It’s nice to see the Arab states displaying some backbone by trying to undo the imminent invasion of Iraq by Bush Junior and his thugs.
Baghdad-Kuwait Accord — Support Is Rebuff to Bush’s Efforts
The government in Riyadh is sensitive to the idea that it would be once again seen as an ally in any attack by the United States on Iraq, a Muslim nation. That sensitivity is partly the result of a widespread domestic impression that America’s war on terrorism has actually been an assault on Islam.
In addition, after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Saudis stressed repeatedly that the first step toward ending the terrorism inspired by Osama bin Laden was to solve the Palestinian conflict, which inspires many in the Arab world to take up arms against the United States and its Arab allies.
Today, the message from the Saudis seemed clear. They coordinated an unprecedented Arab peace initiative toward Israel on the very day they also pushed through a surprise Kuwaiti-Iraqi reconciliation, suggesting that if the former problem could be solved, the Iraqi issue could, too.
“I think the Saudis are basically sending a message to the Americans to solve the Palestinian question and things will fall into place,” said George Hawatmeh, the editor of the Jordanian daily Al Rai. “Take care of the Palestinian problem, the mother of all problems, and we will solve the rest in our own way. We will take care of Iraq.”
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Related:
- The myth that Iraq gassed the Kurds straight from a Pentagon report in 1990. This libel against Iraq is openly expressed by the current administration despite the absence (according to this report) of evidence. It is suggested that Iran was actually responsible for the gas attacks. Of course, Iraq has no love for the independent Kurds, but then neither does Turkey, a strong US ally. The Kurds are surrounded by enemies. A Kurdish proverb says Kurds have “no friends but the mountains.” Turkey is not excited about the potential dissolution of Iraq because it fears this might lead to the creation of an independent Kurdish state which could end up taking a chunk out of Turkey’s borders and drastically change the balance of power in the region. The Kurdish people have an interesting history. The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without a country of their own. The Muslim hero of the Crusades, Saladin (Salah al-Din Yusuf bin Ayub), was a Kurd as was the Persian King Darius.
- More on the Kurds: The Kurd population numbers around 20-25 million and they make up roughly 23% of the Turkish population. Turkey has it’s own history of abuse against the Kurds:
The Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which liquidated the Ottoman Empire, provided for the creation of an autonomous Kurdish state. Because of Turkey’s military revival under Kemal Atatürk, however, the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which superseded Sèvres, failed to mention the creation of a Kurdish nation. Revolts by the Kurds of Turkey in 1925 and 1930 were forcibly quelled. Later (1937–38) aerial bombardment, poison gas, and artillery shelling of Kurdish strongholds by the government resulted in the slaughter of many thousands of Turkey’s Kurds. The Kurds in Iran also rebelled during the 1920s, and at the end of World War II a Soviet-backed Kurdish “republic” existed briefly.With the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, the Kurds hoped for greater administration and development projects, which the new Ba’athist government failed to grant. Agitation among Iraq’s Kurds for a unified and autonomous Kurdistan led in the 1960s to prolonged warfare between Iraqi troops and the Kurds under Mustafa al-Barzani. In 1970, Iraq finally promised local self-rule to the Kurds, with the city of Erbil as the capital of the Kurdish area. The Kurds refused to accept the terms of the agreement, however, contending that the president of Iraq would retain real authority and demanding that Kirkuk, an important oil center, be included in the autonomous Kurdish region.
In 1974 the Iraqi government sought to impose its plan for limited autonomy in Kurdistan. It was rejected by the Kurds, and heavy fighting erupted. After the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran (1979), the government there launched a murderous campaign against its Kurdish inhabitants as well as a program to assassinate Kurdish leaders. Iraqi attacks on the Kurds continued throughout the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), culminating (1988) in poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages to quash resistance and in the rounding up and execution of male Kurds, all of which resulted in the killing of some 200,000 in that year alone.
With the end of the Persian Gulf War (1991), yet another Kurdish uprising against Iraqi rule was crushed by Iraqi forces; nearly 500,000 Kurds fled to the Iraq-Turkey border, and more than one million fled to Iran. Thousands of Kurds subsequently returned to their homes under UN protection. In 1992 the Kurds established an “autonomous region” in N Iraq and held a general election. However, the Kurds were split into two opposed groups, the Kurdistan Democratic party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which engaged in sporadic warfare. In 1999 the two groups agreed to end hostilities.
In Turkey, where the government has long attempted to suppress Kurdish culture, fighting erupted in the mid-1980s, mainly in SE Turkey, between government forces and guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which was established in 1984. The PKK has also engaged in terrorist attacks. In 1992 the Turkish government again mounted a concerted attack on its Kurdish minority, killing more than 20,000 and creating about two million refugees. In 1995, Turkey waged a military campaign against PKK base camps in northern Iraq, and in 1999 it captured the guerrillas’ leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who was subsequently condemned to death. Some 23,000–30,000 people are thought to have died in the 15-year war. The legal People’s Democracy party is now the principal civilian voice of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey. The PKK announced in Feb., 2000, that they would end their attacks, but the arrest the same month of the Kurdish mayors of Diyarbakir and other towns on charges of aiding the rebels threatened to revive the unrest. There were also clashes in the 1990s between the Kurds of Turkey and Iraq.
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