Talk of the Nation
Discusses Kurds

(Marty Moskovane)
The Kurdish people have tried to prevent long-standing internal 
rivalries from standing in their way.

Unfortunately, though, these traditional divisions have been played upon 
by neighboring states, each for their own interests.

The Kurds are the largest homeless ethnic minority in the world, and 
throughout much of their history, the Kurds have had to deal with 
conflicts between neighboring countries in the Middle East and their own 
internal rivalries.  As the fighting heats up in northern Iraq we ask, 
who are the Kurds?  Is there a solution to their enduring conflicts?

Today on Talk of the Nation we are looking back at Iraq and the 
situation in the Middle East, focusing on the Kurds.  The Kurds are the 
largest ethnic group in the world without their own country, with more 
than twenty million living in parts of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.  
While statehood has been a dream of the Kurdish people for many years, 
the Kurds have been used time and again by the powers in the region.  
But, as is evidenced by the fighting in northern Iraq today, conflict 
between Kurdish groups has been very much a part of their history as 
well.  Two rival Kurdish factions, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or 
the KDP, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, have been 
squabbling with each other since the 1960's.  That conflict erupted in 
late August in the safe haven of northern Iraq, which was established in 
1991 after the war in the Persian Gulf.  Iraq was called in by the KDP, 
which threw the United States into the conflict by bombing targets in 
southern Iraq.  Confused?  You're not alone.  Today on Talk of the 
Nation, who are the Kurds?  Why don't they have their own country?  What 
are their rivalries about, and how have they been used as pawns by 
countries in the region and by the United States?

We have several guests who will be joining during us this hour of Talk 
of the Nation: Kani Xulam, founder and director of the American Kurdish 
Information Network.  He came to the States in 19[85] from Turkish-
occupied Kurdistan.  Also with us, Asad Khailany, founder of the Kurdish 
National Congress of North America.  He immigrated to the States from 
Iraq in 1966 and teaches Computer Science at Eastern Michigan 
University.  Also with us is Graham Fuller, senior political scientist 
at the Rand Corporation.

And, joining us now is Bill Montabano, London Bureau Chief with the Los 
Angeles Times.  He has just come back from northern Iraq.  Bill 
Montabano, what can you tell us about what is happening in northern 
Iraq?

(Bill Montabano)
At the moment there's a great deal of exaltation on the part of the 
people who won the battle, the civil war between the factions.  But this 
is underlying a great deal of consternation because no one is certain 
now what will happen next.  For five years this place they call 
Kurdistan, which is really the country that never was, has been 
protected by the United States, by over-flights of French, British and 
American planes, and by the presence of a handful of very symbolic 
soldiers in northern Iraq in the city of Zakho.  They left when the 
fighting began in the region in the capital of Erbil, and people I 
talked to are quite frightened of what might happen next.  In August, an 
Iranian armored column went in and attacked some Iranian Kurds.  In the 
last days of August the Iraqis supported the attack by one faction on 
the capital.  And now Turkey has announced that it will send a large 
force into northern Iraq to establish a buffer zone there against 
attacks by Kurdish Turks.  So the situation is quite unsettled, and the 
people are very upset and worried.

(Marty Moskovane)
Do the Kurdish people have opinions about U.S. policy towards Iraq?

(Bill Montabano)
Yes, they all think that it's up to the United States to solve their 
problems.  That's what they have thought for a long time, and that's 
what they have been thinking for the last five years.  The internal 
dynamics of their own blood feuds, which are so deeply rooted in the 
history of the Kurds, rose up and the two forces which have collaborated 
in governing what they call Kurdistan began to fight with one another.  
Now they think it's up to the United States, again, to impose some order 
there and the hope of a real Kurdistan.  But what you see at the same 
time are the Iranians and the Iraqis and the Turks, who are now 
regarding this rather tired and eyesore place the way that neighborhood 
cats look at a tired swallow.

(Marty Moskovane)
And ready to take advantage.

(Bill Montabano)
Absolutely, unless there's a replay of the history of that region.  
Nobody wants an independent Kurdistan except the Kurds, and its 
neighbors, principally Turkey, Iraq, and Iran are prepared to do 
whatever is necessary to stop the creation of an independent Kurdistan.  
The United States expressed a humanitarian commitment to the Kurds after 
the Gulf War, but never a political one, and that is the missing 
ingredient right now.

