic networks and the bureaucracy.
What Iran appears far less willing to accept is making that transformation irreversible by eliminating every line of command that runs outside Iraqi state authority.
The full analysis: https://thenationalcontext.com/iraqs-weapons-deadline-what-is-actually-being-negotiated/
For the institutionalising camp, most clearly represented by Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, the Iran-aligned group led by Qais al-Khazali: US leverage threatens the Iraqi state, so preserve it by removing the militia file as a pretext for pressure. On this reading, these Shia groups have already converted much of the power they accumulated through armed activity into parliamentary seats, ministries, security appointments, public financing, businesses, patronage networks and influence inside Iraqi state institutions. They therefore have far more to lose from the collapse or severe weakening of that state than when they operated primarily as armed movements outside it.
From this perspective, restricting weapons to the state does not necessarily mean surrendering power. It can mean converting exposed autonomous military capability into more durable institutional power. Fighters can be absorbed into recognised security structures, commanders can advance further into politics and government, and the organisations can preserve much of their political, economic and bureaucratic influence while ceding at least part of their independent operational authority.
For the rejectionist camp, most clearly Kata'ib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba, both of which maintain closer operational ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: US leverage proves that the Iraqi state remains vulnerable to external coercion, so an autonomous chain of command must be retained as insurance against both foreign pressure and the possibility that Iraqi institutions could later be turned against the resistance itself.
This is also why the holdout factions treat integration as only the opening stage of a wider sequenced process. Their fear is that once independent command disappears, pressure will move next to the Popular Mobilisation Forces, political parties, economic networks, appointments and relationships with Iran. They believe the gun is what ultimately underwrites everything else.
The greatest weakness in this position is economic. The rejectionists acknowledge Iraq's exposure to American financial pressure and frequently call for greater monetary and economic sovereignty. But they offer no convincing near-term answer to what would happen if confrontation with Washington escalated far enough to disrupt salaries, imports, public spending and the wider distributive architecture on which the Iraqi political order rests.
Iran's More Nuanced Position: Iran's position is more complicated than opposing integration and demanding that every Iraqi militia preserve its existing structure.
Tehran has spent two decades helping allied Iraqi groups acquire not only armed capability but also political representation, formal security positions, state financing, economic networks and influence over Iraqi institutions. Those are major strategic assets in their own right. Iran therefore has little reason to oppose the political and institutional advancement of factions such as Asa'ib simply because it embeds them more deeply in the Iraqi state.
Institutionalisation can in fact strengthen Tehran's influence, anchoring friendly organisations more deeply within parliament, the Popular Mobilisation Forces, ministries, economic networks and the bureaucracy.
What Iran appears far less willing to accept is making that transformation irreversible by eliminating every line of command that runs outside Iraqi state authority.
The full analysis: https://thenationalcontext.com/iraqs-weapons-deadline-what-is-actually-being-negotiated/
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The Kurdistan Region's Emerging Strategic Geography
The Kurdistan Region’s energy and industrial map shows an emerging strategic geography in which the KDP and PUK, the two ruling parties that already run separate administrative systems inside one nominal regional government, check each other through control of different but interdependent assets.
The KDP remains the larger economic power, but the rapid build-out of the PUK's gas and industrial base is narrowing an older imbalance, and it is doing so just as the two sides cannot agree on how power should be divided. The two developments are more tightly connected than they look.
Look past the shorthand that the KDP has oil and the PUK has gas, and ask what each party's assets actually let it do. The KDP's strengths are built around monetisation: oil, refining, trade and export corridors. The PUK's emerging system revolves around gas, which carries a different kind of weight. Gas does not simply earn income. It feeds electricity, sets the cost structure of heavy industry, and binds producers to consumers through infrastructure that is expensive to replace. Oil gives the KDP scale and routes to market. Gas increasingly gives the PUK influence over how the wider regional economy functions, and over the energy choices available to actors beyond the Kurdistan Region.
