The Kurdish paper, Hawlati, reported that deep divisions have surfaced
among the leadership of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that
could lead to serious consequences for the party and its leader Mr.
Talabani.
More
A bomb hidden
near the Baghdad home of Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari was discovered and
defused Sunday, police said. In July, gunmen had opened fire on a car
belonging to Zebari killing one official and wounding two others. He was not
in the
vehicle at the time, reported AP
An Arab
Islamic group said it had assassinated the chief of police in Arbil and
warned to kill Kurdish leader Barzani. "This is a clear message to the ally
of the Jews, the agent Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic
Party, to tell the scoundrel that we are coming and the hands of the
mujahideen will soon reach you, God willing, and America cannot help you,"
said the statement which was dated Sunday, reported Reuters
Two Turkish soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a land mine in
Northern Kurdistan, reported the state owned news agency Anatolia. Also,
Anatolia said four soldiers were injured in a land mine explosion near the
city of Amed.
In an
official visit to Washington, the Kurdish PM Nechirvan Barzani arrived
in Washington late last week to explain his administration's stance on
several important issues regarding Southern Kurdistan and Iraq, a KDP
official told the Kurdistan Observer today.
More
A member of the
Turkoman Front political group was assassinated today in Southern Kurdistan
while driving his children to school, police said. Col. Burhan Taha said
politician Ghafour Abu Bakr was killed at 8.30am (local time) in Kirkuk when
unknown attackers opened fire, killing him and slighting injuring his two
children, reported Reuters yesterday.
----------------
Iraq's Christians who are
increasingly targeted by insurgents, are fleeing Baghdad for the safety of
the Southern Kurdistan, reported AP.
----------------
The US military said three soldiers, a marine
and a civilian translator were killed and one soldier wounded in two car
bombings on Friday, one in the northern city of Mosul and another near the
city of Qaim on Iraq's border with Syria. Also on
Saturday, a Kurd working
for the education ministry was shot dead in Mosul, reported AFP.
----------------
Kurdistan
Democratic Party is planning to launch a new satellite TV channel in
Southern Kurdistan. The new station, which will be called Zagros TV, will
start its broadcasting programs on November 1 of this year.
The KDP
leader Massoud Barzani began a three-day visit to Syria on Friday. Barzani,
who arrived form Jordan, said he would discuss a number of subjects with
Syrian leaders. They included federalism in Iraq, relations between the two
countries and the question of Kirkuk, reported AFP
Oct
15, 2004
•
News Snapshot
Syrian regime have arrested
three Kurds, human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni said on Thursday. "Military
security arrested three Kurds in the town of Amuda as part of the clampdown
linked to the fatal riots that took place last March in the northeast, he
said, repeating his call for political prisoners to be freed, reported AFP
----------------
A
representative of the PUK says that his party is prepared for an armed
struggle to ensure Kirrkuk’s Kurdistani identity. “We and the KDP share the
same view regarding this issue,” Sadon Faili, the PUK spokesperson in
Baghdad told daily Al-Hayat, referring to the culturally-stirred conflict of
Kirkuk, reported Peyamner
"I've been
doing grave sites for a long time, but I've never seen anything like this:
women and children executed for no apparent reason," said Mr Kehoe, who
spent five years investigating mass graves in Bosnia for the International
Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia.
More
Leyla Zana finally received
the European Parliament's Sakharov prize for human rights Wednesday after
being released in June from a decade in Turkish detention
----------------
According
to the Turkish daily paper Aksham, the Turkish president warned Barzani not
to follow the Isreali path, adding that Israel is the source of conflict
since it was established. Aksham also reports that Mr Barzani was told that
neither Turkey nor the neighboring countries will accept federalism that
would lead to an independent Kurdistan, and if Kurds go this way, they will
likely lose what they have achieved so far.
Massoud Barzani said that the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in Southern Kurdistan
had a Kurdish "identity" and vowed to fight any force attempting to oppress
its people, whether Kurds or other ethnic groups.
More
Turkey will face a
very stringent inspection mechanism on human rights and cultural freedoms
(read that as "Kurdish rights)." Additionally, if there are any unfortunate
developments concerning the military's influence in politics and foreign
relations -- like military intervention in a neighboring country -- the
negotiations will be suspended immediately, said
TDN columnist Gunduz Aktan
----------------
A German
delegation from the Baviera State visited Amed, Northern Kurdistan. The
delegation's Chairman Gabriel Goltz said they came to Amed to observe the
services given by the local authorities and the developments in the
villages, directly.
In a joint press
conference in Irbil with the British Foreign Minister Jack straw who arrived
in Irbil on Tuesday, the Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said "Our
policy and stance is clear, we refuse to compromise on any grounds regarding
Kirkuk," refuting the speculations that UK puts pressure on the Kurdish
leaders to make concessions on Kirkuk.
