Kurdish PKK fighters to begin disarming at key ceremony
The disarmament ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) from armed insurgency to democratic politics, as part of a broader effort to draw a line under one of the region's longest-running conflicts.
Founded in the late 1970s by Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK took up arms in 1984, beginning a string of bloody attacks on Turkish soil that sparked a conflict that cost more than 40,000 lives.
But more than four decades on, the PKK in May announced its dissolution, saying it would pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a historic call by Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence in Turkey since 1999.
Friday's ceremony was to take place during the morning at an undisclosed location in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan -- where most of the PKK's fighters have been holed up for the past decade -- near the northeastern city of Sulaimaniyah.
Although there were limited details about the ceremony, a PKK source told AFP around 30 fighters would destroy their weapons and then return to the mountains.
"As a gesture of goodwill, a number of PKK fighters, who took part in fighting Turkish forces in recent years, will destroy or burn their weapons in a ceremony," a PKK commander told AFP on July 1, speaking on condition of anonymity.
- 'Power of politics' -
The move is a key step in the months-long indirect negotiations between Ocalan and Ankara that began in October with the blessing of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and have been facilitated by Turkey's pro-Kurdish DEM party.
Among those expected to attend the ceremony were several DEM lawmakers, who arrived in Sulaimaniyah on Thursday, and a handful of journalists.
It was not clear whether the ceremony would be broadcast live.
"I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons. And I urge you to put this principle into practice," Ocalan said in a video message released on Wednesday, pledging that the disarmament process would be "implemented swiftly".
Erdogan said peace efforts with the Kurds would gain momentum after the PKK began laying down its weapons.
"The process will gain a little more speed when the terrorist organisation starts to implement its decision to lay down arms," he said at the weekend.
"We hope this auspicious process will end successfully as soon as possible, without mishaps or sabotage attempts," he added on Wednesday.
In recent months, the PKK has taken several historic steps, starting with a ceasefire and culminating in its formal dissolution announced on May 12.
The shift followed an appeal on February 27 by Ocalan, who has spent the past 26 years in solitary confinement on Imrali prison island near Istanbul.
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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
In Iran, heat, drought and a lack of water emerge as yet another crisis
After living through a 12-day war with Israel, the people of Iran have been hit with a second crisis, as devastating heat, a prolonged drought and decades of mismanagement culminate in severe water shortages. Water and energy outages are now a daily occurrence as the country edges closer to "day zero", with warnings Tehran's water supply could run dry in just weeks. "We are talking about a possible day zero in Tehran," Professor Kaveh Madani, Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health said. "We are facing this situation of no water and no electricity during extreme heat and on top of that, we are seeing wildfires here and there, dust storms, and so on." Tehran's population of 16.8 million people had previously been immune to the impacts of drought, with a large portion of their clean drinking supply coming from groundwater. "Iran is having one more very dry year, even drier than the most recent dry years, and the reservoirs are empty," Madani said. "Surface water is not sufficient and Iran has been draining a lot of groundwater in many areas, so the groundwater level is low." In July, ongoing heatwaves with temperatures exceeding 50 degrees prompted Iranian authorities to ask people to conserve water. The Iranian regime even made the drastic move to create a public holiday in an attempt to reduce energy and water demands. Tehran's provincial water management company called for a reduction of "at least 20 per cent" to help ease the shortages. Madani, who previously worked as the deputy head of Iran's Department of Environment, said the fact the regime was being so open about the crisis was an indicator of just how serious the situation was. "The public don't necessarily react in a positive way because they remind those in charge about those warnings, about all the things that the scientists said years ago. "And they ask, why did you dismiss them?" While the five-year drought has played a large part in Iran's water woes, the crisis has been amplified by decades of overuse and mismanagement. The mass construction of dams by the Iranian government in recent years has caused many areas downstream to dry out, including Isfahan, where farmers have been protesting a lack of water supply for years. Around 90 per cent of Iran's water is used in agriculture, with current irrigation practices highly inefficient. Professor Peter Scales from the University of Melbourne travelled to Lake Urmia in the country's north a decade ago, on a failed project to restore the region's largest lake, which dried out in 2023. "In an environment where water use is uncapped, it allows modern farming practices to exploit the system pretty heavily," he said. "They want to exploit water