Baku, Ankara foster cooperation with Iraqi Kurdistan While Armenia harasses Yezidis

Azerbaijan, Türkiye, and Iraqi Kurdistan could create mechanisms for trilateral cooperation. The statement was made by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev during the meeting with the Head of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani in Munich on February 18. Noting the historical and cultural ties between Iraqi Kurdistan and Azerbaijan, Nechirvan Barzani brought to attention that this region has very close relations with Türkiye, and joint cooperation projects may be considered in this context.

It was noted that Azerbaijan and Türkiye have brotherly ties and in the future, arrangements for trilateral cooperation may be envisaged. Noting there is a great potential for the development of economic and trade relations with Iraqi Kurdistan, the President of Azerbaijan invited Barzani to pay a visit to our country.

Favorable prospects for such a cooperation format seem possible also because Iraqi Kurdistan has emerged as an important regional factor, having become the most stable and prosperous region of Iraq, which in turn has close trade and economic ties with Türkiye. For example, among the neighbouring countries, Iraq was Türkiye's main exporter in January-June 2022, with exports amounting to $4,837,698,000.

Another confirmation of the consistent development of relations between Türkiye and the Iraqi Kurdistan Region was the January visit of its head Nechirvan Barzani to Ankara. According to Shafaq News, during the meeting, Barzani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan's bilateral relations with Türkiye. Both sides stressed the mutual readiness to develop the relations between the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and Türkiye, especially in the trade, economic and energy fields. They also touched upon the issues of securing joint borders, the threat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the situation in the Middle East in general and other issues of mutual interest.

The relevance of strengthening Türkiye's cooperation with Iraqi Kurdistan is largely due to the fact that Kurds constitute a significant part of the population in Turkey, being the second-largest nation in the country and the largest national minority. According to ethnolinguistic estimates, 11 million people in Türkiye speak Kurdish, i.e. 13 per cent of the country's population. According to statistics, there are about 4 million Kurds in Iraq, about 7 million in Iran, and the same number in Syria. According to various sources, some 30,000 Kurds also live in Armenia. Though if to take into account that Armenia aspires to become 100 per cent monoethnic state, Kurds there rather simply survive in conditions of mass oppression. After the expulsion of the indigenous Azerbaijani population from Armenia in the late 1980s, Armenians directed all their hatred at the Yezidis, an ethnoreligious group of Kurds, persecuting and killing them. This was exemplified by a tragic event that took place in Armenia in August 2017, when a man broke into a hall for funeral ceremonies in the cemetery of Shamiram village and shot at Yezidis gathered there to perform their religious rituals.

Or an example from the recent past. In August 2021, Freedom House called on the Armenian authorities to stop the criminal prosecution of Sashik Sultanyan, a Yezidi human rights activist who had been politically persecuted in Armenia for allegedly inciting ethnic hatred between the Armenian and Yezidi peoples. The reason for the criminal case against Sultanyan was an interview, although he claimed that it was a private conversation with a journalist from an Iraqi media outlet, the recording of which appeared on the Internet without his knowledge. In his conversation with the journalist, the human rights defender openly admitted that the rights of Yezidis in Armenia are not protected, that Armenians ridicule them and show discrimination in their relations, that Armenian Yezidis have no opportunity to learn their native language and develop their culture. Notably, the illegal prosecution of the Yezidi human rights defender has attracted the attention of a number of international organisations, in particular, UN human rights experts Fernand de Varennes, Mary Lawlor, and Irene Khan have called on the Armenian authorities to immediately stop persecuting Sashik Sultanyan and other Yezidis. Mark Behrendt, Director for Europe and Eurasia programs at Freedom House, has said that the unjustified political persecution of the Yezidi human rights defender is disturbing, both in terms of the attitude to ethnic minorities in Armenia and in terms of the government's response to criticism.

In the same context, we can also recall the notorious story related to the attacks on Yurik Broyan, a Yezidi soldier, who in his first 10 days of service in the Armenian occupation army in Aghdere was severely beaten by a battalion commander nicknamed "Bad" and then subjected to a beating by the military police. As a result, Broyan ended up in a psychiatric hospital. However, despite the fact that the 20-year-old Broyan suffered from a hereditary mental illness, the conscript was deemed partially fit for military service and was sent to Karabakh, which was occupied at the time. We know only that he is now in a very bad condition, can hardly move, and can answer questions only by nodding "yes" or turning his head from side to side "no."

All these monstrous examples of inhuman treatment of Yezidis are bright evidence of Armenia's nationalist policy, which grinds the Kurdish population - the only minority in Armenia - under its wheels. It is no coincidence that the US State Department's International Report on Religious Freedom, published in June 2020, touched on the problems of religious minorities in Armenia. In particular, it noted that religious minorities in Armenia continue to face manifestations of hatred and the cultivation of their negative image. The report also pointed out that Yezidi military personnel are denied the right to form their own religious community and the right to preach their faith during service and among their fellow soldiers, while the law grants the Armenian Church a free entrance and presence in hospitals, kindergartens, boarding schools, military units and prisons.

The murder of Yezidi soldier Artur Adjamyan in December 2019 in a unit of the Armenian occupying contingent in Karabakh points to the fact that Yezidis have the hardest time in the Armenian army. The body of the deceased Adjamyan was found to show signs of violence, which, according to the forensic investigation, were inflicted at different times. However, death came as a result of a shot to the head - he was shot from above, as the bullet entered from the front and exited from the back of the head. And that wasn't the only case - the Armenian army is known to routinely brutalise Yezidi soldiers.

Ironically, Armenia, which has never stopped oppressing Yezidis, impudently accuses Türkiye of infringing upon the rights of the Kurdish population, thus inciting hatred between the two nations, as Armenians always do. That is why it is so urgent today to strengthen trilateral ties between Azerbaijan, Türkiye and Iraqi Kurdistan, which will undoubtedly hit very hard the interests of Armenia, which continues to lie and falsify facts in its attempts to win the sympathy of the world community. Unification in the trilateral format would undoubtedly be beneficial for the whole region, both economically and in terms of security.