It Could Happen Here - What Does the PKK's Disarmament Mean

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

James is joined by Wladimir Van Wilgenburg to discuss the recent disarmament ceremony conducted by the PKK, the fighting between the Syrian Government and Druze people, and the future of the Kurdish freedom movement in Rojava. Follow Wladimir: https://x.com/vvanwilgenburgSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family Listen to United States of Kennedy's on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts web, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, a different type of podcast. You the listener, ask the questions, did George Washington really cut down a

cherry tree? JFK and Marilyn Monroe having an affair? And I find the answers. I'm so glad you asked me this question. This is such a ridiculous story. You can listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Coolzone Media. Hi everyone and welcome to What Could Happen Here.

It is a second episode about Kurdistan. I am very lucky to be joined today by Vladimir Van Wilgenberg, who many of you will know is a journalist covering Kurdistan. He's done excellent work for a lot of publications. So welcome to the show Vladimir. Thanks so much for the invitation. Yeah, thanks for being willing to join us so late at night. Your time.

Let's start off by discussing an event you attended or an event you were in proximity to by the sounds of it. People will have seen this online, I'm sure, but it was the disarmament of a number of PKK guerrillas that took place in the mountains of southern Kurdistan over the weekend of the 10th to 12th of July? So yeah, a few days ago I tried to attend a ceremony from 30 PKK guerrillas that were disarming. Basically what happened is that they burned their weapons, although technically it's not really possible to burn a weapon because there were these colossal costs basically that they put in a fire. And it was in like actually a tourist cave near Dokan. So this was actually very different because

I also have been in the during the peace process. I've also was in a press conference of the PKK in 2014 or 15 or some around that time. And that was very different because it was basically in the area that the PKK is active in. It was in the area under their control. But this was under a different Kurdish party's control. It's called the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. So in Iraqi Kurdistan, you have two main parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and you have the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

So this cave where they did the ceremony, which is actually a tourist cave, it's in the PUK controlled area. So the ceremony was sort of protected by PUK security forces. And that's why also the PUK media, they got a lot of special access. And also there was the Turkish government media was there and also the PKK media got a lot of special access. And also, the Turkish government media was there, and also PKK media was there, and a lot of other Kurdish TV channels. So it was a very interesting day, although I wasn't able to pass the checkpoint towards the ceremony, because at the last moment, actually a few days before the ceremony, they

changed the access. Supposedly it would be a very open ceremony, but then they said because of security reasons that they had to restrict the ceremony and there would be some TV screens and stuff. In the end I couldn't find the TV screens, but that's another discussion. But I also don't still understand what the security risk was. Although a day before there was a drone strike on a Kurdish Peshmerga base, but that was like quite far away from that. It was one hour away from the ceremony location.

Yeah, and it's an Iranian drone strike, right? Like a Shaheed drone. Yeah, so there have been like no group has claimed these attacks, but in the aftermath of the 12-day war, there have been a lot of drone strikes in the Kurdistan region in various areas, including this morning on American oil companies facility in the Duhok province. And the day before that also on another field near Erbil. So it has been quite tense, which also probably affected the ceremony, although it's not really related to it. Yeah, it is different.

So yeah, basically what was interesting, so they have this peace process between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish state. It all started with a call by a Turkish ultra nationalist leader, which actually in the past actually called for executing Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party who has been in prison since the 90s, he was actually surprisingly starting this peace process. He was saying like, we should have him talk in the parliament and call for disbanding the PKK. So he never came to the parliament, but he released messages from prison. And before the ceremony, he released also a video message where he again focused on

disarming basically. And then the ceremony basically came where you have 30 fighters, 15 women, 15 men, because the PKK is all about women equality. So that's why they did it 50-50. And they put their weapons in this fire. So I think this also signifies a point of renewal because Kurds, as a tradition, they have this Kurdish New Year every year on March 21, where people jump over fires, there's a lot of fireworks, and the Kurdish Nauros is basically the start of a new beginning.

