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Kurds aiming for final agreement next week Ecevit says Turkey prepares its defenses Trouble brews between Kurds/Islamic rebels in Iraq KDP and PUK Set to Seal Agreement on Implementing Four-Year-Old Peace Deal Kurds tell of Iraqi war ignored by outside world Iraq's Kurds Fear Results of U.S. Attack on Saddam Former US diplomat visits Iraqi Kurdistan Turkey's Kurdish party sees no ban before polls Al-Qaeda Surrogate Islamic Group in Southern Kurdistan Destroys Sufi Shrines Two Kurdish guerrillas killed in Southern Kurdistan Police Smash Immigrant Smuggling Ring Washington will not lay the groundwork for a "provisional government" Iraqi Kurds Fear Islamic Militant Group Attack by Islamist Radicals in Kurdistan Brings Kurdish Factions Closer Sweden Arrests Kurd in Immigrant "Honor Killing" Turkey set for November polls, EU reforms in doubt
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Iranian troops deployed on Iraqi border: KurdsARBIL, Iraq, Aug 22 (AFP) Iran is amassing troops on its border with Iraq in case of a US invasion to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, two Kurdish parties told AFP Thursday. "Iranian troops have returned to the positions they held during the (1980-1988) Iran-Iraq war," said the Revolutionary Union of Kurdistanchief Hussein Yazdanpana, who lives in the eastern city of Arbil. In recent days, Iranian troops, including the elite Revolutionary Guard, "have been deployed... along the 2,000 kilometre (1,200 mile) border," he said. Iran has also closed its border crossing to the northern Iraqi Kurdish enclave, which is protected from Saddam by US and British air patrols, he added. Yazdanpana accused Iran of also deploying militant bands like the Islamist Ansar al-Islam, which is suspected of having ties with the al-Qaeda organisation, blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States. "The Iranian army is waiting for the United States to conduct a war against Iraq so it can interfere in the affairs of the Kurdish region and the rest of the country," he said. Yazdanpana pleaded for Washington "to ensure the protection of Kurds in Iraq and Iran in case of a military strike on Iraq." Meanwhile, a member of the rival Kurdish Democratic Party also confirmed Iranian troops were amassing on the border. "Iranian army helicopters are patrolling the border region for surveillance, under the pretext of chasing drug traffickers," he said on condition of anonymity. Iran on Wednesday said its military was ready for any invasion of Iraq by its longtime foe, the United States. The KDP is one of two major Kurdish parties that control the Western-protected enclave in northern Iraq, which has been off-limits to the Baghdad government since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
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