Two economic models follow from this, each with its own logic. The KDP's is built to preserve optionality: oil, refining, Erbil manufacturing, Duhok and Zakho logistics and access toward Turkey, so weakness in any one sector or route is offset by the others. It suits a party betting on autonomy. The PUK's is built on embeddedness: gas feeds electricity, electricity and gas feed industry, that industry sells into Iraq, and the pipelines and ten-year offtake contracts binding those stages are costly to unwind. That gives particular assets leverage out of proportion to the PUK's smaller share of output, and it explains why the smaller economy has begun to constrain the larger one.
It also explains why the government has been so hard to form. As of 16 August 2026, 665 days have passed since the election without a cabinet. Gas did not cause the dispute, which also runs through security institutions, revenues, senior offices and the longer contest between the KDP and PUK systems. But the economic geography is making compromise harder.
This report maps the assets behind that shift, and shows how the complementary holdings in KDP and PUK territory have become a check on each other's power, an unusual one: in the social sciences these constraints are usually institutional, resting in parliaments, courts and electoral rules. Here the restraint is material, resting on each party's control of assets the other cannot easily do without: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-kurdistan-regions-emerging-strategic-geography/
The Kurdistan Region’s energy and industrial map shows an emerging strategic geography in which the KDP and PUK, the two ruling parties that already run separate administrative systems inside one nominal regional government, check each other through control of different but interdependent assets.
The KDP remains the larger economic power, but the rapid build-out of the PUK's gas and industrial base is narrowing an older imbalance, and it is doing so just as the two sides cannot agree on how power should be divided. The two developments are more tightly connected than they look.
Look past the shorthand that the KDP has oil and the PUK has gas, and ask what each party's assets actually let it do. The KDP's strengths are built around monetisation: oil, refining, trade and export corridors. The PUK's emerging system revolves around gas, which carries a different kind of weight. Gas does not simply earn income. It feeds electricity, sets the cost structure of heavy industry, and binds producers to consumers through infrastructure that is expensive to replace. Oil gives the KDP scale and routes to market. Gas increasingly gives the PUK influence over how the wider regional economy functions, and over the energy choices available to actors beyond the Kurdistan Region.
Two economic models follow from this, each with its own logic. The KDP's is built to preserve optionality: oil, refining, Erbil manufacturing, Duhok and Zakho logistics and access toward Turkey, so weakness in any one sector or route is offset by the others. It suits a party betting on autonomy. The PUK's is built on embeddedness: gas feeds electricity, electricity and gas feed industry, that industry sells into Iraq, and the pipelines and ten-year offtake contracts binding those stages are costly to unwind. That gives particular assets leverage out of proportion to the PUK's smaller share of output, and it explains why the smaller economy has begun to constrain the larger one.
It also explains why the government has been so hard to form. As of 16 August 2026, 665 days have passed since the election without a cabinet. Gas did not cause the dispute, which also runs through security institutions, revenues, senior offices and the longer contest between the KDP and PUK systems. But the economic geography is making compromise harder.
This report maps the assets behind that shift, and shows how the complementary holdings in KDP and PUK territory have become a check on each other's power, an unusual one: in the social sciences these constraints are usually institutional, resting in parliaments, courts and electoral rules. Here the restraint is material, resting on each party's control of assets the other cannot easily do without: https://thenationalcontext.com/the-kurdistan-regions-emerging-strategic-geography/
For five consecutive months, excluding August, which remains incomplete, Iraq has run a massive deficit due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz simply to cover basic salary-related expenditure, a central pillar of the country’s social contract.
Although oil revenue partially recovered in July as more crude moved through Hormuz, the underlying crisis remains. The northern export route through Turkey is still carrying only around 200,000 barrels per day, equivalent to just 5.7% of Iraq’s February export level, the last normal month before the Hormuz disruption.