In a second day of
demonstrations in the Kurdish city of Kirkuk, protestors brandished banners
calling for the departure of the Arabs and the return of Kurds chased from
their homes as part of Saddam's efforts to change its population makeup.
Demonstrators also called for the departure of loyalists of the old regime
they accused of blocking the return of displaced Kurds.
----------------
A Turkish
soldier and a Kurdish rebel were killed in Northern Kurdistan, Turkish
state news agency Anatolia reported Sunday.
In several Kurdish cities
across Southern Kurdistan, tens of thousands of Kurds demonstrated,
demanding an independent Kurdistan with Kirkuk as its capital.
----------------
A Turkish soldier was killed
and three others were wounded Saturday in fighting with Kurdish fighters in
Northern Kurdistan, the Anatolia news agency reported.
----------------
The newly appointed Secretary General of KDP
in Eastern (Iranian) Kurdistan, Mustafa Hijiri, says that his party has
detailed information about Al Qaida training camps in Iran. "We have
detailed intelligence reports on the training locations of members belonging
to Al Qaida and Ansar al Islam organizations," Hijiri said in an interview
published by Kurdish daily Medya.
Many Iraqis fear ethnic Kurds in the north want
full independence
A series of demonstrations in northern Iraq has highlighted the chasm that has
developed between Iraqi Kurds and their compatriots.
Last week
hundreds of Kurds protested in Kirkuk to demand that the oil-rich northern city
form part of Iraqi Kurdistan.
They threatened to boycott national elections planned in January unless Arabs
who were resettled in Kirkuk by ousted president Saddam Hussein left the city.
The protest followed other recent rallies by Iraqi Kurds in favour of full
independence from Iraq - a policy rejected by Kurdish leaders who back extensive
autonomy.
But many Iraqis are deeply suspicious of these moves.
A common view is that the
Kurds are out of step with other Iraqis who do not share their pro-American
views.
And many Iraqis predict the
Kurds will achieve full independence in the near future and take Kirkuk's
precious oil with them.
Kurdish-Arab tensions
Iraqi Kurdistan has a different feel compared with the rest of the country.
An oil-rich region, it has four million people - about 20% of Iraq's population
- and has been virtually self-ruled since 1991 under US protection.
Its pro-Western leaders, Jalal Talabani and Masud Barzani, were instrumental in
helping the Americans topple Saddam last year.
"Kurdistan is the only bit of Iraq that was relatively well off before the
invasion and the Kurds want it to remain that way. They do not want to get
sucked into the insurgency that exists in the middle of Iraq and in the
south"
Turi Munthe,
RUSI
The region itself is verdant and mountainous, the people speak a different
language, dress differently and fly their own national flag.
Economically and security-wise, Kurdistan is better off than the rest of Iraq -
and the people are quick to thank the Americans for that.
Turi Munthe, a Middle East expert at
London's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told Aljazeera.net there is
clearly some resentment between Kurds and Iraqi Arabs in particular.
"They have a separate identity
to a certain extent and for many years now there has been little contact between
the two groups," he said.
Kirkuk dispute
"Kurdistan is the only bit of
Iraq that was relatively well off before the invasion and the Kurds want it to
remain that way. They do not want to get sucked into the insurgency that exists
in the middle of Iraq and in the south."
Munthe says resentment towards the Kurds is particularly prevalent among
thousands of Arabs and Turkmen who have been forced to leave historically
ethnically-diverse Kirkuk and surrounding areas.
The Kurds say the expulsions were a response to Saddam's "Arabisation" policy,
which they say the former Iraqi president launched to consolidate his grip over
the region.
This entailed the resettling in northern Iraq of tens of thousands - some say
hundreds of thousands - of Arabs from central and southern Iraq, and the
expelling of a similar number of Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrians.
Iraqi Arab, Turkmen and Kurdish groups dispute these figures and say each side
is exaggerating the extent of resettlements and expulsions.
Iraq Turkmen and Arabs have
resisted expulsion from Kirkuk
Nevertheless, this issue, according to Munthe, could be the powder keg that sets
off a wider conflict because Kirkuk's natural resources are coveted by all, and
could make an independent Kurdistan a viable entity.
Ali al-Quradaghi, a
Kurdish expert at the University of Qatar, also acknowledged the Kurds have
striking differences with other Iraqis.
He told Aljazeera.net that
most Kurds considered themselves to be Muslims first, Kurds second and Iraqis
only third.
Historical injustices
But al-Quradaghi said you
cannot talk about Iraqi Kurds without first understanding the historical
injustices perpetrated against them.
"The Kurds were one people
under the Ottoman empire," he said.
"But the 1916 Sykes-Picot deal
between the British and the French carved up the Kurdish territories and
distributed the Kurds into five separate states.
