Kurds

Re "Statehood for Kurds?," Opinion, Jan. 4 David Hirst offers the Kurdish question the visibility it is often denied. He stresses the role of external forces in reshaping the Middle East. However, regional and international politics and policies are portrayed primarily as causes rather than manifestations of the colonial division of the Middle East, a division that has impeded democratization and the attainment of minority rights. The Arab Spring, albeit promising initially, is now leading to a growing Islamization of the region.

In "The Walking," a simple and pure young man circles half the world, on foot, by ship and plane, to a place he's longed to see. As a boy growing up in Iranian Kurdistan, Saladin lost himself in the dreamy vision of California he's seen in the movies. After the new, hard-line Islamic regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini comes to power in Iran in 1979, he imagines Los Angeles as a place of refuge. "As long as he could remember, it had forever been America and always California, not the Texas of the cowboy movies or the glass canyons of New York, but Los Angeles, and eventually, of course, Hollywood.

The Baghdad newspaper Sabah published a surprising article a few weeks ago. Its editor, Abd Jabbar Shabbout, suggested it was time to settle the "age-old problem" between Iraq's Arabs and Kurds by establishing a "Kurdish state. " Never before had I heard such a once-heretical view so publicly expressed in any Arab quarter. And this was no ordinary quarter: Sabah is the mouthpiece of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. Shabbout went on to suggest a negotiated "ending of the Arab-Kurdish partnership in a peaceful way. " He called his proposal Plan B, Plan A being the "dialogue" between Iraq's central government and the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq that emerged after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

BEIRUT - Syrian rebel and Kurdish militiamen were battling Saturday for control of a northeastern Syrian town in a dramatic illustration of the deep fissures within Syria's armed opposition. A Kurdish umbrella group, the Kurdish National Council, called Saturday on the rebel leadership to exert influence with its fighters to cease their attack on Ras Ayn, along Syria's remote northeast border with Turkey. The Kurdish group demanded that the opposition leadership “put pressure on these armed groups to stop this criminal war, which is detrimental to the principles and objectives of the Syrian revolution.” Whether the request will make any difference remains to be seen.

Your editorial on Iraq's arms (Sept. 25) neglected to mention the plight of the Kurds. Any rapprochement of the West with the government of Iraq should include political security for the millions of Kurds who were the victims of Saddam Hussein's genocide before the Gulf War and immediately after, had he not been stopped by the U.S. and its allies. YONA SABAR Los Angeles

This is in response "No-Fly Policy on Target" (editorial, March 4), where your paper advocates keeping pressure on Saddam Hussein in order for him not to repeat the brutal air attacks he carried out against his southern Shiite populace and northern Kurds. The only question that remains for The Times to answer is how do we protect the same Kurds from brutal annihilation by our friend and ally Turkey and its army, which frequently crosses the border into Iraq (a sovereign nation) in pursuit of the same Kurds we are protecting from Saddam.

Just think of what a truly "new world order" we would have today if, instead of wanting to take care of Hussein, Bush and company had wanted to take care of the Kurds way back in August when the world had its best chance! HUNTLEY C. LEWIS San Marino

The plight of the Kurdish people is a direct result of the war in the Persian Gulf, and the Kurds are reliving the Holocaust of World War II. In that respect, President Bush was right on target when he compared Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler. Why have we spent so much money and energy to put the emir of Kuwait and his royal family back on their thrones while giving minimal aid and lip service to the suffering Kurds, whom we have encouraged to strive for democracy? DOROTHY CHAPMAN, San Clemente

An entire nation, some 30 million Kurds, are being treated like criminals. A language, a culture, a color of the human rainbow--all are endangered, and in the rest of the world, for the most part, it's business as usual. I pray each night for the souls of the Kurds, whose fate I could have shared had not fortune thrown me to this side of the ocean. KANI XULAM Santa Barbara

Re "Statehood for Kurds?," Opinion, Jan. 4 David Hirst offers the Kurdish question the visibility it is often denied. He stresses the role of external forces in reshaping the Middle East. However, regional and international politics and policies are portrayed primarily as causes rather than manifestations of the colonial division of the Middle East, a division that has impeded democratization and the attainment of minority rights. The Arab Spring, albeit promising initially, is now leading to a growing Islamization of the region.

The Baghdad newspaper Sabah published a surprising article a few weeks ago. Its editor, Abd Jabbar Shabbout, suggested it was time to settle the "age-old problem" between Iraq's Arabs and Kurds by establishing a "Kurdish state. " Never before had I heard such a once-heretical view so publicly expressed in any Arab quarter. And this was no ordinary quarter: Sabah is the mouthpiece of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. Shabbout went on to suggest a negotiated "ending of the Arab-Kurdish partnership in a peaceful way. " He called his proposal Plan B, Plan A being the "dialogue" between Iraq's central government and the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq that emerged after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

AFRIN, Syria - This tranquil town in northwest Syria is a haven from the warfare convulsing much of the country, but the calm points to profound challenges facing the country - and the entire region - when the fighting ends. The laid-back guards at the checkpoints are Kurdish militiamen. The mustachioed man whose image greets visitors is Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in a Turkish prison for his leadership role in the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a group deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

EFRIN, Syria - The mourners chanted, "Long live Kurdistan!" as the doleful cortege moved slowly toward the hillside cemetery, past the olive groves and pomegranate orchards. Funerals have long become settings for political theater in strife-ridden Syria, where each side has tried to turn burials of war dead into highly public affirmations of their adversary's barbarity. But the procession Friday through the village of Basuta wasn't just another instance of a funeral becoming a rallying cry against the government of President Bashar Assad.

Turkey launched land and air assaults into neighboring Iraq on Wednesday after Kurdish militants killed at least 24 soldiers and injured 18 in the latest in a series of deadly strikes near the border, authorities said. The Turkish offensive across the Iraqi border included helicopter gunships, ground commandos and fighter jets, authorities said. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan canceled a foreign trip and labeled the operation a legal "hot pursuit" of terrorists operating out of Iraq's Kurdish region.

The White House is prepared to keep as many as 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of the year, amid growing concern that the planned pullout of virtually all remaining American forces would lead to intensified militant attacks, according to U.S. officials. Keeping troops in Iraq after the deadline for their departure at the end of December would require agreement of Iraq's deeply divided government, which is far from certain. The Iraqis so far have not made a formal request for U.S. troops to remain, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Syrian security forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, ignoring international pressure, fired on anti-government protesters, killing at least 34 on a day activists tried to draw the country's Kurdish minority into the nationwide movement for political change. The violent response to the demonstrations defied President Obama's call just hours earlier for Assad to either embrace political change in Syria or give up power. Security forces and plainclothes shabiha militiamen recruited from Assad's dominant Alawite minority, a small Shiite Muslim sect, fired on protesters, burned down the homes and shops of suspected protesters, and rounded people up and took them to detention centers, activists said.

Syrian President Bashar Assad made new concessions Thursday to the country's minority Kurdish population after some members joined pro-democracy demonstrators, threatening to create a new flank in Assad's political crisis. The government said it would grant citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Kurds in the northeast who have been counted as illegal immigrants since a controversial census in 1962. That left them unable to secure public sector jobs, passports and other basic citizenship rights.