(Marty Moskovane)
Asad Khailany, what are the KDP and the PUK fighting about?

(Asad Khailany)
Actually both of them claim that they are working for the Kurdish 
people.  The current fighting is mainly between Saddam Hussein and the 
Kurdish people.  Our U. S. policy was wrong from the beginning.  The 
strategy toward Saddam Hussein was wrong.  As the Mr. Montabano pointed 
out, the U. S. looked at the Kurdish situation as a humanitarian issue.  
They never addressed it as a political issue.  As he pointed out 
correctly, the aspiration of every Kurd is to have a Kurdish government.  
There are thirty million of them.  The issue cannot be solved just by 
avoiding it.  We have to go to the United Nations and find a political 
solution to the Kurdish problem.  The Arabs are against the separation 
of the Kurds from Iraqi unity, and they consider the Kurds' desire to 
separate a blasphemy.  But it is ironic that the same Arab governments, 
the same Arab people, cannot live together.  We have twenty-two Arab 
governments.  Yet they expect that Kurds, who are not Arabs, to live 
with the Arabs.  Nor are they Turks, yet they are expected to live with 
the Turks.  You cannot force people to live together.  We have examples 
in Yugoslavia and in the ex-Soviet Union.  The Kurds really depended on 
the United States's word.  The Kurds stood up to Saddam Hussein when the 
U. S. Administration asked them to, and we paid a very heavy price for 
that, because the U. S. pulled out when we most needed them.

(Marty Moskovane)
Graham Fuller, I know there were attempts by the United States to broker 
some kind of settlement between these two rival factions in northern 
Iraq.  Why were they unable to come to some kind of peaceful resolution?  
As our guests have said, the Kurdish people share a desire to have a 
country, and yet they don't have one.  Why are they unable to get 
together?

(Graham Fuller)
I think it's important to look at their history and realize that the 
Kurds are divided among at least four different counties, those being 
Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.  Within each one of these states the 
Kurds have been forced to conform to the political culture that exists 
there.  In addition, each one of these states has been determined to 
keep Kurds divided among themselves within that state.  So it is not 
particularly easy for Kurds to cooperate when all these forces are 
determined to keep them separated.

(Kani Xulam)
I agree with Graham.  Turkey, Iran, and Iraq may have different 
interests, but when it comes to the Kurds, they all see eye to eye.  
They all want to make sure the Kurds don't get together and don't have a 
united front against all three.

(Marty Moskovane)
How much are things like water, money, and oil making it difficult for 
the Kurdish people to work together to create a Kurdish state?

(Graham Fuller)
Actually, almost none of the Kurds today are speaking of an independent 
Kurdish state.  It is an artificial dilemma to suggest that either Kurds 
must live under Saddam Hussein so that they can't break away, or that, 
conversely, they need total independence.  Everyone, at least non-Kurds, 
would hope that the Kurds' own aspirations for political and cultural 
autonomy should be able to be met within the confines of existing 
states.  The question is really very simple: if existing states cannot 
satisfy the aspirations of their minorities, they're in big trouble.  
When conflict arises between the ruling class and the minorities, such 
countries either hire a Saddam Hussein to come and ruthlessly crush 
everything, or the state is in turmoil.  In this modern era, modern 
states that want to be part of the international community can't afford 
to have these bleeding sores, incredible bashing of minorities, or 
violations of human rights.  Nobody's going to want to invest in them.  
It's in the interest of the international community to find solutions 
within existing states if possible.  The Kurds can have a life within 
which they can fulfill their political and cultural aspirations.  It's 
not impossible.

(Marty Moskovane)
Asad Khailany, what does it mean for someone to call himself a Kurd 
these days?  As we've said, they're spread out among a number of 
different countries, and I don't believe there's a unifying religion or 
language.

