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Iraqi Kurdistan region has trouble on two
sides
3.6.2007
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June 3, 2007
BAGHDAD - From south and north, Iraq's
Kurdistan region felt pressure from two sides
Saturday as saboteurs bombed a vital bridge link to
Baghdad, and Turkish troops across Iraq's Kurdistan
border massed for a possible strike.
"We won't allow it to be turned into a battleground,
" Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday of
the relatively peaceful Iraqi Kurdistan, a haven for
(Anti-Turkish) Kurdish guerrillas who oppose Turkey.
PKK took up arms for a Kurdish homeland in the
country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
Violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims raged on
in Iraq's center as hours of mortar barrages killed
eight people in a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad that
is surrounded by Shiites, and a prominent Sunni
cleric was gunned down on the street.
Tensions have heightened in recent weeks in
Kurdistan (northern Iraq) as Turkey has built up its
military forces on Iraq's Kurdistan border, a move
clearly meant to pressure Iraq to rein in the rebels
of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, separatists
who launch raids into southeast Turkey's Kurdish
region from hideouts in the border mountains of
Kurdistan-Iraq.
Turkey's political and military leaders have been
debating whether to try to root out those bases, and
perhaps set up a buffer zone across the frontier as
the Turkish army has done in the past. Turkey's
military chief said Thursday the army was ready and
only awaiting orders for a cross-border offensive.
In an interview taped for today's ABC-TV's This
Week, Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said
Iraqi leaders had persuaded the Iraq-based militants
to cease their attacks, "and they did it."
Maliki, the Shiite prime minister, ending a visit to
Kurdistan region on Saturday, also sought to ease
the growing tensions.
"If there are some problems, we should not rely on
weapons and threats, or use violence, " he told a
news conference in Kurdistan's regional capital of
Erbil.
More than 37,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when the PKK
took up arms for a Kurdish homeland in the country's
mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
AP
** The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan ( Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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