In the village of Guharze in northern Iraq, Kurdish residents who have been displaced due to long-standing conflicts between Turkish forces and Kurdish militants are beginning to feel a flicker of hope that they might soon return home. This optimism stems from a recent declaration by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, announcing a ceasefire in their four-decade-long insurgency against Turkey. This decision followed a call for disarmament issued earlier by Abdullah Ocalan, the group’s leader, who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999.
The potential ceasefire promises not just a breakthrough for Turkey but brings the prospect of stability to the turbulent regions near the two nations’ borders. For years, the northern reaches of Iraq have been a battleground where Turkish forces launched fierce attacks against PKK positions. The resultant clashes have displaced countless Kurdish residents as villages were bombarded and left deserted. Many Iraqi Kurds found themselves uprooted, their connections to their land severed.
Adil Tahir Qadir, a villager who once lived in Barchi on Mount Matin, had to flee his home in 1988 during Saddam Hussein’s notorious campaign against Kurdish populations. Resettled in a new Barchi village nearby, Qadir would periodically return to farm his ancestral land until 2015, when Turkish military actions made it too dangerous. The airstrikes targeted at the PKK ensnared locals as well, reducing farmland to ashes. “Our farmlands and trees were all destroyed due to the bombings,” Qadir lamented. “If peace comes, I’ll return immediately,” he added.
The ongoing strife has emptied numerous villages in places like Amedi in Iraq’s Dohuk province, previously bustling communities, as fighting forced around 200 villages’ residents to flee, as revealed by a 2020 report by the Iraqi Kurdish government. The conflict’s proximity to new settlements such as Barchi has been unnerving for inhabitants like Salih Shino, who speaks of the looming bombings. “There are many Turkish bases surrounding us,” he stated. The artillery often strikes Barchi’s infrastructure, jeopardizing their safety and daily farming activities.
The nearby village of Belava shares a similar plight, where residents like Najib Khalid Rashid endure frequent bombings, which sometimes explode up to fifty times daily. “We can’t graze our sheep peacefully or tend to our farms,” Rashid shared. Furthermore, while Iraqi Kurds maintain a silence concerning the PKK’s insurgency against Turkey, due to deep-rooted historical ties, Rashid appealed for Kurdish unity across factions to foster a successful peace process.
Recalling a self-sufficient past, Ahmad Saadullah from Guharze reminisced about the era when local farming sustained livelihoods. “In the 1970s, the mountains were covered with lush agricultural produce,” he remarked, adding that dependence has shifted to government aid amid conflict-induced turmoil. For Farooq Safar, another Guharze villager, a traumatic drone strike incident in his backyard encapsulates the pervasive danger. He recalled, “Mid-dinner, all our windows shattered, and the village trembled.”
Although the news of the truce is welcome, residents retain a cautious attitude due to past failed ceasefires in 1993 and 2015. “We hope this time will be different,” Safar expressed, capturing the area’s yearning for peace amidst prevalent wariness.