(Asad Khailany)
Yes, we do have a unified language, a unified feeling, and we are a 
nation.  We have a common suffering and oppression.  You mentioned the 
wealth of Kurdistan.  The U. S. President Woodrow Wilson recommended the 
creation of Kurdistan.  The only reason Kurdistan was not created was 
because they discovered oil in Kirkuk.  At that time France and Great 
Britain forced an annexation of Iraqi Kurdistan with the Arabs to form 
an artificial entity which they called Iraq.  The situation in Iraqi 
Kurdistan is very bad.  In the eyes of the Iraqi people and the Kurdish 
people, Saddam Hussein has had a great victory.  Currently he is in 
control, not only in southern Iraq, but in the northern, Kurdish region 
as well.  The missile attack by the U. S. was a slap on the wrist.  As a 
military move the U. S. Administration has fumbled in response to the 
latest Saddam Hussein aggression.  By not hitting him, the United States 
was sending Saddam Hussein the message that it was O.K. for him to 
reoccupy the protected haven area.  But the game is not over yet.  If 
Saddam Hussein gets away with this aggression, the U. S. will lose 
respect and credibility, not only in the Middle East, but in the entire 
world.  The U. S. should hit him, not only in the south, but in the 
Kurdish area as well, and that will be a message to [KDP leader] Mr. 
Barzani that his cooperation with Saddam Hussein will not be fruitful.  
It would be better to go back to the Kurdish people to help them all 
unite.

(Marty Moskovane)
Kani Xulam, more that fifty percent of Kurds live in Turkey, a very 
important player in this region of the world.  What is Turkey's position 
on the Kurdish people?

(Kani Xulam)
For the Turkish Government, the best Kurd is a silent Kurd, one that 
doesn't aspire for political and cultural rights of the Kurds or 
challenge the Turkish view of the situation.  For example, Article Three 
of the Turkish Constitution states that the language of the country is 
Turkish, and nothing can be done to change this article.  We're talking 
about fifty-eight million people living in one country.  Kurds are 
rural, and their population is increasing much more rapidly than that of 
the Turks in the west.  No one has counted the the Kurds, because 
Turkish laws are against that.  But one-third of the country is Kurdish.  
Just imagine three people living in one house, two of them are able to 
speak their language, and the third person is prohibited by law to do 
that and is forced to speak the language of the other two.  This is the 
situation in Turkey, and it is ugly, and wrong.

(Marty Moskovane)
Are terrorists a threat to the Turkish Government?

(Kani Xulam)
I don't call those who oppose Turkish rule terrorists.  Turkey has 
called for this violent response.  If Turkey wishes, it could resolve 
this problem peacefully.  The Kurdish leadership has time and again 
asked for political resolution of this conflict.  It takes two to tango.  
If Turkey wants to have violence in the region, it will have violence 
from the Kurds.  If it wants to have peace in the region, I believe the 
Kurds will sit down and talk peace.  As the correspondent in London 
pointed out, the Kurds look like a tired bird and the cats want to jump 
on it and devour it.  Turkey wants to do that, but it's not a solution, 
because there are too many Kurds to be swallowed by the Turkish cat.

(Marty Moskovane)
Graham Fuller, this gives one a flavor of the complexity of the Kurdish 
situation in the Middle East, the Kurds' aspirations and those of the 
surrounding countries as well.  With so many different interests at 
stake, it seems resolution is impossible.

(Graham Fuller)
There are two ways of looking at this.  One is the hopelessly 
complicated one and the other is an effort to look at the root problems.  
The hopelessly complicated route is used by defeatists who say that 
every state in the region, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, has its own 
interests and are geopolitical rivals.  There are other states in the 
region which don't want any democratic movement, particularly in Iraq, 
because they're afraid it will bring pressure upon them for the lack of 
democracy in states in the Persian Gulf.  There are the geopolitical 
interests of Israel, of the United States, and there are oil interests.  
To make some sense of it we have to get down to a few fundamental 
principles.  First, I cannot conceive of any peace or stability in the 
region as long as Saddam Hussein is there because he has a proven record 
of aggression, grossly brutal treatment of his own people, exceptionally 
bad judgment, and a deep sense of personal revenge.  Nobody in the U. S. 
policy-making committees explicitly said that Saddam had to go.  He is 
the source of the problem.  We talk about putting him back in the box 
and behaving himself, but Saddam is the problem and he really has to go.  
Secondly, there is no solution to the Kurdish problem from anywhere in 
the region until each of the states with a large Kurdish population 
begins to deal directly with that problem in the context of existing 
borders.  Although the situation in Turkey is not very good for Kurds 
right now, I am most optimistic about their opportunities there, because 
Turkey has a basically democratic structure, a civil society, and a 
fairly free press.  These things are not particularly operative for the 
Kurds, because their situation is seen as a delicate security problem by 
the Turkish Government.  But otherwise, Turkey is reasonably well-
equipped to open up debate.  Turkey could solve its problem without 
Kurds rebelling and deciding to leave.  But they have to make the 
decision to acknowledge the Kurdish problem, and this is painful for 
them.  If Turkey can't handle it, then Iraq will never be settled, and 
an unsettled Iraq means an unsettled Turkey.