So I think one of the reasons they chose these fires is because of this idea of a new beginning. And also the fact that when the PKK started, there were people that sort of the creators of the PKK, they're actually some of them, they burned themselves in prison in the Turkish prison. Yeah. So it's also sort of related to that, this sort of interlinkage with a fire. Yeah. And you also saw that they carefully interlinkage with a fire. Yeah. And you also saw that they carefully put the weapons in the fire.

They didn't just throw them. So it's, it doesn't mean that they have completely given up on weapons, because they're still waiting on, on counter steps from the Turkish government. Yeah. I think there has been fighting between PKK or HPG or how you want to say it, like HPG being like the technically the armed wing. There has been fighting in in southern Kurdistan, like so in Iraqi KRG Kurdistan autonomous region of Iraq since the call for peace. Right. Like there has been ongoing fighting. Yeah, I mean, it's not really, I would not say that it's like, like actively fighting to take territory, which was happening before. So it's more that it's some like Turkish army

is shooting artillery on the PKK. And there was also one incident that the PKK actually responded by drones. But so far, this didn't reach much in the Turkish or the Kurdish media. I mean, there were like some of this artillery shelling caused some fires, some villagers in the areas. It's a very hot summer now. They were trying to put out the fires. But it was not like the active fighting that you had before. And you know, since there was also a previous peace process, I mean, there have been several peace processes since history between the PKK and Turkey, but they never had the positive result. And the last one before this one was 2015. And after that peace process broke down when two policemen were shot, it's still unclear

who shot those policemen. The fighting erupted again. And since then, there have been heavy fighting first in the Kurdish majority areas of Turkey until basically Turkey defeated Kurdish armed insurgents in the Kurdish cities in Turkey. And since then, actually, the fighting has moved more to Iraqi Kurdistan, where the PKK has also a historical presence since the 90s. Iraqi Kurdistan, where the PKK has also a historical presence since the 90s. But what you now have is that you have this new peace process started by this call of Baseli. And the PKK leader, Otozhan, has said the time for armed struggle is over.

We don't want to have a Kurdish state. So basically what now is happening is that the Kurdish PKK and the Kurdish political counterpart in Turkey, they're basically waiting for steps by Turkey now to give them basically trust to continue this process. And there was also a speech by the Turkish president Erdogan, where he was also saying that it's the end, we don't need anymore, we need to talk. It's not a time for weapons anymore. We spent trillions of dollars on the war against the PKK. We had a lot of martyrs and we sacrificed

a lot. And it's now the time to stop the war and to do talking. And he said they're going to work with the Kurdish party and this ultra Turkish nationalist party, the MHP, in the parliament and to also set up a commission to basically work on constitutional changes. Yeah. Let's take a break for adverts here and then we'll come back. Ugh, come on, why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech?

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Win the tech search at lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond.

And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you. The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it.

So is there a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. Well, women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF, and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your

questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it.

Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From iHeart podcasts and Rococo Punch, this is the turning, River Road. I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that meant. In the woods of Minnesota a cult leader married himself to ten girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. Why did I think

that way? Why did I allow myself to get so sucked in by this man and thinking to the point that if I died for him that would be the greatest honor? But in 2014, the youngest of the girls escaped and sparked an international manhunt. For all those years, you know, he was the predator and I was the prey. And then he became the prey. Listen to the turning river road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are back. I guess we should talk briefly about the

nature of this this call peace. You explained very well that this is probably a higher chance of success than there has ever been, right? Like we have the explicit buy-in of Ocalan, who hasn't been seen on video since the 90s. So to have him making a video statement is quite significant. I'm sure he's been seen on video, but not making a speech. And then we have this endorsement in the Turkish parliament. Like I think there's been a lot of speculation about what led to this and some of it's not particularly helpful, but you know, you're very well educated on these matters. What do you think this means for not just the PKK, but the KCK, I guess, like the Kurdish

freedom movement, the different movements throughout Kurdistan that are inspired by the political thought of Oshulan. Well, I mean, until now, it's difficult to say what exactly is going to happen because the PKK said they're going to go, they will disarm. But there's other groups which are linked to the PKK in Iran, in Syria, and also for instance in Sinjar, those groups said they were not, some of them have said publicly that we are not part of this process or they welcome the process. And others they didn't really say much, the Yazidis group haven't said really a lot. So it's also going to be interesting what will happen with those groups, with the Iranian Kurdish group and also with the Syrian Democratic forces in Syria that have a different situation.