resources that normally are not exploitable, so they're not doing what we would call a mass balance of their water." It is something US President Donald Trump highlighted in a speech in Saudi Arabia in May this year. "Iran's leaders have managed to turn green farmland into dry deserts, as their corrupt water mafia — it's called the water mafia — causes droughts and empty riverbeds," Trump said. "They get rich, but they don't let the people have any of it." While terms like "water mafia" might catch the public's attention, Madani said it took away from the complexity of the problems facing Iran. "What we see in Iran is the collective outcome of many bad decisions, by many good and bad people." Countries in the Middle East are among the top water-stressed in the world, according to data from the World Resources Institute. "It's getting hotter, it's drier and water is really at a premium in terms of reliability and availability," Mohammed Mahmoud, lead for Middle East Climate and Water Policy at the United Nations University, said. "The facts are, this region is going to accelerate in terms of warming — higher than other parts of the world. "Fresh water resources are going to be stressed more than other parts of the world." Madani said the role of climate change in Iran was undeniable. "We see more frequent and intense droughts, but also more frequent and intense floods, wildfires, heat and other extreme events. "We see this in many places around the world, and Iran is no exception." But he said to blame the water crisis in Iran solely on climate change was reductionist. "All of a sudden, you see something that you cannot deny." Madani said it would take a crisis like Tehran running out of water for real change to occur. "The tendency of governments is to delay transformative action because they're costly politically, they're hard to implement. "Ironically, we need these crises and extremes for improving our management systems. That's sad, but it's very true." Iran is not the only country in the region dealing with prolonged drought and heat: the highest temperatures on the planet this week were recorded in Iraq, where the mercury hit 52 degrees on multiple days in a row. Türkiye registered 50.5 degrees last Saturday — a nationwide record — in its south-east as it battles devastating wildfires. In the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the heat is unrelenting. Temperatures are forecast to remain above 47 degrees for at least another week, and the capital, Baghdad, will be only a few degrees cooler. While Iraq is no stranger to extreme heat, the United Nations lists the country as among the most vulnerable to climate change, citing water scarcity, drought, and extreme temperatures. Like Iran, the country is suffering through one of its driest periods, with Iraq's Ministry of Water Resources reporting water storage is down to just 8 per cent of full capacity. Authorities blame reduced river flows in part on upstream dams built in neighbouring Iran and Türkiye, which Iraq says have dramatically shrunk the once-mighty Tigris and Euphrates, whose waters have been crucial for irrigation for millennia. "The reality is, when there's not enough water, what ends up happening is those countries upstream will tend to hoard it or save it to their benefit as much as they can," Mahmoud said. As water scarcity has worsened across the region, so too have geopolitical tensions. "Fortunately, and hopefully this remains the case, countries have not gone to war and conflict just over water," Mahmoud said. "But it does cause complications in terms of geopolitical relations." Mahmoud said conflicts also limited the ability of governments and communities to respond when crises hit. "We have conflict issues across the region and I'll even throw in the civil war in Sudan, for example," he said. "They cause a disruption in the ability for those countries and communities that are affected by conflict to react adequately." Heat is adding to an already dire situation in Gaza, with a lack of water and shelter one more "obstacle to survival", according to Mahmoud. "In a really perverse way, it's probably lowest on the list of things that people in Gaza are tackling to just survive day to day. "We're entering the warmest part of the year and so survival, in terms of that alone, becomes a challenge. "The reality is there is no infrastructure … to mitigate issues of exposure, whether it's high temperatures or whether it's freezing temperatures." Despite the dire situation across the Middle East, Mahmoud remained optimistic that the region could adapt in a worsening climate. "Things are bad and things are amplifying because of climate change. But this region has naturally, for centuries and centuries, been in a state of heat and water stress," he said. "The region is capable of adapting and has for centuries. A lot of that obviously has to do with being more efficient with our water use." Madani agreed that the history of the region could hold some answers. "Persians survived for thousands of years in the dry part of the world by using different technologies of groundwater extraction. And they had laws and institutions and settings that were working. "Through the process of modernisation, if you will, they disrupted that old system." But he was pessimistic about Iran finding a way out of the crisis any time soon. "You have decided to fight the world … those who lose are the people of Iran, the ecosystem of Iran, the nature of Iran. "That means more deforestation, mining pollution, sand and dust storms, desertification, rivers drying up, declining aquifers, and that's what we see. It's very sad."