(Marty Moskovane)
On the line is Avsin who's calling from San Francisco.

(Avsin)
In response to Mr. Fuller's statement about Turkey being democratic, if 
I had spoken Kurdish two years ago in Turkey, they would have put me in 
jail.  Anyway, I have recently heard from NPR and other stations that 
Kurds are an ethnic minority with no state.  They have a state.  Their 
homeland is Iran.  Since your panel are experts in the Kurdish minority, 
I would like them to tell me what Kurdistan means, and what the names of 
their cities and peoples are.  They are all old Persians.

(Asad Khailany)
The late Secretary of Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, Mr. 
Quassemlou,  in one of his conversations with Khomeini, it was made 
clear that Farsi was the official language of all Iran.  Khomeini wished 
to prevent Kurds from studying in their own Kurdish language.  When Mr. 
Quassemlou questioned Khomeini on this, Khomeini said it was necessary 
to study in our own language.  He said that "we are all Muslims, there 
is no difference".  So Mr. Quassemlou suggested that they study in 
Arabic instead of Farsi.  Khomeini refused, saying that Farsi was Iran's 
national language.  Later Mr. Quassemlou was assassinated by the Iranian 
regime.  So I don't hold much hope for Iran as the homeland of the 
Kurds.  Kurdistan is a land which is occupied by Iran, Iraq, Turkey, 
Syria, and Armenia.  There are only artificial boundaries which divide 
Kurdistan.  Our people have the same history.  Kurds have existed and 
have been living there even before the Iranians.  For example the city 
of Erbil is 4,000 years old.  It is the oldest city in the world that is 
still inhabited by human beings.

(Marty Moskovane)
We have another call from Linda from St. Louis.

(Linda)
In light of what has been said about the cat and bird analogy, would one 
of your guests comment on what Turkey would say were the reasons they 
were letting Kurds from Iraq to cross the border into the safe haven.

(Kani Xulam)
Turkey never really wanted to take in those refugees.  They were forced 
to take them.  Secretary of State James Baker flew over the area with 
late Turkish President Ozal.  They didn't want to deal with the problem 
because it would galvanize the Kurdish national consciousness inside 
Turkey.  It would be like Kurds would realize that trusting Arabs, 
Persians, and Turks would not get them anywhere. Turkey was afraid and 
wanted to keep the Kurds on leash, and that's why they were forced to 
take them in.  They sent the Kurds back as soon as the situation was 
calm.

(Marty Moskovane)
Let's go to Thomas calling us from San Jose.

(Thomas)
This situation is so fictionalized that it's a potential human disaster.  
It seems a mistake to hurry a political solution.  What we need is a 
purely humanitarian solution.  When we tried to force a political 
solution during the Somalia crisis, we had our men dragged through the 
streets.  There was a huge backlash and the U. S. had to pull out, 
leaving the Somalians and the international relief agencies in the 
lurch.  So why can't we have an Egyptian solution and provide massive 
foreign aid for the Kurds and also for the millions of  other Iraqi 
citizens who are starving to death.  About a million children have 
starved to death since our bombing campaign during the Gulf War.  So we 
need massive human rights help, not a political or military solution.

