From: gonzo@nomail.net   
      
   Henry  wrote:   
      
   > jan bojer vindheim  wrote:   
   >   
   > > The kurds are demanding a federal government in Iraq, as against the   
   > > centralization favoured by the arabs.   
   > >   
   > > The kurdish fear is now that they will once again be betrayed by the   
   > > Americans.   
   >   
   > It will be interesting to see how this plays out, since the Turks will   
   > of course oppose to their utmost any sort of Kurdish political entity   
   > whatsoever--seeing (rightly?) such a thing, even a   
   > federated-Kurdish-state within the New Iraq, as a powerful magnet for   
   > the Kurds presently under Turkish 'control' whom Ankara has been   
   > repressing all these many years.   
      
   right   
      
   > Alas, the Kurdish fears of impending betrayal (once again) seem   
   > well-founded. The Turkish parliament may have thrown a spanner in the   
   > works of the American plan for the invasion of Iraq last year by   
   > forbidding, counter to the wishes of the government, massive US troop   
   > movements through Turkey (specifically, through Turkish Kurdistan). But   
   > the punishment they incurred for such temerity appears to have taught   
   > them a lesson. Even more importantly, however, the Turks are desperate   
   > to join the EU and I suspect that in the future they _will_ dance,   
   > happily or no, to whatever tune the Western fiddlers play.   
      
   The turkish  desire for EUmembership counts in favor of kurdish rigths   
   at least inside Turkey, but if the new UN resolution which does not   
   mention kurdish autonomy,  provokes the iraqi kurds into declaring or at   
   least establishing independence both turks and iraqi shiites might take   
   to arms against the kurdish entity.   
      
   The kurds reasonably supported the invasion, expecting to be rewarded   
   by the invading powers with certainly not less than the de facto   
   autonomy they have enjoyed for 13 years. A failure by the occupants to   
   secure kurdish demands might lose Blair and Bush their main iraqi   
   supporters.   
      
      
   --   
   jan bojer vindheim   
   http://vindheim.net   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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