Kurdish

Two Kurdish factions had been vying for control of the area; after one of them decided to support Saddam, he had attacked the other.

Whether such a link could ever work depends mainly on how much progress can be made towards solving the Kurdish problem.

It is hoped that this month tripartite patrols around Kirkuk will start, with government and Kurdish troops to be overseen by American ones.

"He (the contact) drove us to a safe house in a Kurdish city not far from the border, " she said.

Mr Kilicdaroglu had little to say about the Kurdish problem (although he is himself a Kurd, he did not even use the word).

Against many expectations, Basra is steadily being transformed into a Mini-Me of the Kurdish city in northern Iraq, Sulaymaniya.

The city's mayor said the hijacker had told the crew he was a member of the Kurdish militant group, the PKK.

For a time, the CIA helpfully contended that it was Iran, not Iraq, that had dumped poison gas on the Kurdish city of Halabja.

A class like this would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago. Sabri Eyigun is the Kurdish deputy rector of the university.

Arab Iraqis reject this dream, fearing that Kurdish secession would destroy their country and, by the by, cost it a lot of oil.

Although the rest of Iraq has been a lot quieter, violence along the Arab-Kurdish border (the "trigger line" ) has been rising.

Syria's sizeable Kurdish minority (about 10% of the population) is also trying to work out who would best serve their interests.

Some recent reforms, notably the introduction of a state-run Kurdish-language television channel, have been revolutionary.

A negotiated settlement with the Kurdish separatists , who represent up to a fifth of the population, is also long overdue.

In the northern province of Nineveh, Sunni Arabs seem to have taken seats from Kurdish parties.

There has been a rapprochement with the Iraqi government and an effort to reach an accommodation with the Kurdish minority.

Turkey insists that many were PKK operatives trying to establish "a parallel state" in the Kurdish region.

Mr Maliki could team up with a Kurdish block, though that still would not give him a majority.

At least 15 Turkish soldiers have been killed in a clash with Kurdish rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party. or PKK.

One potential wrinkle is Baghdad, which still has no official agreement with Kurdish authorities on managing the region's oil.

"Kurdish-language education might be considered during later phases of the opening, " he suggests.

He says they are ready to lay down their arm, if the solution include equal rights for kurdish within Turkey.

But we did not do so in Algeria, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Croatia, Rwanda, the Caucasus, the Kurdish area and many other regions.

Tanya T. Gilly, a member of Parliament from the heavily Kurdish north, will not be part of that next wave.

Mr. Bush spoke after talks at the White House with the President of Iraq's Kurdish regional government, Massoud Barzani.

THE plight of Turkey's Kurdish minority has never been of compelling interest to ordinary Chinese people.

The PKK has threatened to call off its recently declared unilateral ceasefire unless Mr Erdogan moves on Kurdish rights.

His regime once ordered the killing of every person between the ages of 15 and 70 in certain Kurdish villages in northern Iraq.

Until exports were possible, producers were limited to supplying the Kurdish market which consumes only a few thousand barrels per day.

Tension is rising along the "trigger line" in north-east Iraq that runs between the Kurdish-controlled areas and the rest of the country.

Change says it agrees with its Kurdish rivals on territorial goals but would be better at achieving them.

Nowadays, even Turkey's chief of the general staff, Ilker Basbug, admits that military might alone will not fix Turkey's Kurdish problem.

One of them was a fluent Arabic and Kurdish speaker; [she] was terrific.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders, including President Jalal Talabani, whose people across the border have won autonomy, have been giving advice.

They are renaming streets from Arabic to Kurdish and paying Kurdish families to return (and Shia Arabs to leave).

One of the captors perversely forced our Kurdish fixer to translate "We hate Kurds" into English from Arabic, creating even more tension.

Mr Abdulla's cosy relations with the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), one of the two main ones in the region, have helped him along.

Turkey shudders at the thought of a Kurdistan that might some day absorb Turkey's substantial Kurdish minority.

To understand the Middle East comprehensively and deeply, the study of the Kurdish Issue is essential.

Following the election again, Erdogan tentatively suggested that Kurdish demands could be met with a new constitution .

