THE SECRET POWER OF THE KURDS
After a three-year peace process, the Turkish government and PKK leaders are at war once again. A highly topical film about the situation of the Kurds in northern Iraq, northern Syria and south-eastern Turkey.
Since the Turks attacked PKK fighters in northern Iraq at the end of July, tension in the Turkish-Syrian-Iraqi border region has risen. The peace process launched by the Turkish government and PKK leaders three years ago has come to an abrupt halt. Suddenly, war is raging again. Erdogan is fuelling the conflict to discredit the pro-Kurdish HDP party at the forthcoming new elections. He wants to dominate Turkey's political arena again as the presidential victor. But the risks of his course are unpredictable, because the Kurds work together beyond national boundaries and are now a strong military force – a fact that is not widely known. The camera documents the situation in the political hotspots. In interviews with PKK fighters, representatives of the autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, political leaders of the Kurds in northern Syria and Kurdish representatives in south-eastern Turkey, who have been campaigning for autonomy in their regions since the Turkish attacks, the film introduces the different interests of the respective Kurdish groups. It looks at the strategies they have been pursuing since the end of the peace process and asks how cohesive these groups are.