TEHERAN - A young man convicted of child rape has been publicly hanged in Iran’s central clerical capital of Qom, the Jomhouri Eslami newspaper reported Tuesday.

Mohammad Sadeghi, 26, was hanged on Monday, the report said, adding that he was sentenced to eight years in jail for kidnapping as well as receiving the death sentence for rape.

The hanging brings to at least 30 the number of executions in Iran this year. At least 154 people were executed in 2006, according to an AFP tally based on press and witness reports.

Capital offences in the Islamic republic include murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, blasphemy, serious drug trafficking, repeated sodomy, adultery or prostitution, treason and espionage.

Source:khaleej times online

The Guardian
Robert Tait in Tehran and Ian Black

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came under fire from domestic critics yesterday for his uncompromising stance on the nuclear issue as the US and Britain launched a new diplomatic effort to agree harsher UN sanctions they hope will force Tehran to halt uranium enrichment.

Mohammad Atrianfar, a respected political commentator, accused the president of using "the language of the bazaar" and said his comments had made it harder for Ali Larijani, the country's top nuclear negotiator, to reach a compromise with European diplomats.

The president made global headlines at the weekend by declaring that his country's quest for nuclear energy was an unstoppable train, adding to the sense of crisis as emergency talks got under way in London yesterday.
Critics from across the Iranian political spectrum took him to task for his "no brakes or reverse gear" remarks, bolstering claims in the west that his hardline position may be starting to backfire.

"This rhetoric is not suitable for a president and has no place in diplomatic circles," said Mr Atrianfar, a confidant of Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential regime insider and rival of Mr Ahmadinejad. "It is the language people in the bazaar and alleyways use to address the simplest issues of life."

Fayaz Zahed, leader of the pro-reform Islamic Iran Solidarity party, criticised the president for seeking to emulate the populist Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, rather than internationally revered leaders such as Nelson Mandela or Vaclav Havel.

"The brake exists to get the train safely to its destination," Mr Zahed wrote in the newspaper Etemad-e Melli. "Perhaps on the journey, we might find the track broken and are obliged to move our passengers by using the reverse gear to get to a safer track. Iran is a nation of earthquakes, flood and national disasters! You are our head. We should be able to trust you."

Even the fundamentalist newspaper Resalat, usually a supporter of Mr Ahmadinejad, was critical. "Neither weakness nor inexperience and unnecessary rhetorical aggression is acceptable in our foreign policy," it said.

In London, the Foreign Office's political director, John Sawers, was talking to colleagues from the US, France, Russia, China - the other four permanent members of the UN security council - and Germany, holder of the EU's rotating presidency. The meeting was described as "a productive first session" by the Foreign Office.

The US and Britain are pushing for tougher financial and trade sanctions on Iran but will have to work hard to overcome objections from Russia and China before they can be codified into a new UN resolution.

The US representative, Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state, has been stressing Washington's commitment to diplomacy to resolve the crisis, in contrast to the continuing refusal of the White House to rule out military action.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, underlined Moscow's unease when he criticised the US for talk of using force.

"Forecasts and suggestions about a strike on Iran have become more frequent and this is worrying," he was quoted as telling President Vladimir Putin.

A UN resolution in December barred the transfer of technology and know-how to Iran's nuclear and missile programme. New measures could include travel bans and asset freezes on individuals and organisations involved in them. Trade sanctions, including a ban on EU export credits, would be harder to agree.

The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said Iran was treading a "dangerous route" but the west still wanted to negotiate. "The steps that we have taken are reversible. There is nothing that we would like better than to be able to reverse them and no longer to have to continue with sanctions," she said in Islamabad.

Iranvajahan.net

TEHRAN - A thief convicted of multiple robberies had four fingers amputated in public in west Iran today, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The 46-year-old, named as F Hosseini, had committed 22 offences, mostly involving opening safes, a judicial official in the western city of Kermanshah said.

Under Iran's Islamic law, repeat offenders face amputation of their fingers for theft, but sentences are seldom carried out, especially in public. In recent years, such sentences have rarely been reported.