(Graham Fuller)
There are many things that can be done to alleviate current suffering, 
but in the end we have to get down to the root of the problem, which is 
a political solution.  That inevitably involves the removal of Saddam 
Hussein from power.  It means urging Turkey to deal more liberally and 
with a greater sense of vision with its own Kurdish problem.  For the 
sake of Turkey's own future this is important.  It doesn't have to mean 
the division of Turkey.  And in Iraq, we should urge the kind of federal 
solution that they've talked about in the past but Saddam would never 
permit to take place.  We can't just continue with a humanitarian 
solution.  I think the U. S. should allow the sale of food, medicines, 
and perhaps even lift all the sanctions, but at the same time we must 
tell Saddam that he can't move his troops anywhere in the country.  No 
planes, no tank movement, nothing.  We must impress upon him that there 
is no military solution to any of his problems.

(Kani Xulam)
The suffering is real.  Malnutrition is there.  But we Kurds don't 
really want foreign aid.  We want our political aspirations to be 
validated.  The political problem has to be addressed.  With handouts of 
food, our cause isn't going to go anywhere.

(Marty Moskovane)
How does the Kurdish cause get validated?  Is it through a political 
solution through military involvement?

(Kani Xulam)
No. A little history will help illustrate what I mean.  At the end of 
the First World War, those artificial countries in the Middle East were 
created.  Today we seem to accept that they should be there, that they 
are sacred, that those boundaries should not be changed.  But in that 
equation, the Kurds lost, and today we aren't getting our rights as 
well.  In Turkey, for example, our cultural heritage is at stake.  The 
Kurds need to have their country just like any other people.  The Arabs 
are one people but they have twenty-two countries.  That's their choice.  
But we need to have our own country, carved out from Turkey, Iraq, Iran, 
and Syria.  But the bottom line is that the will of the Kurds needs to 
be respected and accepted.  Nobody in Iraq, Iran or Turkey has bothered 
to ask what the Kurds want.  What is the will of the Kurds?  As a Kurd, 
I know the Kurds want a just rule.  They may not want to separate and 
may prefer to live in Turkey.  Turkey is a good country, and to some 
extent a great country.  If Turkey applies democratic rule across the 
board, the Kurds may not want to separate.  But that is not there, and 
so long as the Kurds are denied their basic rights, Turkey is not going 
to solve the problem.

(Marty Moskovane)
Asad Khailany, do you think it would be possible for the Kurds to put 
aside their long-standing rivalries and function as a unified state?

(Asad Khailany)
I think that is a possibility.  But, as Graham Fuller correctly pointed 
out, Iraq is not going to dissolve as long as Saddam Hussein is in 
power.  The U. S. strategy was wrong.  Saddam Hussein could have been 
thrown without sending a single soldier, missile, or aircraft.  If the 
Kurdish region had a prosperous economy, you would see a lot of Iraqi 
units defecting to the Kurdish area.  However, the U. S. and the 
regional government worked very hard to see that the Kurdish experiment 
in Iraqi Kurdistan would not be successful.  The U. S. and the others, I 
believe, have sympathy towards the Kurdish people, but they didn't want 
even a regional government to be successful.  This led to a very bad 
economic situation.  One of the reasons for the present fighting between 
the KDP and the PUK is economic.  The KDP had complete control of the 
main strategic considerations, and the PUK had the support of three-
fourths of the Kurdish population in Iraq.  The PUK didn't have any 
economic revenue and thus they could not rule.  That was one of the main 
reasons for the current conflict.

(Marty Moskovane)
Graham Fuller, you said that peace and statehood for the Kurds is 
impossible as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.  Do you have any 
confidence that, if he were removed, that whoever took his place would 
have a more sympathetic and humanitarian view towards the Kurdish 
people?

(Graham Fuller)
Once you get rid of Saddam Hussein and a handful of henchmen around him, 
most rational Iraqis recognize that their country is an absolute mess.  
They have destroyed their own people, institutions, self confidence, and 
everything else.  Any halfway democratic institution, for example a 
reconstruction of the parliamentary order that used to exist twenty-five 
years ago, would allow Iraqis to recognize that a prosperous Iraq 
requires a population that is satisfied.  We haven't even talked about 
the Shiite majority which constitutes about sixty percent of the 
population and will play a major role in the Iraqi society.  But 
neighboring states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are terrified that a 
greater degree of democracy in Iraq will bring Shiites to power.  Maybe 
even, they fear, Iran would come in.  You can spin all these horror 
scenarios to prevent anything from happening.  We need some sense of 
vision and the faith that a more representative order will bring a more 
rational Iraq, an Iraq in which Kurds can function more successfully 
than they can now.  Kurds presently live under tremendous economic and 
political pressure.