Also after the fall of Assad, they have these talks with Damascus. And actually, one of the reasons that the first peace process broke down was because that in actually at that time also that Turkey was a little bit afraid of this alliance between the Kurds and the Americans at the time against ISIS that was then rising up in Syria and attacked the Kurdish town of Koban in Syria, which created an alliance between the Kurds and US against the ISIS terrorist militant jihadi group. But now the situation actually is interesting. So at that time, the Kurds were empowered in Syria, but now you can see there's a completely

different situation. Now it's the opposite way. So now you have the rebels that took over Damascus and they are now the government run by Jullani, his previous name, who's now call himself Ahmed al-Shara, his real name. So we now have a new Islamist controlled government in Damascus, and there's a lot of tension between the Kurds in Syria and Damascus. So, this could also risk basically this peace process with Turkey because the SDF, they have also ideological links with the PKK. So, it's also interesting how this will work out. So, in the past, it was also

always like the fighting between Turkey and the PKK could threaten the SCF in Syria, but that was sort of the other way around, that fighting between possible fighting in the future between Damascus and the Kurds in Syria could threaten the peace process in Turkey. And Erdogan, he made this very big speech not a very long time ago where he mentioned that Turkey doesn't only want peace for the Kurds in Turkey, and for Alawites also a religious minority in Turkey. But he was also talking that he wants peace for the Kurds in Syria and also in Iraq, that they should also live like a prosperous life in Syria, and that they have good relations with the Syrian government. So I think that's also a very interesting point that you don't see in many articles,

that there's like this very big interlinkage between all these different issues. Yeah. And I think Turkey has maintained that the SDF is the PKK, right? Just with like a different badge, which is not the case. They share a lot of politics, but they're distinct. Turkey also has like extensive proxy forces in Syria, right? That have been fighting with the SDF since, I guess, like late, well, I mean, for, for years, but like in an expanded sense, since, since the beginning of the fall of the Assad regime that we saw, like probably seven or eight months ago now.

No, it's a very complex situation. It's also as we, as we record this today on the 15th, Syria is a very diverse country and to add to all the groups you mentioned, there is currently fighting between the government and Druze militias, right? Can you explain a little bit about the situation there and the relevance of that? Well, I mean, the Druze, they are a religious community that are not same as the Sunni Muslims. And they control their own area on the border, the town called Sueda, and the villages around it. And also they have some areas in Damascus where they have a presence. So the Druze, basically during the time when the Assad regime still was in power,

they didn't really like fight very heavily against the Assad regime still was in power, they didn't really fight very heavily against the Assad regime in the beginning, but they didn't allow the Assad regime to recruit military, recruit people in their area, and they sort of tried to keep the regime out of their area. So during the civil war, they were sort of semi-autonomous, but not officially. And actually, in the last years before the fall of Assad, there were like a big protest in the Druze areas in support of the Syrian revolution and against the Assad regime. So there were like very big protests in the Druze areas against the Assad regime.