The United Nations and rights activists have in the past criticised Iran for such amputations. Iran dismisses the criticism, saying the sentences are part of Islamic sharia law.

Source:nzherald and REUTERS

ANKARA— The president of Iraqi Kurdistan called on Turkey for face-to-face talks to end high-running tensions over Turkish Kurd rebels based in his autonomous region in northern Iraq, in a television interview broadcast here yesterday.

His appeal coincides with remarks by Turkish officials that they are ready to meet Iraqi Kurdish leaders to discuss the problem, contrary to earlier threats by Ankara of a cross-border military operation to crack down on the rebels.

“Dialogue is the best way to resolve problems and misunderstandings,” Massud Barzani told Turkey’s NTV news channel. “We must talk face to face to understand each other’s position. This will be followed by (discussions on) what should be done and necessary actions. “We are extending to Turkey a hand of friendship. We will be pleased if Turkey responds in kind,” he said.

Meanwhile, a Turkish court sentenced the leader and deputy leader of a mainly Kurdish party to 18 months each in prison yesterday for using the Kurdish language in political leaflets and praising a jailed Kurdish rebel chief.

Use of the Kurdish language remains a sensitive issue in Turkey, despite a batch of European Union-backed reforms easing some restrictions on broadcasting and education, and it cannot be used at rallies or for other political purposes.

Source:arab news

By Vincent Boland

FT-The head of Turkey's armed forces used a visit to the US this month to fire a warning shot across the bows of his political masters at home.

Turkey was facing more threats to its national security than at any time in its modern history, General Yashar Buyukanit said, but its "dynamic forces" - its soldiers - would prevent any attempt to "break up the country".

Within days, the government in Ankara dropped a tentative plan to open official lines of communication with the civilian Kurdish leadership in northern Iraq - a controversial initiative but one that many countries are urging.

The government's acquiescence on an important foreign policy issue represents a decisive victory for military over political thinking. It also highlighted the continued influence of the military a decade after the generals ousted an Islamist government without firing a shot - an event that has become known as the "post-modern coup".

Despite legal and constitutional changes in the past four years to reduce their visibility in public life, to give civilian leaders a bigger say in matters of national security and to make the armed forces more accountable to parliament, the Turkish general staff can still influence and change government policy in a way that would be impossible in other European countries.

Cengiz Aktar, a professor at Bahcesehir University, says Gen Buyukanit's Washington speech was meant to send a signal to the end-of-term government and the nation at large that the military retained a pre-eminent role on national issues such as the threat of separatism. "If there was the slightest will on the part of the political leadership of Turkey to talk to the Kurdish leaders in Iraq, that will has now gone," he says.

Turkey has a history of military interference in its political affairs It is one of the legacies that most compromises its attempt to join the European Union.

In addition to the February 1997 coup there have been three coups d'état since 1960, complete with tanks on the streets, mass arrests, new constitutions and generals in uniform assuming top political positions. These interventions were sometimes welcomed by Turks, who regard the military as the country's most trustworthy institution.

Reforms to the status of a status-obsessed military since 2002 were accepted by the general staff because they were necessary to secure the opening of EU entry talks. Now, some observers say, Gen Buyukanit is testing the revised constitutional arrangements to see where the new border between the politicians and the military in Turkey lies.

"It's his attempt to understand the new parameters," says Omer Faruk Genckaya, an associate professor of political science at Bilkent University.

In particular, some observers say, the generals are worried that the constitutional changes have weakened the national security council - which was once dominated by the military and is now run by a civilian - without strengthening the political or civilian alternatives. This, they believe, has occurred at a time when Turkey's neighbourhood - it shares a border with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Georgia and Armenia - is going through profound upheaval.

Omer Taspinar, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, says Gen Buyukanit's prominence in recent weeks reflect the weakness of politicians as much as the new-found confidence of the military. "In the political vacuum created by inept politicians, both in power and in opposition, the general staff is once again filling a void and increasingly becoming a barometer of Turkey's stance," he wrote last week.