From March through July, Iraq’s combined salary, pension and welfare obligations were roughly $27.25 billion, while oil revenues amounted to only about $7.93 billion. That left a gap of nearly $20 billion in just five months, meaning oil revenue covered only around 29% of these basic obligations. Baghdad therefore had to find or finance roughly 71% of the cost through borrowing, reserves or other revenues, before accounting for the rest of government expenditure.
The full breakdown: https://thenationalcontext.com/iraqs-oil-revenue-is-recovering/
Although oil revenue partially recovered in July as more crude moved through Hormuz, the underlying crisis remains. The northern export route through Turkey is still carrying only around 200,000 barrels per day, equivalent to just 5.7% of Iraq’s February export level, the last normal month before the Hormuz disruption.
From March through July, Iraq’s combined salary, pension and welfare obligations were roughly $27.25 billion, while oil revenues amounted to only about $7.93 billion. That left a gap of nearly $20 billion in just five months, meaning oil revenue covered only around 29% of these basic obligations. Baghdad therefore had to find or finance roughly 71% of the cost through borrowing, reserves or other revenues, before accounting for the rest of government expenditure.
The full breakdown: https://thenationalcontext.com/iraqs-oil-revenue-is-recovering/
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The Syrian Army has been restructuring at the division and corps levels, marking a shift from absorbing factions to dismantling their internal power structures.
Damascus initially brought roughly 130 armed formations into the Defence Ministry while allowing many commanders to retain their fighters and networks. It is now separating faction leaders from those forces and placing them inside wider corps and institutional commands.
Reports differ over whether the final structure will contain five or six corps, but the direction is consistent. Divisions are being reduced, reorganised or placed under wider regional commands, and faction leaders transferred away from direct control of formations built around their personal networks.
The treatment of Abu Amsha, Saif Abu Bakr and other former SNA commanders illustrates the method. Commanders can receive equal or higher-ranking positions while losing direct control over the fighters, weapons, bases and subordinate officers that gave them independent power. Once salaries, logistics, ammunition, appointments and deployments are controlled centrally, their authority derives from the state rather than their faction.
This fits al-Sharaa's established pattern of centralisation. In Idlib, he repeatedly accommodated armed groups first, incorporated their leaders into a broader system and then gradually dismantled the structures that allowed them to operate autonomously. The current process is more institutional and nationwide, but the logic is the same: integration first, dilution afterwards.
The SDF has clear reasons to welcome the weakening of Abu Amsha and similar commanders. Their forces were involved in Afrin and other areas where Kurdish civilians in reported displacement, property seizures and serious abuses. Both Abu Amsha and Saif Abu Bakr have been under US sanctions since 2023 over their factions' conduct there. Removing them from direct command addresses a genuine Kurdish concern. However, it serves Al-Sharaa much more.
The SDF's apparent plan to enter the state while retaining a concentrated military and political bloc is unlikely to survive al-Sharaa's centralising strategy.
The timing serves al-Sharaa in three ways. He reduces the power of former National Army commanders while making integration look safer to Kurdish officers and fighters, who watch commanders associated with abuses lose control and may conclude they are joining a genuinely national army. That confidence makes the SDF more willing to dissolve its separate command, register its personnel and accept deeper integration. Once that process is complete, the same centralised hierarchy can be turned on the SDF's own autonomous power. And by sidelining sanctioned commanders, he simultaneously addresses a Western demand without appearing to act on external pressure.
For the SDF, the restructuring is useful in the short term. It weakens former enemies, offers senior positions to Kurdish commanders and helps its leadership justify integration to fighters and supporters. Its longer-term effect runs against what the SDF is trying to preserve.
More details: http://thenationalcontext.com/syria-army-restructuring-shows-al-sharaas-sdf-plan/
Damascus initially brought roughly 130 armed formations into the Defence Ministry while allowing many commanders to retain their fighters and networks. It is now separating faction leaders from those forces and placing them inside wider corps and institutional commands.
Reports differ over whether the final structure will contain five or six corps, but the direction is consistent. Divisions are being reduced, reorganised or placed under wider regional commands, and faction leaders transferred away from direct control of formations built around their personal networks.
