Iconic Sivan Perwer sings against Afrin operation

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Sivan Perwer, iconic Kurdish singer has released a song calling on Kurds to unite in the face of Turkey’s military operation in Afrin, a Kurdish area in Rojava dubbed "paradise" by the singer.

Perwer’s music was banned in Turkey for about four decades for promoting Kurdish national rights. He returned from exile in Europe to his hometown of Diyarbakir in 2013, during a time of improved relations between Ankara and Kurds.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time, described Perwer as a "great voice, a brother" who should not have been forced to leave the country.

Five years after Erdogan and Perwer held hands before a crowd of thousands in Diyarbakir, considered the capital of Turkey's Kurdistan, Perwer now sings about Afrin and that "the enemy does not recognize peace or friendship."

"The world is not aware. There is mourning in my country. After Kobane and Kirkuk, this time it is Afrin’s turn," Perwer sings in Kurmanji, the Kurdish dialect spoken by the majority of Kurds, including in Turkey and Syria.

The Rojava city of Kobane became the symbol of Kurdish resistance against ISIS in late 2014 and early 2015.

The oil-rich and diverse city of Kirkuk, called Kurdistan's Jerusalem, came under Iraqi control in October following a military incursion triggered by Kurdistan’s independence vote.

"If we do not come together, Afrin will be lost," he sings. "The price of freedom is blood."

Perwer warns the Kurdish people, arguably the largest stateless nation with an estimated 40 million people, to defend Afrin now, otherwise the "enemy" will march into other Kurdish cities.

Wherever there is a Kurdish "uprising," the enemy tries to crush it, he sings.

Born in 1955, Perwer fled Turkey for fear of imprisonment after he became politically active at the University of Ankara in the late 1970s.