Last week, in response to a Kurdish PKK attack on its forces, Turkey launched a major offensive against the Kurdish rebels.

In recent months the PKK has stepped up its attacks, killing dozens of Turkish soldiers in and beyond the predominantly Kurdish south-east.

President Bush says Turkey, Iraq and the United States all agree the Kurdish rebels pose a threat that must be addressed.

Change also says the two established parties have done a poor job at defending Kurdish interests in the federal parliament in Baghdad.

Kurdish groups have been careful not to frame their grievances as a bid for autonomy or independence.

The army's response was a scorched-earth campaign that drove more than 1m Kurdish villagers out of their homes.

In June Sinopec agreed to a C$8. 3bn (US$7. 2bn) takeover of Addax, which had a stake in the Kurdish Taq Taq field.

However, the move did not stop protests in Kurdish areas on Friday.

They include an immediate end to the army's operations and a new Turkish constitution that recognises the Kurdish identity.

Allowing Kurdish-language teaching in schools would also be a good idea, but it is controversial.

So long as the Kurdish problem, in particular, festers, Turkey cannot be a truly healthy democracy.

Even government officials concede that the Kurdish problem cannot be solved by force alone.

The conflict with the PKK, which is fighting for greater Kurdish rights, has been steadily escalating over the last couple of months.

But it is unlikely to repeat the drubbing that it gave the BDP (then known as the DTP) in Kurdish areas in 2007.

A coalition of intellectuals from Kurdish, secular and Islamic opposition groups provided the last internal push.

Iraq's constitution is decentralising enough to please Shia and Kurdish voters, but anathema to the once-dominant Sunni Muslims.

Successive governments have mumbled about dealing with the Kurdish problem, only to be stopped by Turkey's hawkish generals.

As Kurdish-Arab relations in Baghdad worsen, the Americans may be starting to lean towards the more important of the two sides: the Arabs.

If the Turkish state is really investing so much into the Kurdish regions, then they are really doing something wrong.

Peace is shakiest along the "trigger line" that runs between the Kurdish and Sunni Arab areas in the north-east.

It faults the Kurdish regional government in Iraq, and the United States occupying forces, for not suppressing the cross-border raids.

Baghdad TV showed pools of blood and chunks of cinderblock from the explosion of a bomb in the Kurdish village of Sinjar, near Mosul.

Back in the field in 1991, he led a Marine expeditionary unit into northern Iraq to rescue millions of Kurdish refugees from Saddam Hussein.

Past experience suggests that both the Kurdish issue and a new constitution need some input from the opposition.

Language: Turkish, the official language, is spoken by the majority of the population. Kurdish and Arabic are also spoken.

He eased restrictions on the long-banned Kurdish language and blunted the army's influence.

Kurdish officials say their own history of suffering gives them responsibility to help Syrian Kurds.

Mrs Clinton also opposes permanent bases, but says a residual American force may have to linger, perhaps based in the Kurdish region.

Iraqi Mig and Mirage fighter planes were used in the 1988 gas attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja, which killed up to 5, 000 people.

The Arab-led central government also remains embroiled in a dispute with the largely-autonomous Kurdish north over oil and land.

Yet the organisation is not defeated, and the autonomy won by the Kurdish region of northern Iraq will inevitably give it sustenance.

Ms. Rashid was a Kurdish immigrant from Iraq with an interest in politics.

Her biggest crime was to accompany her oath with a short speech in Kurdish.

The incumbent Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said all problems should be settled through constitutional means.

"Blood and Belief" offers unusual insight into the rebels' shadowy universe and, by extension, into Turkey's festering Kurdish problem.

Aiming to win the supermajority that would have eased this task, Mr Erdogan embraced a strident anti-Kurdish tone on the campaign trail.

Goran supporter, parliament member Sirwan Zahawi, said his bloc "could win up to 35 seats" in the 111 seat Kurdish parliament.

In the early hours Tuesday morning police raided offices and homes of members the pro Kurdish Democratic Society Party or DTP.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but local officials have blamed Kurdish separatists.