Gen Buyukanit has clashed with the government before, on issues from internal security to Cyprus. He seems certain to do so again in the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections this year - as long as he feels the military is a better judge of the public mood than politicians. "Until politicians become more honest about the problems Turkey is facing, the military will always see a role for itself in society," Prof Genckaya says.

Source:kurdish info

By Ali Ezzatyar
KurdishMedia.com

Introduction

Fate has indeed dealt an interesting hand to the Kurds. Upon the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds, a distinct cultural and linguistic minority, were guaranteed a state of their own per the Treaty of Sevres.[1] In the end, while dozens of independent nation-states were realized among the Arab population alone, the Kurds today remain the largest ethnic group in the world without their own state. Situated within the borders of modern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, “Kurdistan” holds the dubious distinction of being under the jurisdiction of some of the world’s grossest human rights violators.[2] Countless movements for political, economic and social rights, as well as autonomy and independence movements have been waged in the wake of this colonial failure.

Read more

Diabetic Patient Protests Hospital Fee

Kurdish News Human Rights Watch

Bokan- One woodcrafter afflicted with diabetes, Sharoq Khudadadi, protested against the government hospital, which wanted a large fee from him to treat his illness. Mr. Khudadadi cut his legs with a hacksaw in protest. The locals took him to the hospital in Orumia, where he underwent an amputation.

Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan

London (KurdishMedia.com) 26 January 2007: The president of Kurdistan, Massuad Barzani, stated that the Kurdistan government would not allow any country to attack the PKK fighters stationed in southern Kurdistan. Barzani’s response came, last Saturday, when was questioned by the journalists in the Kurdish city of Sulemani in a press conference, in which the US ambassador and Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi President, were present.

About 5000 PKK fighters are stationed in Qendil mount in southern Kurdistan. Turkish authorities claim that the PKK are a threat to the Turkish national security.

The Times
Tom Baldwin in Washington and Michael Theodoulou in Nicosia

Diplomats embark on a fresh round of talks today aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which the country’s president described yesterday as “like a train which has no brake and no reverse gear”. Measures being discussed include imposing travel bans on a dozen named Iranians involved in the nuclear programme and tighter restrictions on the trade of arms and technology, as well as an attempt to block investment and export credits.

But officials meeting in London from the five permanent United Nations Security Council members, Britain, the United States, France, China and Russia — plus Germany, acknowledge that it could take weeks to reach agreement on a new resolution.

A previous resolution in December imposing limited sanctions on Iran took months to work its way through the Security Council because of objections from Russia and China, which have close links with the Islamic Republic.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), last week reported that the sanctions appeared to have had little effect on Iran, which insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. Not only had the country failed to cease uranium enrichment activities, but had expanded them. America believes that the programme is a cover for nuclear weapons. But diplomats at the IAEA have, according to reports yesterday, said that intelligence information provided by the US — purporting to demonstrate the existence of a weapons programme — is unreliable.

President Bush has denied that the presence of two aircraft carriers in the region means that the US is preparing to attack Iran. But rumours abound in Washington that he will not leave office without resolving the issue — by military means if necessary.

An article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine this week claims that a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours. It also suggested that covert raids had been made across the Iranian border by American personnel.

Western alarm over Iran’s intentions was exacerbated yesterday by an announcement that it had launched its first rocket into space. Experts say that the same technology can be used to build intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching Britain, which Iranian hardliners demonise as the “little Satan” to distinguish it from its big brother “the Great Satan” of America.

But Iran, which has a tendency to embellish its scientific and military prowess, later back-tracked, saying that what had been launched was a suborbital rocket for scientific research and not a missile capable of reaching space.

President Ahmadinejad defiantly shrugged off the threat of further sanctions, saying that the nuclear programme had no reverse gears.

This brought a swift response from Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, who said: “They don’t need a reverse gear. They need a stop button.”

British officials believe that the pressure on Iran is slowly beginning to work, pointing out that the country’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, is “looking for a way out”. He has already offered to delay installing more cascades of centrifuges needed for industrial-scale production of enriched uranium. “This isn’t enough”, said one diplomat close to the negotiations yesterday, but it is a start.

