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Iraqi Kurdistan: Nothing new, border
shelling hits villagers
21.9.2007
By Mohammed A. Salih |
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September
21, 2007
HAJI OMARAN, (Iraqi Kurdistan-Iran border),
-- Sixty-year-old Khadijah Hama Khan has had to flee
home again. Nothing new. "All our life we have been
on the run," she says.
This time she had to flee Iranian shelling on her
border village. It was not easy; she injured her leg
after walking barefoot two hours.
Now she lives in a tent with several other families
on the foothills of the ragged Qandil mountains
separating Kurdistan 'Iraq' from Iran.
Hundreds of families were forced to leave their
villages to take refuge in shabby tents.
Here the families cook over burning wood, sleep on
worn-out rugs, and drink from a dirty creek. Some
children are suffering from diarrhoea, at a time
when large parts of Kurdistan region have been hit
by cholera.
The tragedy of the millions of Iraqis displaced by
violence in other parts of the country has
overshadowed the new misery of these families.
Despite their terrible living conditions, they have
received almost no aid.
"This is no life we are living. We have lost
everything, our crops and houses. For some nights we
did not have food," said Halima Hassan, 35. "We
don't even dare to go back because Iran may shell
the area again."
The attacks started after the Party for a Free Life
in Kurdistan (PEJAK), an offshoot of the
pro-independence Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
started striking military targets within Iran. That
provoked heavy shelling of the northeastern border
areas of Iraqi Kurdistan region in recent weeks.
On the northern side of Iraq's border, Turkey was
not idle. It added to the shelling, aimed at PKK
fighters.
Iran stopped shelling the border areas following
official objection from the Iraqi and Kurdish
governments. But Turkey resumed shelling on
Saturday, and this may displace many more families.
The U.S. has kept officially silent about the
shelling, though United Nations resolutions place it
in charge of protecting Iraq's sovereignty.
Iran and Turkey have numerously accused PKK and
PEJAK of using U.S. weapons.
PKK-PEJAK sources had earlier confirmed to IPS that
PEJAK receives "limited" backing from the U.S. Given
the close affinity between PEJAK and PKK, such
weapons could easily fall into PKK hands.
Members of these groups deny this. Iraq is in any
case a large market for illegal weapons trafficking,
and anyone can obtain weapons, they say.
This new complication adds to the political mess in
Iraq.
The U.S. has repeatedly condemned Iran for alleged
support of armed Shia and even Sunni groups in Iraq.
Hence, the U.S. would see itself entitled to back
PEJAK to counterbalance Iranian interference in
Iraq's affairs.
To legitimise this, it has not designated PEJAK a
terrorist organisation, while it labels PEJAK
sponsor PKK a terrorist group.
Iraqi Kurds say they are trapped in a U.S.-Iran game
on their territory. Although officially a part of
Iraqi Kurdistan, the Qandil mountains range is under
de-facto control of PKK and PEJAK. For decades,
these mountains have been guerrilla strongholds hard
for any army to control.
Iraqi Kurds may want to use PKK as a pressure card
first to get Turks to recognise their federal entity
in Kurdistan 'northern Iraq', and secondly, to end
"Turkish interventions" in the internal affairs of
the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Kurds want to
incorporate Kirkuk into their Kurdistan region,
while Turkey vehemently opposes that, fearing it
would embolden its own Kurdish population to demand
more rights.
With the re-election of the moderate Justice and
Development Party in Turkey, Iraqi Kurds see a
window of hope for a new set of relations with their
northern neighbour. In a positive gesture, Turkish
President Abdullah Gul has said he will invite Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani, who is also
secretary-general of the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) party, to Ankara despite his
predecessor's determination not to do so.
Iraqi Kurds hope that a more friendly attitude from
Turkey and a general amnesty for PKK that could
convince PKK fighters to lay down arms and leave
Qandil would help mend fences with Turkey and turn
over a new page in their tense relations.
But the new wave of optimism could evaporate if
Turkish security forces accuse the PKK of
involvement in the foiled bomb plots on Sep. 11 in
Istanbul and Ankara. PKK has strongly denied any
links with those plots.
Time is not on the side of the displaced villagers.
As long as politicians fail to make progress, people
living on the border between Iraq, Iran and Turkey
will continue to pay a price.
IPS
Iranian Kurdistan
**
Iranian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Kurdistana Īranź or
Kurdistana Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan) or Rojhilatź
Kurdistan (East of Kurdistan)) is an unofficial name
for the parts of Iran inhabited by Kurds and has
borders with Iraq and Turkey. It includes the
greater parts of West Azerbaijan province, Kurdistan
Province, Kermanshah Province, and Ilam Province.
Kurds form the majority of the population of this
region with an estimated population of 4 million.
The region is the eastern part of the greater
cultural-geographical area called Kurdistan.
More about Iranian Kurdistan
KDPI
The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran in Kurdish
(Hīzbī Dźmokiratī Kurdistanī Źran) is a Kurdish
opposition group in Iranian Kurdistan which seeks
the attainment of Kurdish national rights within a
democratic federal republic of Iran.
The current
General Secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian
Kurdistan is Mustafa Hijri
More about KDPI- Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran
The present leader of the organisation is Haji
Ahmadi. According to the Washington Times, half the
members of PEJAK are women, many of them still in
their teens, and one of the female members of the
leadership council is Gulistan Dugan, a psychology
graduate from the University of Tehran. This is due
primarily to the fact that PEJAK is strongly
supportive of women's rights. PEJAK believes that
women must have a strong role in government and must
be on an equal level with men in leadership
positions.
More about PEJAK- Party for a
Free Life in Kurdistan
**
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.
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.
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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