Reckless talk of "going our own way" by hotheads in the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party has not helped. But the distrust is mutual.

You also describe the PKK as fighting for "an independent Kurdish state" , a sentiment that all but condones the killing of Turks.

Soli Ozel, a political scientist, says that if the government does not change course it may soon be faced with a "Kurdish spring. "

After more than two decades of war against the rebels, Turkey knows that military measures alone cannot fix its Kurdish problem.

This was marked by the launch of the first state-owned Kurdish-language television channel.

The Kurdish districts of Damascus and Aleppo have been blockaded by the Syrian security forces.

Kurdish businessman scoffs that the state-owned hotels in Baghdad "haven't been refurbished. . . since Saddam's time. "

And across the Middle East, Kurdish factions are taking steps to control their destinies.

Finally we were taken close to the border to make the crossing with two Kurdish men who had done it many times.

President Bush told Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani that the request will receive serious consideration .

In this paper, the author proposes that the Kurdish nationalist movements in this period was still in the stage of tribal resistance.

One is the Kurdish question, of which more later.

In October, some 10, 000 Christians fled into Kurdish-held areas from close to Mosul after a dozen of them had been killed.

Soon afterwards four women died in an attack in the province of Siirt, in Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-east.

The largely Kurdish district of Rukn al-Din, not far from the city centre, then erupted.

Sezgin Tanrikulu, a Kurdish human-rights lawyer, mutters of a "last exit" before Turks and Kurds go their separate ways.

But its success over the referendum boycott reflects its continuing appeal to Kurdish voters.

Most Kurdish voters in the south-east complied with the wishes of the largest Kurdish party to boycott the referendum.

Meanwhile Turkey's security chiefs were muttering darkly about punishing Greece for abetting Kurdish terrorists.

Conscious that Kurdish involvement could divide the opposition, some have discouraged and dispersed any rallies.

In northern Iraq, officials say a car bombing killed at least one Kurdish soldier and wounded 10 others.

West Azerbaijan province, northwestern Iran, Kurdish neighborhood, adjacent to Iraq.

He cites recent incursions by Iran and Turkey into Iraq's territory, including air strikes by Turkey, in attacks against Kurdish militants.

Kurdish activists pulled out after accusing other participants of marginalising them and ignoring the Kurdish issue.

However the other Kurdish bloggers from the other regions of Kurdistan have been incredibly quiet.

Mr Erdogan could also reinstate and build on the "Kurdish opening" that he launched two years ago.

Yet the chief of the general staff, General Ilker Basbug, broadly supports the government's softer Kurdish policy.

Amid growing public anger at the PKK, Turkey started bombing the rebel group's bases in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

Some claimed the assailants were from a militia that had helped Turkish troops fight Kurdish separatists.

My brothers [that what I called the U. S. soldiers] or against the Kurds [I am half Kurdish]?

And both Kurdish and Sunni ministers have boycotted Cabinet meetings in support of the protesters.

He is increasingly rude about the European Union and has gone so far as to declare that Turkey no longer has a Kurdish problem.

The Militias have not been disarmed and the local Kurdish army, the Peshmerga, is holding the north separate.

Kurdish politicians face increasing pressure if they violate language restrictions.

Kurdish demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails during a clash with Turkish riot police earlier this month.

Turkey and Iran, after all, share common interests in curbing Kurdish irredentism inside their borders.

In any event, the Kurdish regional government in Erbil, the Iraqi Kurds' capital, is arguing with Baghdad over how payment is allocated.

But DNO's announcement could add strain to relations between Iraq's Kurdish authorities and the central government in Baghdad.

Yet in the neighbouring province of Mardin, Kurdish tribes continue to harass the handful of Christians who remain.

But Natali said this self-rule has forced Iraqi Kurdish leaders to face geopolitical reality in a landlocked region.

But Peace and Democracy, the largest Kurdish party, has ordered its supporters to boycott the referendum.

In fact, so far the Kurdish issue has long stand about one hundred years.

The governments of Turkey and India are unhappy about the report's mentions of, respectively, Kurdish girls and low-caste children.

A motion allowing troops to enter Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels is expected to pass in the Turkish parliament.