“We’re getting pinged all over the world by Iranians wanting to talk to us,” said Nicholas Burns, the US Under Secretary of State. The problem is that the Iranians have not yet said the “magic word”, which is to promise suspension of uranium enrichment.

Pariah state

— UN Resolution 1737 (adopted December 2006): All member states compelled to deny Iran the equipment, technology, technical and financial assistance that could aid nuclear programme

— US sanctions against Iran Almost all imports over / banned. Ban on virtually all exports if the final destination is believed to be Iran

Iranvajahan.net

Today's Zaman

PJAK, the Iranian wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), claimed yesterday that it had shot down an Iranian helicopter. Tehran said it was accident due to bad weather conditions.
The Fars news agency reported that a Revolutionary Guards commander was killed in the crash.

The Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan group (PJAK) said the helicopter had been shot down during a security operation launched by the Iranian army in an area close to the Turkish border on Saturday, according to the pro-PKK Fırat news agency.

The group also claimed that it had killed more than 20 Iranian soldiers, including a senior officer in an hours-long battle with the Iranian army. One soldier who survived the helicopter crash was captured by the group, the Fırat news agency also said, quoting a PJAK statement. The chief of the 3rd Corps of the army, Said Qahari, was among those killed, the PJAK statement said. Iranian state media had earlier reported that the elite Revolutionary Guards had on Saturday killed 17 "counter-revolutionary mercenaries" in a remote area close to the Turkish border. The state-run IRNA agency said the clashes took place after Revolutionary Guards ground forces launched an operation to hunt guerrillas in a northwestern area near the Turkish border.

The report said the commander of the ground force carrying out the operation had an "accident due to bad weather" while flying by helicopter with eight others to check on the area, but did not say if there were other casualties. Iran quickly accused the United States and its allies of seeking to provoke tensions along the country's borders.

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An oil law crucial to resolving political divisions in Iraq edged closer to approval after Kurds said some key issues were resolved, officials said on Sunday.

Passing an oil law to help settle potentially explosive disputes among Iraq's ethnic and sectarian communities over the division of oil reserves has been a key demand of the United States in providing further military support to the government.

Officials are in last ditch talks to finalize a draft law that sets rules for sharing the wealth from the world's third largest oil reserves.

Agreement was nearly reached last month but leaders in the largely autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq demurred, saying they still had concerns about relations between regions and Baghdad.

A top aide to Kurdish regional president Masoud Barzani said on Sunday letters had been exchanged between the two sides in recent weeks and solutions found to some problems.

"Some of the issues in debate between the Kurdish regional government and the federal government in Baghdad were solved recently," Fauad Hussain, head of the presidency board in Kurdistan, told Reuters on Sunday.

"The Kurdish regional government approved the submission of the oil draft law to parliament..." Hussain said.

But he added: "The whole issue is still under discussions and it's only a draft law."

STILL UNDER DISCUSSION

"The Kurds agreed on the key points which clarify the annexes of the oil law and the issue of the way that regions can manage oil resources all over the country, including the Kurdish region," he said.

Barzani met Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is also a Kurd, and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on Saturday.

"We agreed on the draft of the law but still there are some articles under debate with the central government," Barzani said at a joint news conference with Talabani.

Talabani said the key issue discussed at their meeting was the oil law and they had come "close to final approval."

U.S. embassy spokesman John Roberts welcomed the comments by the two Kurdish leaders as indicating "good progress."

"This is an encouraging development," he said. "It represents a move forward in terms of the negotiation process and we welcome any movement toward agreement."

A government source with close knowledge of the oil law debate, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said no final agreement was reached on the draft when the cabinet last met on February 22.

"Discussions in the cabinet on the oil draft haven't reached a compromise and the key conflicting issue of the regions having authority to approve deals with foreign companies is still in debate," the source said.

The source said the cabinet would meet on Wednesday for further discussions on the law. Once it is approved by the cabinet, the law will go to parliament.

The Iraqi oil ministry had no comment on whether the Kurds had approved the draft oil law.