So when the Assad regime was militarily weakening and the rebels from the other side of Syria, they were attacking the Assad regime. The Druze, they also joined the fight and they marched together with the southern rebels, they marched on Damascus. And they were actually the first one that entered Damascus, not Ahmed al-Shara or the HDS. Actually, the first ones that entered Damascus was the southern rebels and the Druze. But there's this thing is that Damascus wants to have this new regime or the new government in Damascus. They want to have this very centralized system. So they don't want the Druze to run their own armed groups and they have their own sort of local autonomy. So they have been fighting before

between the Druze and the new authorities in Syria in areas near Damascus. But there was like a ceasefire and the fighting stopped. But recently there's also like historical tensions between these Arab Bedouin tribes and the Druze in these areas. So these areas are quite mixed. So there's actually this recent conflict they started when Bedouin tribes they robbed like a merchant who was a Druze. And then after that, there were mutual kidnapping tensions between both sides.

And then basically, although Damascus said they were neutral, Damascus started to support these Bedouin groups against the Druze and started marching on Sueda, which is the Druze stronghold on the border. And so actually there have been a few days, not even a few days, but there have been a short period of fighting now. And actually, Damascus, they entered this Druze town of Sueda and they actually said, okay, we control the town now and now we're going to withdraw the Syrian army and then the internal security forces going to control the city. Very shortly after, Israel started bombing heavily the Syrian armed forces of the new Syrian government. And then the Druze armed groups, they sort of pushed back and they pushed out this internal security forces out of the city. And now the Druze are, according to many reports,

back in control of the city of Soweda. And now you see that just like what happened with the Alawites when there was this Assad regime remnants that had an uprising against the new authorities. And then there were like these rebels, they were mobilized with mosque all over Syria and they went to the coast areas and they defeated those Assad regime remnants, but they killed also a lot of civilians, some reports say over 1500 people. So what you now see is that Damascus is against mobilizing those people with mosques to march on Soweda, but the difference is with the Alawites is that Israel also has Druze. So there's also pressure the Israeli government to support the Druze. So,

it's not only because of their strategic interests, it's also because there are Druze living in Israel itself that also have joined the Israeli army. So, they're also pushing Israel for taking action. So, you saw that today, like Israel, they took a lot of, they carried out a lot of air strikes and the Druze, they are basically back in control of most of the Sueda city, not of the whole area. But the fight is not over yet and then you also have different Druze factions. Some of them have better relations with Damascus, the majority of them don't. So now we're going to see if the fight is going to increase again.

We see now reports also that the HDS or the Damascus government forces are using drone strikes by themselves on Druze forces. So they're using basically the drones that they use to overthrow the Assad regime. Okay. So yeah, that's the situation. Yeah. I think the world stopped looking at Syria. I mean, I guess the world stopped looking at Syria a while ago.

Like really after the defeat of the territorial caliphate, it's been much harder to sell stories in big newspapers in the United States. But yeah, it's by no means like the fighting is not over and it leaves their SDF, Western Kurdistan branch of this Kurdish movement, right? Like in, as you said, a fairly perilous condition, right, that the Damascus wants to centralize, like they want to have, they don't want to have independence, they don't want to have like federated autonomy. The United States seems to be, or at least the United States envoy to Damascus seems to be making statements that suggests that like,

the only way forward is through centralization. To the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, ultra light, ultra powerful, and built for serious productivity with Intel Core Ultra processors, blazing speed, and AI-powered performance that keeps up with your business, not the other way around. Whoa, this thing moves! Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech search at Lenovo.com. Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car

into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you. The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. Well, women said something like no 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is

glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said.

It would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American history hotline on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. For My Heart podcasts and Rococo Punch, this is The Turning, River Road. I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that meant. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. Why did I think that way? Why did I allow myself to get so sucked in by this man

and thinking to the point that if I died for him that would be the greatest honor? and thinking to the point that if I died for him, that would be the greatest honor. But in 2014, the youngest of the girls escaped and sparked an international manhunt. For all those years, you know, he was the predator and I was the prey. And then he became the prey. Listen to The Turning, River Road, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On one hand, we have the PKK laying down arms, the other hand, we have the SDF in this difficult position. Where does this leave the Kurdish freedom movement? I think this has been a thing that a lot of people all over the world have looked up to, right? People have, especially Roshava is this example that people could build something,