(Marty Moskovane)
Let's go to Michael who's calling us from San Diego.

(Michael)
I was a lieutenant for the third of the 325, which were the first U. S. 
troops to come in for the initial operation Provide Comfort in 1991.  
The Kurds are an incredibly resilient people.  I've walked over the 
ground where cities had been knocked out.  But for America to actually 
choose a side at this point is exceedingly difficult.  Even in 1991, Mr. 
Barzani and Mr. Talabani were warring between themselves.  At this point 
you have one side which has chosen Iraq and the other which has chosen 
Iran, and I think it's difficult to ask the United States to pick a side 
between those two.  It is incipient upon the Kurds to work out the 
differences between the PUK and the KDP before the United States can 
intervene in any appropriate way.

(Marty Moskovane)
Is it possible for the U. S. to stay neutral and at the same time push 
toward democracy for the Kurdish people?

(Michael)
Graham's point about asking Saddam to not move any forces would be 
extremely wonderful, but you really need forces on the ground in order 
to do that.  Operation Provide Comfort was enabled, one, as one of your 
guests pointed out, because the Turks did not want hundreds of thousands 
of Kurds on their territory, but also because we were able to use Turkey 
as a staging area.  We were able to move our forces in there by truck.  
We converted an unfinished airfield, and we were able to land C-130's 
with supplies for our units farther inland.  But at this point, you have 
problems on the Iranian border, and I don't think the Iranian government 
would easily permit U. S. forces to move into Kurdish Iraq without 
problems.

(Graham Fuller)
I do not think the United States should take sides in this particular 
quarrel.  Rivalries are normal among any political group, including the 
Kurds.  The point is that the Kurds in northern Iraq have watched the 
progressive deterioration of the economic and political situation.  I 
think Barzani became fearful that sooner or later they would have to 
deal with Saddam Hussein, and concluded that it would be better to deal 
now while at least a bargaining position is available, rather than wait 
until they are hopeless.  This situation doesn't have to exist 
indefinitely between the KDP and the PUK.  I would not recommend that 
the U. S. take sides, but I would advise that it take vigorous action 
denying military force almost entirely to Saddam.  It shouldn't take 
ground troops to defeat him.  We were able successfully during the Gulf 
War to destroy almost all of Saddam's army by air action.

(Kani Xulam)
Barzani's collision with Saddam was preposterous, treacherous, and 
callous.  If any Kurdish leader should know about what Saddam has done 
to the Kurds, he should.  His father, his uncles, his tribe were all 
decimated.  I don't know what Barzani was thinking.  But the blame 
cannot be put solely on the Kurds.  There's enough blame to go around.  
The U. S. didn't want to deal with this problem.  On that issue I agree 
with A. Rosenthal's op-ed piece in the New York Times.  One line in 
particular from his most recent article captures the essence of this 
conflict.  "So long as Turks exist, the stateless Kurds don't matter."  
That is the policy that emanates from the State Department, and 
unfortunately, so long as it continues, the Kurdish problem will be with 
us.

(Marty Moskovane)
Graham Fuller, is giving the Kurdish people autonomy, statehood, and 
democracy in the U. S.'s interest?

(Graham Fuller)
There is a rise all over the world of a search for identity, for 
authenticity of culture and participation in society.  Modern states 
simply cannot oppress large portions of their societies and continue to 
be modern functioning societies.  They're vulnerable, their small groups 
can wreak havoc on them, nobody will want to invest in them.  These 
societies are exceptionally unattractive.  The pressure is on all states 
of the world.  If a state can't manage its minorities, it's on its way 
out the door.  That is going to apply to any state, more and more in the 
future, whether they're friends of ours or not.  I'm encouraged and I 
think Turkey understands this and ultimately will be able to manage it.  
Neither Iraq nor Iran are even close to understanding this.  These 
states are now at an exceptionally primitive level of political 
development.

(Marty Moskovane)
Let's go back to the phones.  We have Roy on the line from Seattle, 
Washington.

(Roy)
If they were to draw the borders for Kurdistan at the point where it is 
now, would they be able to feed the people or produce a viable economy?