News.com.au
9 hours ago
- News.com.au
US envoy visits Gaza sites as UN says hundreds of aid-seekers killed
President Donald Trump's special envoy inspected a US-backed food distribution centre in war-torn Gaza on Friday, as the UN rights office reported that Israeli forces had killed hundreds of hungry Palestinians waiting for aid. The visit by Steve Witkoff came as a report from global advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) also accused Israeli forces of presiding over "regular bloodbaths" close to the US-backed aid points. The UN's rights office in the Palestinian territories said at least 1,373 people had been killed seeking aid in Gaza since May 27 -- 105 of them in the last two days of July. "Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military," the UN office said, breaking down the death toll into 859 killed near the US-backed food sites and 514 along routes used by UN and aid agency convoys. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, posted on X that he and Witkoff had visited Gaza "to learn the truth" about the private aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is supported by the United States. "We received briefings from IDF (the Israeli military) and spoke to folks on the ground. GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!" Huckabee said. "Hamas hates GHF because it gets food to people without it being looted by Hamas." The foundation, on its own X account, posted that it had been a "privilege and honor" to host Witkoff and Huckabee as the group delivered its 100-millionth meal in Gaza, fulfilling Trump's "call to lead with strength, compassion and action". Gaza's civil defence agency said 11 people were killed by Israeli fire and air strikes on Friday, including two who were waiting near an aid distribution site run by GHF. GHF largely sidelined the longstanding UN-led humanitarian system just as Israel was beginning to ease a more than two-month aid blockade that exacerbated existing shortages of food and other essentials. - 'Beyond imagination' - In its report on the GHF centres on Friday, Human Rights Watch accused the Israeli military of illegally using starvation as a weapon of war. "Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families," said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. "US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths." Responding to the report, the military said GHF worked independently, but that Israeli soldiers operated "in proximity to the new distribution areas in order to enable the orderly delivery of food". It accused Hamas of trying to prevent food distribution and said that it was conducting a review of the reported deaths, adding it worked to "minimise, as much as possible, any friction between the civilian population" and its forces. After arriving in Israel on Thursday, Witkoff held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to resolve the almost 22-month-old war, feed desperate civilians and free the remaining hostages held by Palestinian militants. Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and free the captives, but is under international pressure to end the bloodshed that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians and threatened many more with famine. Following his discussions with Witkoff, Netanyahu met Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul of Germany, another staunch Israeli ally, who nonetheless delivered a blunt message. "The humanitarian disaster in Gaza is beyond imagination," Wadephul told reporters after the meeting, urging the government "to provide humanitarian and medical aid to prevent mass starvation from becoming a reality". "I have the impression that this has been understood today," he added. - Hostage video - On Thursday, the armed wing of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad released a video showing German-Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski, 21, watching recent news footage of the crisis in Gaza and pleading with the Israeli government to secure his release. "Even the strongest person has a breaking point," his family said in a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel. "Rom is an example of all the hostages. They must all be brought home now." On Friday, Wadephul also met relatives of hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. According to the German foreign office, among the 49 hostages still held, a "single-digit" number are German-Israeli dual nationals "Germany continues to do everything in our power to achieve the release of the hostages," Wadephul said, expressing outrage at the video release. This "horrible" footage reveals "once again the utter depravity of the kidnappers", he added. The Hamas-led October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures. Of the 251 people taken hostage, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 declared dead by the Israeli military. The retaliatory Israeli offensive has killed at least 60,249 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry. This week UN aid agencies said deaths from starvation had begun.
SBS Australia
9 hours ago
- SBS Australia
The story behind this viral image of a child in Gaza
It's a shocking image of despair and anguish; at the centre is toddler Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a child in Gaza. The frail toddler has a starkly pronounced spine and shoulder blades, wears a plastic bag nappy, and is being held by his mother. He said civilian casualties and deaths in Gaza were "completely unacceptable" and "completely indefensible". But a British journalist and antisemitism researcher has said the image is "misleading", prompting the New York Times to issue a clarification about its publication after "new information" surfaced. Claims of 'misleading' image Independent investigative journalist David Collier has accused the mainstream media of publishing the image of Matouq without acknowledging the 18-month-old's pre-existing medical conditions. Getty Images, which hosts several photos of Matouq, described the child as "sick" and "also displaying signs of malnutrition" in its captions. Collier, who is a critic of Hamas — the political and military group that rules Gaza — and describes himself as a Zionist on his website , said that's not the whole story. He wrote on X that he has seen medical reports and spoken to Matouq's mother, Hedaya, to uncover that the child has required specialist care in the past. "Mohammed is medically vulnerable; he needs specialised formula and medication," he wrote. On his website, he says that in other pictures of the family, his