a place where freedom could exist in the middle of this terrible war in Syria. Do you think the movement's like in danger now? Well, I mean, you have this new government in Syria, actually, and in addition to the Trump administration was quite reluctant to have relations with the new authorities in Damascus because they were, I mean, Jolani used to be on a, Ahmad Shada used to be on a terrorist sanction list. Yeah, there was a bounty for him at one point, wasn't there? Yeah, but I think there was like a very intensive lobbying by some Gulf states and Turkey to

basically remove the sanctions on Ahmad Shj Jolani, but also remove sanctions on Syria, the economic sanctions that were actually on the Assad regime. So I think the Trump administration changed their position and also a new ambassador for Syria and Turkey was appointed. So he was not only the ambassador for Turkey, but also for Syria. And he's basically echoing a lot of the points of the new authorities in Damascus that they were talking about one state, one army, one this, one this, and the SDF should be integrated and blah, blah, blah. So there was also recently there were talks between the mosque and the SDF because in March they reached an agreement with Western

support and they were trying to basically make a more finalized agreement in recently a few days ago. They had these talks in Damascus and the French were there and the Brits were there and Americans were there. But this agreement was not implemented, it didn't lead to anything. So it was not really, it didn't really work very well because Damascus is insisting on this centralized state and I was just listening to a Syrian Kurdish official, and she was also saying like, we don't want to separate from Syria, but we want to have some form of local councils and a decentralized Syria, not like a centralized Syria. And she was also talking about what happened to the Druze, that it's not a very good example for the future of Syria. So I think definitely what you're saying that there is a sort of threat because in the past

the US was very supportive of the SDF in the fight against ISIS, although they didn't support so much their political project, but they supported them because they fought ISIS. And also they were keeping out Iranian-backed militias from areas like Deir ez-Zor. But now you don't have Iran anymore in Syria. They were completely kicked out after the fall of the Assad regime. All these militias have been disbanded or hiding. Or some of them are actually now being used by the muskets against the Druze. So now that argument is not there anymore that you, okay, we have the SDF, they keep

out Iran from the oil fields. Yeah, you could still argue you still have the fight against ISIS. I mean, ISIS is the SDF. They keep out Iran from the oil fields. Yeah, you could still argue you have still have the fight against ISIS. I mean, ISIS is still a threat. Yeah. But the Kurds don't have that same leverage anymore as is in the past that they said, okay, we are the main ones fighting ISIS. We keep out Iran from these areas because now you have Damascus. Damascus said, why the Kurds should do that?

Like, let's us take over those prisons and the camps where you have this thousands of ISIS families and ISIS prisoners and we don't need the Kurds to run the ISIS file, we can do that for you. So I think that's now the big issue is that the US seems to be more supporting the Muscovites at least diplomatically than the SDF. Although, military speaking, the support is still going on for the SDF until 2026. In the last Pentagon budget, which was not accepted yet, there's still like millions of support for the SDF to maintain the prisons and this kind of stuff. So I think it's a difficult situation. Yeah. These prisons like Al Hall and others, right? Like they, they're, I guess, kind of the only leverage the FDF has with the United States, along with the continuing and somewhat increasing ISIS attacks.

Yeah. But that's still much less of a threat to the US than it was 10 years ago, say. Right? Like it's much less of a threat to the US than it was 10 years ago, say, right? Like it's much less of a significant thing. So like, what is the status of those prisons that currently they're still guided by the SDF, right? But people aren't familiar. Can you just explain what those prisons consist of and like who's in there and who's guarding

them? Well, so ISIS created this jihadi state between 2014 and 2019, but then the Kurdish-led SDF, they basically took most of these areas under ISIS control. They defeated basically ISIS with the support of the US, so they lost the territory. And the last battle basically was for a small town called Barghuz in Deir ez-Zor. So you had all these ISIS families there and also there were like several ISIS foreign members that were captured. So you have the wives of ISIS fighters and you also have ISIS fighters themselves that were captured during these battles. So all

these people, they were brought to camps. So I was there in Syria many times, for instance, during the battle for Raqqa, which used to be the capital of the ISIS caliphate. They were bringing the ISIS families and women to a camp in Ain al-Issa. But after that, they moved most of those people to, actually they moved almost all of them to the Roj camp and the Al-Hol camp in northern Syria in the Hasakah province. And also that includes foreigners. You can imagine people from Uzbekistan, from Uyghurs, from China, people from Turkey, French people, European people. So it's full of a lot of different people. And then the majority are actually Iraqis and Syrians.