Kurds are spurning mosques staffed by state-appointed imams in favour of Kurdish-language prayers in fields.

Speaking Kurdish was banned in schools and state institutions, and later, a total ban on the language was imposed.

General Ray Odierno, the American commander in Iraq, has called the Arab- Kurdish dispute "the number one driver of instabilities" in Iraq.

The new broadcast was seen as groundbreaking considering the strict controls on the use of the Kurdish language in Turkey.

During the election campaign Mr Erdogan has used much harsher language about the Kurdish party, the BDP.

According to local TV reports, quoting security officers, the bombings have the hallmark of the Kurdish separatist group the PKK.

That suggestion would outrage them. The city of Kirkuk was once predominantly Kurdish.

About 300 Turkish troops move several kilometres into northern Iraq, local officials say, stepping up pressure on Kurdish PKK rebels there.

As ever, ordinary Kurds will pay the price as support for the AK's Kurdish reforms fizzles out.

The emergency applies to all regions of Iraq except the Kurdish north, which has been relatively stable.

From Amazon's American site to Kurdish and Israeli news outlets, a broad swath of websites remain blocked.

The Turkish army says it's killed nearly 50 Kurdish rebels over the past two days in a major military offensive.

A military statement said 12 Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq were targeted by the Turkish air force early Sunday.

Some human rights groups say coercion was widely used by the government to test the loyalty of the local Kurdish population.

Saddam Hussein still faces prosecution for the killings of Kurdish civilians, many with poison gas, in the late 1980s.

A new program called Vcommunicator produces spoken and written translations of Arabic, Kurdish and two Afghan languages.

The main Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) seems certain to win seats.

The attack is being blamed on Kurdish rebels of the Kurdistan workers Party.

And honour crimes are not a uniquely Kurdish phenomenon, says Leyla Pervizat, an Istanbul-based expert.

Many foreign companies have already started coming to the Kurdish region.

The blast happened near a building used by Turkey's governing AK party in the mainly Kurdish town of Bingol.

Turkey attempted to assimilate non-Turkish speakers, starting in the 1930s, when Kurdish language and culture was banned.

Not only was Kurdish culture suppressed, but so was the language.

Kurdish alliance, the fourth main block, swept the Kurds' three provinces in the north.

17 evening, Turkish war planes hit Iraqi soil near the border Kandi Le mountainous Kurdish armed groups in 60 positions.

A blizzard of shaving cream falls on a Kurdish wedding party in northern Iraq.

Turkey, with the biggest Kurdish population in the region, has been the prickliest about its Kurds.

BDP officials in Diyarbakir dismiss the so-called Kurdish opening as rubbish.

They have been boycotting parliament ever since 20 members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) were elected in 2007.

So do five new deputies from the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), who are behind bars on terror-related charges.

Turkey's regional problems go beyond the Kurdish question.

Kurdish violence in Turkey has intensified since a general election in June.

On Jan. 16, Kurdish militants threw Molotov cocktails during clashes between militants and the Turkish riot police.

In Sinjar, west of Mosul, some Yazidis, who predominate there, say the Kurds want to force them to vote for the Kurdish list.

Such efforts helped AK to overtake the main Kurdish party in the south-east in the 2007 general election.

Counting of ballots from Saturday's Kurdish elections has begun in earnest.

Kurdish militants have been active in the past in the region which borders Iraq and Turkey.

They speak the Kurdish language, which is a member of the Iranian branch of Indo-European languages.

Locals dialling his emergency hotline are greeted in Kurdish.

But in the past few days internet forums in China have been clamouring their support for Kurdish separatists.

Now living in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's largely-peaceful Kurdish enclave, Mrs Pouraghaie and her husband are seeking asylum in the West.

On December 16th Turkish aircraft bombed what they said were Kurdish rebel positions deep inside northern Iraq.

Iraq's president has ordered Kurdish guerillas to lay down their arms or leave Iraq.

The PKK have been fighting the Turkish state, for Kurdish autonomy since 1984.

In other countries, this is still true: in Syria, Kurdish is banned in most contexts.