The Kurdish government has had reservations on the wording regarding the powers of a federal council, to be established under the law, which will set the oil policy and lay down ground rules for contracts signed with foreign firms.

Officials from Kurdistan, where relative security has encouraged more development than elsewhere in Iraq, have said they want assurances the federal council will not invalidate their existing contracts, including with Norway's DNO.

(Additional reporting by Shamal Aqrawi and Sherko Raouf)

BAGHDAD (AFP) -Iraq's President Jalal Talabani is suffering from extreme exhaustion and dehydration but is in high spirits and his life is not in danger, his office said Monday.

Talabani, Iraq's 74-year-old Kurdish leader, was flown from his home town in northern Iraq to the Jordanian capital Amman on Sunday after falling ill, and underwent tests at the King Hussein Medical Centre.

"The first results showed that his condition is stable and there's no reason to worry," said a statement from his office in Baghdad. "The president's vital organs are all in good condition."

"The tests showed that his excellency was suffering from extreme exhaustion that caused him to lose a lot of fluid: fatigue and dehydration," it said.

"His excellency will undergo more medical tests to know for sure the details of his health, but his companions said President Talabani is in high spirits and fully aware and interacting normally with others."

Earlier, an official in Talabani's party had suggested that the president was suffering from liver problems, but there was no reference to this in the statement.

By Assad Waissi
KurdishMedia.com

The Turkish government and politicians are playing political games to score some political points, which could gain them more popularity and support among their nationalist people. What they are hoping and trying to achieve through their “sick” behavioural threat is to isolate the Kurds in Northern Iraq and other part of Kurdistan economically, socially, and culturally. Like always, Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq have played the same political manners, which they are playing today, in most cases through cooperation and agreement among themselves to destroy Kurds by isolating them economically, socially and culturally.

These countries have done all that was necessary in the past and today to contain the Kurds and keep control over those parts of Kurdistan that were granted to them and to assimilate and exterminate the Kurds. Yet they continue to fail, despite their collaboration and oppression against Kurds. It is because Kurdish national consciousness has strengthened from year to year, and we are stronger today than fifty or a hundred years ago.

The recent example is, “Hilmi Aydogdu, head of the Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, charged by the Turkish authority on Friday, February 23, 2007 with inciting “hatred” for suggesting any military intervention by Turkey in Kurdish autonomous region of Northern Iraq would be viewed as an attack on all Kurds.” (Zaman). Aydogdu’s comments were not hatred; it was a huge encouragement and strength for the Kurdish unity and nationhood.

The Turkish politicians are not concerned about what Mr. Gul calls (the rising tensions between Kurds, Arabs and Turkish-speaking Turkmen in Kurdistan city of Kirkuk in Northern Iraq. This is a political game that Turkish politicians are playing and it is aimed to jeopardize peace and harmony has been established through out the Southern Kurdistan. Mr. Gul further stated that “the partition of Iraq will spark a civil war which will force neighbouring countries to intervene whether they like it or not.” (Kurdish News). Well Mr. Gul, Iraq is in a state of civil war now if your ignorant government, politicians and neighbours like it or not.

Why are you and your neighbouring countries so quiet about the mass killing of civilians between the Iraqi Shiite and Sunni Arab everyday? If you and your neighbours are so concerned about the future of Iraq, stop intervening in the Iraqi internal affairs and stop terrorists entering Iraq from your country and other neighbours.

In other word, the Turkish politicians and government are hopelessly concerned about the unity of Kurds and the growing power of Kurds in Southern Kurdistan. Like Mr. Gul stated, “we are concerned about the (growing unity and power of Kurds in Iraq and establishment of a Kurdish state in the North of Iraq, the reason is clear, we are against the partition of Iraq because this will trigger endless wars in the region.” (Kurdish News). Well too bad whether you like it or not it is going to gradually happen. Kurds can no longer be isolated nor be dictated by you and your totalitarian government.