So the SDF, they have this file. A majority, like a lot of people in those camps, they have been repatriated or they have to return to their homes. So I think those camps, like a whole camp, like the prison, it's not a prison, it's a camp. I think like the number of people there basically decreased almost 50 percent, but there's still a lot of people on site. But the prisons, you have still all these ISIS fighters that were in prison during the war. And a lot of them are foreigners, including Dutch, another country. And some countries they have returned their people there. So we have some people, you know, America, they took back most of the families and the fighters

and they prosecute them in the US. But you also have counties that didn't bring back the fighters. For instance, they only brought back the woman. So that's the situation that all those people are still there. And it's actually what you mentioned, it is like one of the big reasons for support for the SDF. And it's also one of the reasons that the SDF is getting millions to keep those prisons in good shape, because there have been also attempts by ISIS to free those prisoners from those prisons.

Basically. Yeah. in good shape because there have been also attempts by ISIS to free those prisoners from those prisons basically. Yeah. And successful attempts in 2020, 2022, I think it was when they had the, uh, the last like major prison escape. Yeah. Which yeah, it's a bad thing for the whole world. If, uh, if, if all those, all those people get out and like you say, lots of, uh, European nations, I think it's something that I wish

Americans had paid more attention to, because a thing that European nations have done, the United Kingdom being a paramount example, is like rendered some of those people stateless. Right. That they've removed their, in this case, Shamima Begum is probably the most well-known example, right? They've removed her British passport. Now she doesn't have a state.

She's stateless. It's something that the US has recently done to people living in the United States. And like, it does feel something, because if, you know, the precedent has been established and now it's being carried out and it's obviously deeply concerning to see it happening here after, after like it happened there. I wish people had opposed it when it did. Well, I mean, the US itself in Syria was a big advocate of bringing the people out. Yes, it was.

Yeah. Because it would make it easier for them to withdraw. So they were actually pushing those countries that didn't want to bring back their nationals to basically bring them back, like Western countries, the UK and others. But some of these countries were actually forced by court orders or others, but a lot of these countries were actually quite reluctant to bring them back because they were afraid of security risk and stuff or that they will be released quite quickly and then they would again be active in jihadist activities. Yeah, yeah.

So, yes, so I remember that the US was even offering like members of this coalition against ISIS, which was created in 2014. But she said, if you cannot bring them yourself, I mean, we can, our military can help you to bring those people out if you think that you, it's difficult for you to go to Syria and pick those nationals up from your accounts. Yeah, yeah. It's been pretty unsuccessful. Well, in some European cases they have, but still lots of them are utterly refusing to do it. I wonder then, as we finish up here, we spoke about this PKK disarmament.

Obviously, it's a symbolic disarmament. I don't quite know how big the HPG is, but it's much bigger than 30 people. And then the weapons they laid down were like a very small percentage of their weapons. Were they just burning Kalashnikovs or did they burn larger weapons too? No, it was just their personal Kalashnikovs basically. Okay. So I mean, it was also like more symbolic, symbolic ceremony, like we are willing to give up. But the thing is that also it's still not clear what happened to

those 30 people. Are they going to go back to Turkey? That's what I wanted to ask. Yeah. Are they going to stay in Iraqi Kurdistan and find a job there? Because you have people like that in Iraqi Kurdistan that used to be with the PKK and that now they work in, I don't know, in media or construction sector or entertainment sector. You have people like that. But there's not much clarity on that. But I think also that's because they're waiting on Turkey to make possible constitutional steps to see what Turkey is going to do. Because if, for instance, Turkey could offer an amnesty or this kind of things, then those