The treatment of Abu Amsha, Saif Abu Bakr and other former SNA commanders illustrates the method. Commanders can receive equal or higher-ranking positions while losing direct control over the fighters, weapons, bases and subordinate officers that gave them independent power. Once salaries, logistics, ammunition, appointments and deployments are controlled centrally, their authority derives from the state rather than their faction.
This fits al-Sharaa's established pattern of centralisation. In Idlib, he repeatedly accommodated armed groups first, incorporated their leaders into a broader system and then gradually dismantled the structures that allowed them to operate autonomously. The current process is more institutional and nationwide, but the logic is the same: integration first, dilution afterwards.
The SDF has clear reasons to welcome the weakening of Abu Amsha and similar commanders. Their forces were involved in Afrin and other areas where Kurdish civilians in reported displacement, property seizures and serious abuses. Both Abu Amsha and Saif Abu Bakr have been under US sanctions since 2023 over their factions' conduct there. Removing them from direct command addresses a genuine Kurdish concern. However, it serves Al-Sharaa much more.
The SDF's apparent plan to enter the state while retaining a concentrated military and political bloc is unlikely to survive al-Sharaa's centralising strategy.
The timing serves al-Sharaa in three ways. He reduces the power of former National Army commanders while making integration look safer to Kurdish officers and fighters, who watch commanders associated with abuses lose control and may conclude they are joining a genuinely national army. That confidence makes the SDF more willing to dissolve its separate command, register its personnel and accept deeper integration. Once that process is complete, the same centralised hierarchy can be turned on the SDF's own autonomous power. And by sidelining sanctioned commanders, he simultaneously addresses a Western demand without appearing to act on external pressure.
For the SDF, the restructuring is useful in the short term. It weakens former enemies, offers senior positions to Kurdish commanders and helps its leadership justify integration to fighters and supporters. Its longer-term effect runs against what the SDF is trying to preserve.
More details: http://thenationalcontext.com/syria-army-restructuring-shows-al-sharaas-sdf-plan/
Turkey Nears Certifying the PKK Dissolved as PJAK Expands Along the Iranian Frontier
According to well-connected Turkish sources, the verification process of the PKK disarmament is already in advanced stages with two reports suggesting that the national intelligence service (MIT) and the armed forces (TSK) are expected to verify PKK disarmament and camp evacuation across August and September, after which their assessment goes to Erdogan and the MGK. If the timetable holds, the Turkish National Security Council could declare the PKK formally dissolved in October, after which the declaration would be the reference point for everything that follows, including the return mechanism of the fighters, which begins its six-month period for allowing application from those who wish to return and have their legal cases cleared.
The certification is said to be in motion amid the parallel integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian state. However, the one key element of the wider PKK-linked armed system that shows no equivalent movement is PJAK, the PKK's Iranian-Kurdish affiliate, which is increasingly digging along the border with Iran. So what will happen to PJAK?
Turkey has likely separated the Iranian file from the disarmament requirements it is imposing on the PKK in Iraq and the SDF in Syria. PJAK is being retained, for now, as a controlled Iran-facing structure while Iran's political future remains unsettled.
The reasons PJAK cannot be dissolved on the same schedule are concrete. Most of its cadres are Iranian citizens who cannot safely return to Iran, and Iran offers no reconciliation framework comparable to Turkey's law. Placing these fighters in exposed camps would turn them into targets, and the regime whose future would determine their fate is itself unsettled by a US-Iran war that remains unresolved. Dissolving PJAK now would also empty a stretch of frontier that Ankara has strong reasons not to leave open.