Mr. Gul also stated, that “Establishing an independent Kurdish state in Northern Iraq is a mere imagination and distant from reality specially that the Kurdish leaders realize how impossible is that,” in an interview with (Turkish Channel Seven). Mr. Gul Establishing an independent Kurdish state is not a mere imagination nor is it a distant from reality. It is a true and possible reality that had created fear in your heart, and it is the reason why you and your sick government are so hopeless about it. It is because your government have failed for over a century to assimilate and exterminate the Kurds, and yet continues to fail. You need to know the Kurdish questions are no longer about rights, freedom, equality, and problem of a minority, in other word it is the question of a divided country and a nation. We Kurds will do what is right and what ever it takes to achieve an independent Kurdistan with our rights and freedom.

I would like to ask my fellow Kurds of north, south, west, east Kurdistan and other part of the world to unite and support Mr. Aydogdu who is now in Turkish prison for emphasizing his solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Southern Kurdistan, please. Our movements through peaceful demonstration will strength our solidarity and nationhood. Let’s not sit silent and complain and blame others. Today is the most important time to prove our unity and nationhood and condemn those who violate our rights and freedom.

Assad Waissi, a regular KurdishMedia.com contributor, is an Eastern Kurd who lived most of his life in Iraq and now is living in Canada. Waissi is currently study studying Political Science and Human Justice at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - A minibus packed with explosives blew up on a street running in front of the Iranian embassy in Baghdad amid rising tensions over Tehran's relations with its war-torn neighbour.

It was not clear whether the blast was intended as a signal to the Iranians -- the street is also much used by official Iraqi convoys -- but it erupted only 50 yards (metres) away from the compound and killed two passers-by.

The blast ripped through the street at 8:45 am (0545 GMT) during the busiest period of the morning rush hour, when nearby roads were packed with motorists and pedestrians heading for work, many in nearby Iraqi ministries.

"The police told us that it was a Kia minibus, and that two people were killed. It was close to the embassy, but we weren't the target," Iranian diplomat Khalil Saadati told AFP.

An Iraqi defence ministry official confirmed that two civilians had died in the blast and said eight more had been wounded.

The blast ripped the bus apart entirely, leaving only the battered engine block amid scorch marks and a spray of deadly shrapnel. US Blackhawk choppers clattered overhead as a cloud of dust drifted over the embassy.

Car bombs explode in Baghdad every day, as insurgent groups target the US-backed government and rival Sunni and Shiite factions fight a bloody sectarian turf war for control of the capital.

Death squad murders have dropped off significantly this month since the launch of a city wide security crackdown by up to 90,000 US and Iraqi police and troops.

But bomb attacks have continued and fighting has intensified in the outskirts of the capital.

In the "Sunni triangle" west of Baghdad, a suicide bomber late on Saturday detonated fuel tanker outside a Sunni mosque in the town of Habbaniyah, where tribal chiefs have vowed to fight Al-Qaeda. At least 40 people were killed.

Overnight, US artillery responded to insurgent mortar fire in the southern suburb of Boaitha, rocking Baghdad with a series of massive blasts.

Also on Saturday, a suicide bomber had attacked the home of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a party founded by exiles in Tehran and retains close ties to Iran.

Washington accuses Iran of smuggling sophisticated weapons to Iraqi Shiite parties -- in December US forces arrested an alleged Iranian special forces officer in Hakim's compound -- and of funding sectarian militias.

On Friday, US forces arrested Hakim's son Ammar al-Hakim as he returned across the border from Iran. He was released the same day, but his detention nevertheless triggered massive protests in Shiite cities.

Earlier this month, Iran's role in Iraq came under the spotlight once more, when US commanders and senior Iraqi officials claimed that radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had decamped across the border.

Sadr's supporters deny this, but he has not been seen publicly for many weeks, amid persistent reports that senior cadres in his feared Mahdi Army militia have gone to ground to avoid the new US-Iraqi security plan.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's goverment is walking a delicate tightrope in its relations with Iran and the United States.

Many of the Shiite parties in Maliki's ruling coalition maintain links with Tehran, and both Maliki and President Jalal Talabani have visited Iran with an eye to seeking their neighbour's cooperation in ending the Iraqi crisis.