people could return. And also some of them are them were saying like now it's the end of weapons but we still want to be involved in politics right through the political party so it's also possible that those people want want to go back to Turkey and basically take part in Kurdish politics or Turkish politics to be more correct in in Turkey so I think it's a little bit too early to say what happens with those people because I remember also if I very much corrected there also have been peace process that basically people have given basically went to the border and give themselves up to Turkey but that didn't happen now so this it's a bit different than in the past. Yeah but it seems that the Turkish

government was very happy with the with the ceremony they didn't complain about it so. Okay yeah yeah i wondered what happened so those gorillas or former gorillas i suppose who laid down their weapons at the end of the ceremony they just kind of returned to the mountains or whatever like we don't know what what will happen with them now that's that's not clear to me because there are still some unanswered questions like what you mentioned now like what those 30 people did yeah what those people are gonna do now, so right. It's a lot of people and it's a lot of people some of whom have spent

Decades as cadre of the revolution or a little bit They they haven't they haven't really known life outside of the revolution for a very long time Yeah, so it's also a bit difficult for them to return to civilian life because, I mean, because that's they probably joined when they're quite young. And I think I saw sort of profiles of the people, of the 30 people who burned their weapons that they a lot of them they joined in the 90s. Wow. So they have been in they have been in the mountains for a very long time.

Yeah. I mean, some of them were young, but there were also older people among them. But definitely, it's going to be a question what will happen with those people. Although, I mean, there were also talks that some leadership of the armed PKK movement might go to Europe and get asylum there instead of going back to Turkey. You know, you have also a lot of Kurdish diaspora organizations active there, so they could like basically embrace those people. Yeah, but they're still listed as a foreign terrorist organization in most of...

Yeah, exactly. I mean, for instance, they probably would want to have something like what the Syrian president have now, Ahmed Al-Shara, that he used to be listed as a sanctioned as a terrorist organization and then to have that removed. But I'm sure that that's not on the table anytime soon. But that happened with the HDS. But also it happened, for instance, Mujeddin-Ghalq and Iranian opposition group,

they also got delisted. So it's technically as possible. But I think we are like in a very early stage of the peace process. So that's why I think it's gonna take time before we have more clarity. And some of these answers that questions you ask now, I mean, most of the people that attended the ceremony didn't have an answer to that too, because

there was not much clarity on that. Because it was just a ceremony, there was like a statement. Journalists were not able to talk to most of the journalists. I mean, there was like some statement in some Kurdish media, but in general, like they were not able to talk to those fighters, like now what are you going to do? There was not like access to those 30 people that burned their weapons. Yeah. So, so it was like sort of quite very much controlled ceremony. It was very difficult to, to report on it basically, which is very different from the

previous priest process when it was much more open. Yeah. But that time there was not like 30 fighters giving up their weapons. They just had like sort of a press conference. This is what we're going to do. And that was very different than what happened now. Yeah, yeah. I guess it's something just to keep watching. It's fascinating to watch it unfold. Like I was in Kurdistan a year and a half ago and it just seems the situation is completely different likewise in the whole of Syria. So yeah, it's fascinating to watch. I'm sure if people want to know more about it, you're very good at reporting on this.

You often post on Twitter about the situation and you write for number of outlets. So how can people follow your work? Well, the best place to follow my work is on Twitter on X because I'm quite active there. Twitter on X because I'm quite active there. But also I write for places like Middle East Eye, some think tanks like Washington Institute, New Alliance Institute. I also write for a Kurdish magazine called Kurdistan Chronicle. And also I pitch for other websites. So I'm quite active on different issues, but mostly focused on things related to Kurds.

So mostly stuff related to Iran, Turkey, Syria, etc. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your insight. You're welcome, my friend. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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