(Assad Khailany)
Actually, Kurdistan is a very rich country.  Two years ago, Iraqi 
Kurdistan produced enough wheat to feed Iraq in its entirety.  In fact, 
some wheat was exported to Iran.  The oil fields of Kirkuk,  Kirmanshah, 
and Khanikin are all in Kurdistan.  Besides that, one of earth's main 
scarce resources, water, is plentiful in Kurdistan.  Kurdistan could 
have a very strong economy.  
The U. S. interest is in stability.  As long as the Kurdish issue is not 
addressed properly, there will not be stability in the Middle East.

(Marty Moskovane)
If Kurdistan has all these valuable resources, wouldn't it take away 
from Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and all the countries that are using these 
resources today?

(Kani Xulam)
That's right.  The Middle East is very arid.  Today and in the days to 
come, water is going to be as precious as oil.  Two of the Biblical 
rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, originate from the land of the 
Kurds.  I agree with Mr. Khailany that Kurdistan is viable economically.  
But he failed to mention the political aspirations of the Kurds.  What 
is a meaningful life for the Kurds?  I don't want to have a tummy full 
and a roof over my head and no rights.  I cannot, with the present set 
of laws, give a Kurdish name to my son or daughter.  I cannot perpetuate 
the heritage my grandfather left me.  That is more meaningful to me than 
filling my tummy or having a roof over my head.

(Marty Moskovane)
If Kurdistan were a country, would you go back there to live?

(Kani Xulam)
I would go today.

(Assad Khailany)
When Saddam is overthrown I will go back.  I have been waiting since 
1972.

(Marty Moskovane)
Let's go to George who's calling us from Manhattan.

(George)
If it weren't for Saddam Hussein, with all his brutality against the 
Kurds, we wouldn't be discussing the Kurds at all.  Look at the way the 
Turks have been slaughtering them all this time--

(Marty Moskovane)
Well George, that's an interesting way to put a spin on it.

(George)
We turned a blind eye.  As for a unified language, there's Farsi.  Farsi 
and Kurdish are very similar.  Ninety percent is the same.  Look at the 
names--Talabani, Barzani, they're all Italian or Iranian sounding.  
Lastly, how are the Armenians, as a Christian nation, treating their 
Turks, as compared with those Islamic countries who are brutalizing 
them?

(Marty Moskovane)
Graham, do you agree with George that if Saddam Hussein had not 
terrorized the Iraqi Kurds, that we wouldn't be talking about them 
today?

(Graham Fuller)
That's like saying Adolf Hitler played a great role in helping unite the 
Jewish people and create a Zionist state.  I just can't believe that 
Saddam is the chosen deliverance of the Kurdish people.

(Marty Moskovane)
I'd like to ask each of you what you expect in the next couple of weeks 
and even up through the next year.

(Assad Khailany)
First of all, I hope Mr. Barzani discontinues his cooperation with 
Saddam Hussein.  I believe the U. S. still has some muscle in the area.  
We can send Barzani a message by attacking Saddam's tanks and armies in 
the Kurdish area.  From this he will understand that his cooperation 
with Saddam Hussein will not be fruitful.  He would do better to go back 
to the Kurdish people, reconcile with all the parties in the area and 
decide on a unified agenda for the Kurdish people in Iraq.

(Kani Xulam)
I'm not prepared to say that Talabani is finished, but I'm prepared to 
say that Barzani, by siding with Saddam, has dug his own grave.  Kurdish 
reliance on outside forces is wrong, and if the Kurds want liberation 
they need to rely on themselves.

(Graham Fuller)
First of all, it's imperative that we liberate the economy in Iraq and 
allow French, British, Russians, or anyone else who wants, to come in 
and invest in the country to open up the economy.  At the same time we 
have to tell Saddam Hussein that he's not moving any military forces 
anywhere, and thus speed his end.  Secondly, we have to recognize we 
require an internal solution to the Kurdish problem in Turkey and Iraq.  
A federal solution is needed in Iraq.  And we must urge the Turks to 
move as rapidly as possible towards democratic accommodation of their 
own Kurds if they want to be stable.

(Marty Moskovane)
Thank you to all our guests.  This has been Talk of the Nation, this 
week focusing on the Kurds on National Public Radio.