President Bush is calling for Turkey to end its military operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq as soon as possible.

Patterns of neat bullet holes peppered skulls and garments, many of them the baggy trousers peculiar to Kurdish men.

Kurdish construction worker Amjad Abdollazadeh voted for Mousavi too.

"One, two, three, four bullets, " counts a Kurdish voice off-screen.

Soon after it came to power, it allowed the first ever Kurdish-language television broadcasts.

Kurdish in origin, a key lieutenant for bin Laden, trusted and capable.

Mr Maliki's only quasi-ally, the Kurdish block, has too few seats to secure him power.

General Basbug has long conceded that military means alone cannot solve the Kurdish problem.

Mr Tammo's death could unite the popular and political opposition groups within Kurdish society.

In the northern city Mosul, a suicide bomber exploded a car near a checkpoint guarded by national and Kurdish forces.

Indeed, the government's Kurdish policy is replete with risks, not least that the PKK could revert to urban terrorism.

As a result, KDP supporters smashed the offices of opposition groups in Erbil, the Kurdish capital and the KDP's biggest fief.

Meanwhile, Arabs in the north are casting doubt on Kurdish voter rolls.

A new party dents a Kurdish duopoly. But does it bring independence closer?

The MHP's poor showing should free Mr Erdogan to respond to Kurdish demands.

As such, he is a notable figure in Kurdish, Arab, Persian, Turkish and Muslim culture.

FOR Walid Siti, a Kurdish artist, the river Zei is a powerful subject.

Moreover, Arab-Kurdish tension has been gumming up politics in Baghdad.

The shadow of war again looms over Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-east.

The army blamed Kurdish terrorists from the PKK rebel group.

That would, however, require concessions such as Kurdish-language education, more power for local mayors and reining in the army.

What is most heartening is that the Kurdish initiative is not merely about responding to European Union pressure: it is a home-grown affair.

During two decades of enforced Arabisation under Saddam, some 250, 000 Kurdish residents of Kirkuk were expelled.

He's living with his family of 10 in a tent donated by the semi-autonomous Kurdish government of northern Iraq.

Help Kurdish refugees fleeingtheir homes in northern Iraq.

Mr Bilici says the government's new tactic is to coerce Kurdish youths into becoming agents.

The Kurdish question is a festering sore in Turkey.

Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region has started exporting crude oil for the first time.

In 1991 she won a seat in the mainly Kurdish province of Diyarbakir, in south-east Turkey.

Yet Mr Botsali's public appearance before the Kurdish flag marks a shift in Turkey's approach to Iraq's Kurds.

efforts to aid Kurdish refugees.

The difference today is that almost everybody, be they Kurdish, secular or anti-army, is under pressure.

The same year saw the start of the first state-owned 24-hour Kurdish-language TV station.

Apromising newcomer is Iraq's Kurdish region.

Why America doesn't force Turkey to accept the Kurdish people and peace?

The Kurdish opening was put on hold.

Buying Switzerland's Addax Petroleum, for example, gave Sinopec access to Nigerian and Kurdish oil but ruffled few feathers.

That is what the mainly Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) is doing.

Perhaps 3m of them live in Istanbul, which in that sense is the world's biggest Kurdish city.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy party (BDP), which fielded independents so as to get around the 10% threshold, won a record 36 seats.

Now she is free to campaign in Kurdish.

Immigrant languages include Turkish, which is spoken by around 1. 8%, and Kurdish, by 0. 3%.

Last year, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group, detonated a roadside bomb in Istanbul's Halkali district.

DNO International ASA, a Norwegian oil company that is operating in the Kurdish region of Iraq, jumped 6. 6 percent to 9. 38 kroner.

Kurdish Election Turnout High Amid Charges of Irregularities

The Turkish government is preparing a serious plan to settle its Kurdish problem

The Study of the Kurdish Nationalist Movements after World War

The government doggedly pursues a settlement of its Kurdish problem

Education Report - Kurdish Lessons Now Allowed in Some Turkish Schools

Turkey Strikes Kurdish Bases in Northern Iraq

The Kurdish Issue Perplexing the Middle East