mother and older brother "look healthy and are not suffering from any type of starvation that would be necessary to cause the thinness suffered by Mohammed". Collier took aim at "most legacy media", which he said "need to own up to using deceitful photos". "You exploited the image of a child with cerebral palsy to push a lie about famine," he wrote. "You did this because you are all running campaigns to demonise Israel. You did not care anything about the truth. You saw an image you could use — or abuse — and ran with it." Collier told The Australian it is the "basic role of a journalist to verify and check the facts" before writing a story. "I'm not waving an Israeli flag, saying everything is perfect, that's not what I'm doing. What I'm saying is that it's vital that the media maintains its standards, because if it can't, then what is the point?" he said. The New York Times said it learned about the "pre-existing health problems" after it had published the image. "We have since learned new information, including from the hospital that treated him [Matouq] and his medical records, and have updated our story to add context about his pre-existing health problems," a spokesperson said on Wednesday. Lucia Goldsmith, Oxfam Australia's head of humanitarian, told SBS News children with pre-existing conditions may already face difficulties in processing nutrients. "Many of these children may be experiencing immune deficiencies, so they are often most affected by lack of food," Goldsmith said. Marko Kerac, who helped draw up the World Health Organization's treatment guidelines for severe acute malnutrition, also said it was typical in the early stages of a hunger crisis that those most impacted suffered from pre-existing illnesses. "Children with underlying conditions are more vulnerable," Kerac, clinical associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the Reuters news agency. "They get affected earlier." Reporting from Gaza comes with challenges The photos originally come from the Turkish news agency Anadolu, whose photographers are some of the few on the ground in Gaza. It was then circulated via Getty Images. Gathering and verifying information and photographs from the region is complex, and Israel has prevented international media from entering Gaza to report from there, except in cases where media have been embedded with the Israel Defense Forces. CNN reporter Clarissa Ward is one of the few Western journalists who have been able to gain independent access, and only fleetingly. Like most news organisations around the world, SBS News does not have its own reporters on the ground in Gaza, and sources information, photography and footage from various news agencies such as Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Getty as well as directly from freelance operators. When SBS News sent an inquiry to Getty Images about the photograph, a statement from the Anadolu Agency was provided in response. It said the agency had reviewed the photograph of Matouq, which was taken by freelance journalist Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim al-Arini. The response included a statement attributed to the child's mother to clarify the situation. "At three months old, he suffered from muscle weakness [hypotonia]. Through physiotherapy, he fully recovered and continued normal development. Before we were displaced from Jabalia, he was healthy, smiling, and cheerful," the statement said. "However, after displacement, due to the food and medicine crisis —particularly the lack of milk — his condition began to deteriorate." The statement included notes from an interview with nutrition specialist Dr Suzan Mohammed Marouf, who Anadolu Agency said confirmed Matouq is suffering from severe malnutrition as well as a muscle-related illness. The agency also provided a series of photographs of Matouq throughout his life showing him previously at a higher weight than in the series of viral photos as well as images of other children in similar conditions. A family member holds up a phone displaying an earlier photo of Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, showing his physical health has declined rapidly. Source: Anadolu / via Getty Images "As Anadolu Agency, our mission is not to provide medical assessments but to document and report the situation on the ground objectively for the international public," the statement said. "Our photographs reflect the humanitarian crisis we witness in Gaza in its starkest form." SBS News has not been able to independently verify the details of pre-existing health conditions supplied by Anadolu or Collier. 'Full-scale famine' Photos of Matouq and dozens of other emaciated children have made headlines in recent weeks, with Israeli officials denying starvation in Gaza. "We don't recognise any famine or any starvation in the Gaza Strip," Israel's deputy chief of mission in its Canberra embassy, Amir Meron, told a group of reporters, including SBS News, on Monday. Israeli officials have instead blamed either the United Nations' inefficiency or Hamas for aid not reaching people in areas it has claimed to control for much of the war. However, humanitarian groups like UNICEF have described the region as "on the brink of a full-scale famine". UNICEF, citing data from the Palestinian health ministry, said last week the number of children in Gaza who have died from malnutrition jumped from 52 to 80 — a 54 per cent increase in less than three months. In a statement made on Wednesday, they said: "Acute malnutrition and reports of starvation-related deaths — the third core famine indicator — are increasingly common but collecting robust data under current circumstances in Gaza remains very difficult as health systems, already decimated by nearly two years of conflict, are collapsing." Other news agencies, such as Reuters, have published reports from Gaza on malnutrition cases presented at clinics and images of emaciated children. In a separate interview published on the BBC published late last week, his mother said Matouq used to weigh 9kg but now weighs 6kg. She said: "He used to eat and drink normally but because of lack of food and the situation we're in, he became malnourished." In the video interview, she mentions her son has hypotonia. Associate professor Nina Sivertsen, a nursing and family health lecturer at Flinders University, told SBS News children in Gaza are at the most severe risk of the effects of starvation. "They're more likely to die, especially from common infections like diarrhoea and pneumonia, because starvation already weakens their really fragile immune system," Sivertsen said.