"None of the problems we see today with Kurdish rebellions and subsequent
reprisals would have happened had the Kurds been given their own state like
everyone else at that time," he said.
Denied a state of their own, the Kurds have waged a struggle against Baghdad for
most of the century.
And the struggle has been at considerable cost.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), tens of
thousands of Kurds were killed and hundreds of thousands fled into exile during
a campaign of "extermination" by Saddam's forces in the 1980s.
Kurdish rebellion
The rights group reported that in 1988 alone,
Iraqi forces razed thousands of villages - destroying the traditional rural
economy and infrastructure of Iraqi Kurdistan - and killed tens of thousands of
its inhabitants.
"The situation for
Iraqi Kurds has improved considerably since 1991. So it is not in their
interests to fight the Americans like other Iraqis would like them to"
Dr Ali al-Quradaghi,
Kurdish expert
However, Saddam's government denied the allegations.
The government said its campaign was a
justified response to repeated challenges to its rule over Iraq's northern
provinces.
It said it targeted Kurdish fighters who were
being harboured by towns and villages and assisted by Iranians to destabilise
the country.
But only four years later, in 1992, Iraqi Kurds
held elections under US and British protection.
The vote was split almost evenly between
Masud Barzani's KDP and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), headed by
Jalal Talabani.
Soon after, the CIA recruited Kurds for an anti-Saddam
army, and the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a US-backed opposition group, set
up base in Kurdistan.
But fighting within the nationalist parties
greatly hindered a concerted campaign against Saddam, and in 1994 tensions
between the KDP and the PUK erupted into civil war.
Civil war
During the conflict the KDP allied itself with
the Iraqi government against the PUK and the INC, who were supported by Iran and
the US respectively.
After four years of fighting, Barzani and
Talabani signed a peace accord in Washington in 1998, but northern Iraq remained
split between the adversaries.
Moreover, since the US-led invasion of
Iraq in 2003, allegations have surfaced over the Iraqi Kurds' relationship with
Israel which goes back to the 1970s when Israel helped them to fight Baghdad.
The two main Kurdish leaders are
fiercely pro-American
Israel's Haaretz newspaper has said Israeli
officials have held meetings with Barzani and Talabani, and Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon has confirmed Israel has good relations with the Iraqi
Kurds.
More recently, the New Yorker magazine alleged
that Israeli intelligence and military forces were active in Kurdish areas of
Iran, Syria and Iraq, running secret operations that could destabilise the
entire region.
Iraqi Kurd leaders denied these allegations.
Independence or autonomy?
Given this historical background, al-Quradaghi
says the only way the Kurds would get their rights is if they pushed for their
own state.
"The situation for Iraqi Kurds
has improved considerably since 1991," he said.
"So it is not in their interests to fight the Americans like other Iraqis would
like them to."
But he added: "If the Kurds
wanted independence they would have already asked for it.
"They are realistic people. They know that neighbouring states will never
tolerate Iraqi Kurdish independence because that would encourage their own
Kurdish minorities to revolt."
Nevertheless, many groups,
Shia-based organisations prominent among them, remain suspicious of Kurdish
designs, believing them to be a recipe for Iraq's break-up.
Muthana al-Dhari, a spokesman
for the influential Iraqi Muslim group Association of Muslim Scholars, said talk
of Kurdish independence is exaggerated.
Iraqi unity
He told Aljazeera.net that in
these turbulent times, the priority should be Iraq's national unity.
"We don't have any problem with the
Kurds getting all their national and human rights.
Self-rule in the context of an Iraqi state is acceptable, but a state split
upon ethnic lines
is unacceptable"
Muthana al-Dhari, Association of Muslim Scholars spokesman
"The Iraqi state was built on ethnic and religious diversity and the Kurdish
people have been one of the pillars of the Iraqi state," he said.
"We don't have any problem with the Kurds getting all their national and human
rights. Self-rule in the context of an Iraqi state is acceptable, but a state
split upon ethnic lines is unacceptable."
He added: "The Kurds have
nothing to be afraid of. They opted out of central government when it was
controlled by one person [Saddam Hussein], but now things are different.
"They are part of the central
government and they will have a say in national affairs."
For al-Dhari, an ethnically divided Iraq would simply play into the hands of
foreign powers who he said were intent on dividing Iraqis in order to rule them
more effectively.
"The Kurdish question is an Iraqi question and there can be no future for Iraq
without an end to occupation," he said.
"Iraqis have historically been
able to bridge religious divisions and live side by side. Sunnis and Shia have
fought together in places like Falluja and Balad and Salah al-Din province to
get rid of foreign occupation.
"It is not true that civil war
will break out once foreign forces leave Iraq. I think the potential for
national unity will be stronger without occupation."
