Kurdistan Observer- By: Dr.N.Hawramany.  April 13, 2002

There are news emerging that some western European countries like Sweden, Holland and others are trying to deport thousands of Kurdish asylum seekers against their will to Iraqi Kurdistan through Turkey, arguing that the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan is stable and it will be safe for these would be asylum seekers to go back to their homeland Kurdistan, forgetting that the situation is now volatile in the region in the face of the ongoing American preparations to attack and change the regime of Saddam Hussain and the realities that the ferocious Iraqi troops are only few kilometers away from the heart of major Kurdish
cities like Arbil, Sulaimany and Duhok and that the campaign of ethnic cleansing and arbitrary executions continues unabated in the Kurdish cities which are still under the control of Iraqi regime like Kirkuk, Khanaquin, Shangar, Mandaley and Makhmour and that the Iraqi regime does not hesitate on daily basis to send threatening signals and supporting terrorist groups like jund-al-islam and Ansar-al-Islam which are directly and indirectly related to the terrorists of Usama-bin-Laden and the Iraqi regime which are trying to assassinate the Kurdish politicians and intellectuals and plant the seeds of terror in the traditionally open Kurdish society and create a Taliban-like regime in Iraqi Kurdistan using the economic hardships and the insecure future of the region to destroy the efforts to create an open civil and liberal society.

It is not surprising that the kemalist Turkish government, which develops panic attacks when only the name of Kurdistan is mentioned, has shown its readiness to use its territories as a passage for repatriation of the Iraqi Kurds from European countries to Iraqi Kurdistan and I wonder if it would show the same enthusiasm when the Turkish citizen are deported in this way to Turkey and it is a scandal that European countries make such arrangements with Turkey with its well documented mistreatments of Kurds in Turkish Kurdistan and the denial of basic human rights like the right to learn the mother tongue and the right to
broadcast in Kurdish, not mentioning the clamp down on the right of expression and the arbitrary imprisonment of Kurds and their subjection to all kinds of terror with impunity.

Yet I’m writing this comment not to reiterate the above known facts, but to draw attention of the two Kurdish regional governments in Arbil and Sulaimany to show their objection loud and clear to these plans and to refuse to let any of these deported Kurds to Iraqi Kurdistan, without making sure that these repatriations happened with the consent of the would-be asylum seekers and to condemn this Turkish generosity which is only ganted because it harms thousands of Kurds and deprive the Kurds of a effective lobby in  Europe and let us not only think of the current generation , but of the future generations of Kurds in Europe which will be better integrated and educated and will certainly  support the just cause of the Kurds.

We must object the political insensetivities of these European countries and do  not allow the issue of the Kurdish asylum seekers to be a victim of political competition in these countries and to show Turkey that it has no right to decide about the Fate of Iraqi Kurds, in the presence of an effective Kurdish administration in Iraqi Kurdistan. All the Kurdish intellectuals and political parties and all the friends of Kurds everywhere must raise their voices to stop these unjustified and discriminate plans.

Dr.N.Hawramany
Switzerland