Ankara's central concern on this border is the prospect of an Israeli or US-backed Iranian Kurdish military front forming there, and that concern operates largely independently of its rivalry with Iran itself. During the February 2026 war, interest emerged in mobilising Iranian Kurdish armed groups against Tehran, and some of them, PAK most openly, were receptive. Hakan Fidan and other Turkish officials warned publicly against Israel making use of Kurdish actors in the region. A frontier held by PJAK is a frontier that the KDPI, Komala or PAK cannot dominate, and PJAK is the actor over which Ankara has the most potential influence through Ocalan and the new peace architecture. Its value lies in occupying the ground and constraining the rivals.
PJAK is also more manageable to both Ankara and Tehran than the parties whose central goal is the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The PKK and PJAK have a long transactional history with Iran that runs through confrontation, ceasefires, tacit coexistence and periods of restraint, including PJAK's 2011 ceasefire with Tehran. During the 2026 war PJAK's stance was ambiguous. It joined the Iranian Kurdish coalition and some fighters said they were ready to fight, yet its parent movement opposed the war and it avoided the open alignment with US and Israeli plans that PAK embraced. That relative restraint makes PJAK a more predictable presence on the border than groups openly seeking foreign sponsorship for a war of regime change.
More details: https://thenationalcontext.com/turkey-nears-certifying-the-pkk-dissolved-as-pjak-expands-along-the-iranian-frontier/
According to well-connected Turkish sources, the verification process of the PKK disarmament is already in advanced stages with two reports suggesting that the national intelligence service (MIT) and the armed forces (TSK) are expected to verify PKK disarmament and camp evacuation across August and September, after which their assessment goes to Erdogan and the MGK. If the timetable holds, the Turkish National Security Council could declare the PKK formally dissolved in October, after which the declaration would be the reference point for everything that follows, including the return mechanism of the fighters, which begins its six-month period for allowing application from those who wish to return and have their legal cases cleared.
The certification is said to be in motion amid the parallel integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian state. However, the one key element of the wider PKK-linked armed system that shows no equivalent movement is PJAK, the PKK's Iranian-Kurdish affiliate, which is increasingly digging along the border with Iran. So what will happen to PJAK?
Turkey has likely separated the Iranian file from the disarmament requirements it is imposing on the PKK in Iraq and the SDF in Syria. PJAK is being retained, for now, as a controlled Iran-facing structure while Iran's political future remains unsettled.
The reasons PJAK cannot be dissolved on the same schedule are concrete. Most of its cadres are Iranian citizens who cannot safely return to Iran, and Iran offers no reconciliation framework comparable to Turkey's law. Placing these fighters in exposed camps would turn them into targets, and the regime whose future would determine their fate is itself unsettled by a US-Iran war that remains unresolved. Dissolving PJAK now would also empty a stretch of frontier that Ankara has strong reasons not to leave open.
Ankara's central concern on this border is the prospect of an Israeli or US-backed Iranian Kurdish military front forming there, and that concern operates largely independently of its rivalry with Iran itself. During the February 2026 war, interest emerged in mobilising Iranian Kurdish armed groups against Tehran, and some of them, PAK most openly, were receptive. Hakan Fidan and other Turkish officials warned publicly against Israel making use of Kurdish actors in the region. A frontier held by PJAK is a frontier that the KDPI, Komala or PAK cannot dominate, and PJAK is the actor over which Ankara has the most potential influence through Ocalan and the new peace architecture. Its value lies in occupying the ground and constraining the rivals.
PJAK is also more manageable to both Ankara and Tehran than the parties whose central goal is the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The PKK and PJAK have a long transactional history with Iran that runs through confrontation, ceasefires, tacit coexistence and periods of restraint, including PJAK's 2011 ceasefire with Tehran. During the 2026 war PJAK's stance was ambiguous. It joined the Iranian Kurdish coalition and some fighters said they were ready to fight, yet its parent movement opposed the war and it avoided the open alignment with US and Israeli plans that PAK embraced. That relative restraint makes PJAK a more predictable presence on the border than groups openly seeking foreign sponsorship for a war of regime change.
More details: https://thenationalcontext.com/turkey-nears-certifying-the-pkk-dissolved-as-pjak-expands-along-the-iranian-frontier/