ChoSun

On the day I arrived in Irbil, Iraq from Kuwait wearing my bulletproof jacket, Korean troops dispatched there were carrying out a civil operations named “Green Angel” in an elementary school there.

Kites flew high in the sky and the town was crowded with people of all ages wearing traditional costume. War, in the end, is about the life of individuals. Watching a mother and her daughter bake wheat cakes in a yard, I asked myself why it is so difficult to live as peacefully as they seemed to.

It was a strange emotion watching people dance and sing there. My eyes misted over as Iraqi children sang Korean songs they had learned from soldiers in the Zaytun Unit - it was so reminiscent of my own childhood, when I danced hand in hand with soldiers celebrating the end of the Korean War. How could I explain to these Iraqi children how it came about that most of the Turkish troops who came to Korea during the war to help us were Kurds? There are 260 million Kurds scattered around the world, and 4.1 million live in Iraq. In Irbil, 98 percent of the population are Kurds.

The Korean troops in Irbil, among these people who have been for centuries dispersed around the world without a country to call their own, believe that reconstruction and rehabilitation of the city mean more than just reconstructing damaged buildings or repairing roads. They see it as their mission to comfort people who have been hurt badly by the events of history.
A beautiful ancient fortress stands in the middle of the city. The fortress, by the river Tigris, contains traces of the royal tombs of the Parthian and Medians mentioned in the Bible and has been designated a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO. Looking around the maze of crumbling walls made from caked loam and sand, I thought how grand it still looked in its decay.

In a way, all of us still live in an ancient, crumbling fortress built on sand. When will we be able to forsake the violence of this world and live in a truly civilized society, where there are more musical instruments than deadly weapons?

The poet Mun Jeong-hui was in Irbil, northern Iraq from Feb. 27 until March 4, meeting Korean troops, reading from her poetry and talking to academics at Saladin University there.

Uneasy About Tehran's Nuclear Plans, Bush Administration Tries to Build Opposition to Theocracy

By Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler

The Washington Post - As the dispute over its nuclear program arrives at the U.N. Security Council today, Iran has vaulted to the front of the U.S. national security agenda amid Bush administration plans for a sustained campaign against the ayatollahs of Tehran.

President Bush and his team have been huddling in closed-door meetings on Iran, summoning scholars for advice, investing in opposition activities, creating an Iran office in Washington and opening listening posts abroad dedicated to the efforts against Tehran.

The internal administration debate that raged in the first term between those who advocated more engagement with Iran and those who preferred more confrontation appears in the second term to be largely settled in favor of the latter. Although administration officials do not use the term "regime change" in public, that in effect is the goal they outline as they aim to build resistance to the theocracy.

"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Senate testimony last week. "We do not have a problem with the Iranian people. We want the Iranian people to be free. Our problem is with the Iranian regime."

In private meetings, Bush and his advisers have been more explicit. Members of the Hoover Institution's board of overseers who met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley two weeks ago emerged with the impression that the administration has shifted to a more robust policy aimed at the Iranian government.

"The message that we received is that they are in favor of separating the Iranian people from the regime," said Esmail Amid-Hozour, an Iranian American businessman who serves on the Hoover board.
"The upper hand is with those who are pushing regime change rather than those who are advocating more diplomacy," said Richard N. Haass, who as State Department policy planning director in Bush's first term was among those pushing for engagement.

But as the administration gears up, the struggle with Iran remains shadowed by Iraq. The botched intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons has left a credibility challenge in convincing the public and the world that the administration is right this time about Iran. After alienating European allies in the rush to war in Iraq, the administration is following a slower, multilateral approach. And with U.S. forces stretched, analysts wonder how feasible a military option would be if it came to that.

The focus on Iran inside the administration lately has been striking. Bush, according to aides, has been spending more time on the issue, and advisers have invited 30 to 40 specialists for consultations in recent months.

In the past week, the State Department created an Iran desk. Last year, only two people in the department worked full time on Iran; now there will be 10. The department is launching more training in the Farsi language and is planning an Iranian career track, which has been difficult without an embassy there.

Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said in an interview that the department will also add staff in Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates, as well as at other embassies in the vicinity of Iran, all assigned to watch Tehran. He called the new Dubai outpost the "21st century equivalent" of the Riga station in Latvia that monitored the Soviet Union in the 1930s when the United States had no embassy in Moscow.

The administration also has launched a $75 million program to advance democracy in Iran by expanding broadcasting into the country, funding nongovernmental organizations and promoting cultural exchanges. Voice of America broadcasts one hour a day into Iran; by April, that will grow to four hours a day, and the administration plans to go to 24 hours a day. But the administration suffered a setback last week when lawmakers slashed $19 million, mainly from broadcast operations.

LONDON (Reuters) - The government will call on Monday for an expansion of global broadcasting in Iran and more material in Farsi published on the Internet in an effort to support Iranians' aspirations for greater freedom.

At a time when Iran is locked in a dispute with the international community over its nuclear programme, Foreign Minister Jack Straw will say in a speech, extracts of which were obtained by Reuters, that the Islamic state is heading in the wrong direction.

He will urge world organisations to boost the information flow to Iranians who may have little access to outside news.

"Iran is going in the wrong direction, chances are being squandered, Iran and the Iranian people deserve better," Straw will say in a major speech which could be interpreted by some as an attempt to interfere in Iran's domestic affairs.

"We in European countries need to communicate better with the Iranian people," he will say.

His speech, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, will come a month after the United States outlined plans to expand television broadcasts to Iran and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked Congress for $75 million (43 million pounds) to help open up its tightly controlled society.

While cautioning that Britain has no interest in taking part in internal debates, Straw will say Europe should not look the other way when Iran fails to embrace human rights.

"We should not stop standing up for principles for human rights and fundamental freedoms which we hold dear to ourselves and which so many Iranians aspire to," he will say.

HIGH TENSION

He will draw attention to cases where Iranian authorities have cracked down on the media and will call on European colleagues to talk more to Iranian journalists.

"I encourage international organisations and non-governmental organisations to make reports on Iranian affairs available in Farsi on the Internet."

"And we need to think about whether there is more we can do to ensure reliable and trusted news services are able to broadcast in Farsi to the Iranians."

Straw will avoid targeting the current Iranian government alone by saying that Iranians have struggled for a century to secure the freedoms many western countries enjoy.

Tensions between Iran and Britain are running high.

Britain, along with the United States and many other countries, suspects Iran wants to develop nuclear technology to build a bomb, a charge the Islamic state denies.

The issue is now with the United Nations Security Council which could eventually introduce sanctions against Iran.

Britain, along with most of the world, has voiced shock at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

"Reaction and repression at home is matched by confrontation abroad," Straw will say, noting that Iran is alone in opposing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Having the nuclear issue in the UN Security Council marks a new phase in diplomatic efforts, not an end of diplomacy, Straw will say, adding that the West does not want to stop Iran generating nuclear power.

It is up to Iran to build confidence by resuming a suspension of sensitive nuclear work and cooperating with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, Straw will say.