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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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Iraqi rebels want conference in Iraq UPI By Eli J. Lake WASHINGTON Key Iraqi opposition leaders have said they want to hold a major conference in Iraq to prove to the Iraqi people their resolve to topple President Saddam Hussein. However, not all Iraqi opposition groups agree on the idea, and the leaders of the Kurdish parties controlling northern Iraq have said they will not allow such a conference unless and until the United States makes firm guarantees for the safety of the participants. "There is a preference to do this conference on Iraqi soil if certain security conditions are satisfied," said Sharif Ali Bin Al Hussein, the official spokesman for the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC). "I want the conference to be somewhere in northern Iraq because this sends a clear signal to the people of Iraq under Saddam," said noted author and prominent Iraqi exile Kanan Makiya. "Symbolically a conference on Iraqi soil is very important because we plan to make crucial and historic decisions there on exactly what kind of transition we seek for Iraq." Opposition figures have also hinted that such a conference would be the ideal forum to announce an Iraqi government in exile, a move that may inflame Turkish concerns over an independent Kurdish state if the announcement is made on Kurdish-controlled territory. Some Iraqi exile and Kurdish leaders are also concerned that such an event might provide an opportunity for Saddam to deal a huge blow to his opponents by attacking the conference in an effort to kill its leaders. The idea to host the conference inside territory controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was broached on August 9 at a meeting of opposition leaders in Washington. According to sources familiar with these discussions, opposition leaders proposed hosting the conference just north of the city of Sulaymaniyah, located in the no-fly zone patrolled by US and British warplanes. Mudhar Shawkat, head of the executive committee of the Iraqi National Movement (INM) – a group of Sunni Iraqi exiles – said he broached this idea with US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Ryan Crocker on August 29. Crocker did not respond at the time, said State Department officials. One official said the State Department is waiting for a formal request from the six Iraqi groups the US government invited to Washington on August 9. Those groups include the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the PUK, the major Kurdish parties controlling northern Iraq; the CIA-funded Iraqi National Accord; the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an Iranian-supported organization comprised largely of religious Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq; the Constitutional Monarchy Movement (CMM), which seeks to restore the Hashemite Kingdom to Baghdad; and the INC, the US-funded umbrella group that has included all five of the other groups in the past. At present, the CMM, INC and INM favor hosting the meeting in northern Iraq, but other opposition groups favor hosting it in the Netherlands. Iraqi
opposition leaders will meet in London this month to discuss the conference.
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