But, at the same time, Sunni parties in the government fiercely oppose "Persian" influence in Iraqi affairs and accuse Iranian agents of sponsoring militias engaged in the country's bitter sectarian conflict.

The White House and US commanders also accuse Iran of fomenting trouble, in particular by smuggling deadly armour-piercing roadside bombs called "explosively formed penetrators" to Iraqi Shiite groups.

When an EFP explodes it emits a white-hot slug of molten copper that can cut through the armoured skins of US military vehicles and it has been blamed for the deaths of at least 170 US service personnel since May 2004.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has launched a missile capable of reaching space, Iran's state television Web site reported on Sunday, quoting an Iranian aerospace official.

"Iran has successfully launched its first space missile made by Iranian scientists," the head of Iran's aerospace research centre, Mohsen Bahrami, was quoted as saying.

On Saturday, Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said Iran was planning to build a satellite and launcher.

Iranian advances in building missiles capable of reaching space are watched closely by the West because the same technology could be used to build intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Iran launched its first satellite, Sina-1, into orbit from a Russian rocket in 2005 and has said it planned to modify its Shahab-3 missile, which Iran says has a range of about 2,000 km (1,250 miles), to launch satellites.

Bahrami said the missile was built by his centre in cooperation of the Defence and Science Ministries. He gave no further details.

Despite announcing what would be a major advance in Iran's missile technology, the news was mentioned only once by the main state TV news channel and was not carried by other Iranian official media.

The U.N. Security Council has slapped sanctions on Iran that bar the transfer of technology and know-how to Iran's nuclear and missile programmes, a move that was pushed for by the West because of fears that Iran is seeking to build atomic bombs.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is purely civilian and aims to generate electricity.

The defence minister was quoted by a newspaper as saying: "Building a satellite and satellite launcher, as well as (previously) launching the first Iranian satellite called Sina with Russian cooperation, and becoming a member of the space club, are part of the Defence Ministry's plans."

The daily Etemad-e Melli said the minister made the comments on Saturday.

By Aram Azez
KurdishMedia.com

Since the division of their homeland between Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria in 1923, there is no doubt the vast majority of Kurds in the these countries have been subject to discrimination and mistreatment, including illegal arrests, imprisonment, torture, kidnappings, and even assassinations and massacres by these oppressive regimes. Each of those countries’ justification for their brutality against Kurds is that Kurds demand their rights on their own land, Kurdistan. Unfortunately, Kurds are not only mistreated while they are within the boundaries of those countries colonizing Kurdistan. Even Kurds who have managed to escape the brutality of those non-democratic nations and have resettled in other countries, in recent years are facing similar mistreatment worldwide.

To summarize the Kurdish people’s situation in the case of those living in countries colonizing Kurdistan, the conflicting views can be stated as follows: Kurds almost unanimously, regardless of which part of Kurdistan they inhabit, support the struggle for an independent, greater Kurdistan. They also respect the Peshmerga--the Kurdish men and women who have sacrificed their lives as resistance fighters to make such a Kurdish state possible--as patriotic revolutionaries and national heroes. On the contrary, the countries dominating Kurdistan consider the Kurdish freedom fighters as “terrorists” and view whoever supports them as traitors and given the same low status as those who fight for the Kurdish identity. These views have been held by governments for decades in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. In the late 1990s, when a German woman who had joined the Kurdish freedom fighters was captured by Turkish forces and taken to a Turkish court, the judge asked her where she was captured. “In Kurdistan”, she answered. When the judge supposedly responded, “There is no country called Kurdistan,” the German woman replied, “That’s why we fight.”

As for the Diaspora Kurds who have managed to escape from those brutal countries’ mistreatment and the denial of their Kurdish national identity (and/or who have come into conflict with Islamic extremists for being secular), hundreds of thousands have found third countries to live in. Many of these Kurds have become citizens of those countries and consider them as their second home--but still face difficult circumstances. Perhaps the main reason for this is that most ‘westerners’ are unable to differentiate Kurds from Arabs—and Arabs they view as prime suspects for fundamentalist Islamic activities and threats worldwide. Although the majority of Kurds are Muslims, in their countries of origin they are treated as Kurds rather than as fellow Muslims, and in some cases they are not considered as Muslims at all. The defunct Iraqi regime’s military campaign against the Kurdish people in 1988, code-named the ‘Anfal’ (‘spoils of war’, according to the Quran), massacred 182,000 innocent civilians, and illustrates this point. For their part, Kurds also respect and identify more with their Kurdish nationality than with their religious faith. Unfortunately, however, due to their skin color and/or where they were born, in many western countries Kurds may be treated as “terrorist” suspects.

When Kurds in the Diaspora face mistreatment or discrimination, they feel that they have been victimized twice. For decades they have been victims of terrorist states that conquered Kurdistan, leading them to be dispersed around the world. State terrorism has taken place including attacks by the Turkish military secret service against Kurdish civilians, extralegal executions, the growing numbers of torture cases in police detention in Turkey, Iran, and Syria, and kidnappings and assassinations of influential Kurdish politicians in Kurdistan and Europe. Unfortunately, most of the time Kurds pay the price for what some extremist Islamic Arabs, Turks, Iranians, and other anti-western organizations stand for. Considering themselves non-Arabs and non-fundamentalist Muslims, but rather as being pro-democracy and pro-western, Diaspora Kurds are nonetheless being treated as suspects while traveling abroad, and even while living in their adopted countries, which they consider their second home.

As a result of the September 11 attacks, the various UK incidents, as well as the arrest of 17 Islamic suspects in Toronto last summer, Diaspora Kurds accept the security measures required by the countries they live in or travel to. Yet these security measures should not be taken against them merely due to their physical appearance or where they were born. Western officials, especially the police, must understand that Kurds have been victims of terrorism for decades and that is the prime reason for their lives spent in exile in other countries. Non-Kurds should also accept Kurds’ sensitivity regarding affirming their Kurdish identity and the word “Kurdistan.” Whenever I have been asked where I was from, or if I happened to return from a homeland trip, my answers would have always been “Kurdistan.” Unfortunately, however, most of the time, even in Canada, I get an insulting reply: “Kurdistan is not an official country; tell us Turkey, Iran, Syria or Iraq.” To support my argument, I respond, “Palestine is also a non-official country but no one would dare tell an Arab that he or she is from Israel!”

Even as a proud Canadian citizen and traveling with a Canadian passport, I have personally endured many times incidents of mistreatment and discrimination in different countries--including Canada--perhaps due to the way I look, or my birthplace, Iraq, which I have never considered as my own country. Although discrimination is against the law and is not a major problem in Canada, on my recent return from my first ever driving to the US, I was asked by a Canadian Customs officer, “Where were you born?” Although I was holding a Canadian citizenship card as the other Canadians did at the border, I was asked further questions and dealt with almost as a suspect! On every single trip returning to Canada from abroad--as is the story with so many Kurds--at the airports I’ve gone through “multi inspection” security measures and being almost investigated as a suspect by the Canada Customs officers.

Diaspora Kurds feel that they have been twice victims of terrorism; first at the hands of the state terrorist countries who have conquered Kurdistan, and second by paying the ongoing price of being (wrongly) suspected of identifying with what extremist Arab, Turkish, and Islamic groups stand for. The Kurdish people do, however, continue to stand for our struggle for an independent Kurdistan. The first ever democratic election in Iraq (which occurred in 2005), is an example of this. There was a non-official referendum as an alternative option for Kurds who were born within Iraqi boundaries and who were eligible to vote both inside and outside of the country, while electing Iraq’s parliament members. In the referendum they had the chance to vote on whether Kurdistan should remain within Iraq or become independent. The result was that 98.8% of the voters chose an independent Kurdistan. This became a wake-up call for those who would say that Kurds prefer to stay within the borders of Iraq, and it demonstrated to the world the reality of Kurds’ true aspirations. As a former US Ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, wrote recently, “You can call this place Kurdistan, as its citizens do, or northern Iraq, as the Turks do. But either way, the overwhelming majorities (98 percent in a 2005 referendum) of its 4 million people do not want to remain part of Iraq.”