And now Iran and Turkey start bombing the Kurds

It seems Sin was right

Iran and Turkey are doing an 'Israel' on Northern Iraq.

there are over 25 million kurds, but they still don't have their own country
whatever happened to self-determination?

*tries to stop blood from boiling*
*fails*

There needs to be a peace process over Kurdistan as well but I rather doubt there ever will be, mores the pity.

Cmon now topsy, every ethnic group should have its own state? Isnt that the sort of thinking that lead to the current situation in the middle east? Far far far better than countries along ethnic or religous lines, are the secular countries where the ethnic or religous membership of the individual inhabitants is irrelevant.

oh come on topsy, 25 mio in india would make about a 100 different countries...should every ethinic race be given land to live in? they are part of a country and should try to make it better!

Conspiracy theories are simply the truth that no one wants to believe.

and as a matter of fact, what kind of a standing do you think this country would have? they would be without resources and simply unsustainable if they are not sitting on top of a ton of oil!

Yes indeed, considering that the Kurds have gotten their asses kicked on a regular basis for the past two thousand years, it required special foreign affairs insight to predict that it would happen again...

But the Kurds were a country for hundreds of years until falling victim to a very brutal genocide in the early C 20th. They are as much a victim of the arbitrary drawing of national borders to create artificial countries by the British in collusion with the Turks as are the Palestinians.

The Kurds were also promised their own nation state by the Western Powers in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres

the kurds have been around for 3,000 years, at least...
they're one of the earliest recorded civilisations

if they got their own country it would be the size of france

they must really be some of the most shat-on peoples in the history of time, really
at least turkey lets them speak their own language these days, though, so i guess that's progress

The Armenians had a rough time too...

actually, they're part of 4 countries - each of which has shat on and persecuted them in their own, unique way

I am a bit suspicious of ethnic groups (note ethnic groups and civilizations are different things) that survive as homogoneous wholes, particularly when they are in multicultural empires, regions or nations, for so long, all it means is that they dont mix and interbreed with their neighbours, even within the same country, which is where all this tribalism shit comes from in the first place. People got to stop thinking of themselves in terms of what seperates them from everyone else, and start thinking in terms of what we have in common.

Kza, often it is the others that stop you intergrating in such situations.

yeah, like why do the polish and french think of themselves as a separate country? crazy, innit?
[/irony mode]

well, the French are trying to create one european country. With them running it, of course, and the Germans doing the book keeping.

The Armenians at least were allowed to keep part of their nation as a nation state, which resulted in a tragic population shift but nevertheless meant they retained a homeland.

Yeah and look at all the hardship that occured splitting India into its Muslim and Hindu sections. Shouldnt have been neccesary. Both religions should have learnt to coexist in one nation. Politics and religion have to be separate, the more combined they are, the more likely violence will occur as religous minorites become persucted by the very law itself that should be garunteeing their rights and safety. I view politics and ethnicity as a similar paring, something to be legally separate.

How about giving all the races in the US separate home lands, or perhaps in Australia, the whites or lebanese could get their own special homeland, nah thats just apartheid, and it would be apartheid if the kurds did it too.

Nothing against the kurds, they should be treated as first class citizens wherever they live, if they arent, that HAS to be fixed, but sperating off into separate ethnic sections is the wrong solution.

I do think the north islander majority in NZ should be given the whole stewart island for themselves though, and the minority mainlanders should form their own nation out of the north and south islands.

I agree that in an ideal world politics and religion should not mix. However that is seldom the case. Organised religion *is* politics.

However, i disagree with you about self-determination. To feel you belong to a country and feel a part of it, you have to identify with it. I think every ethnic group should have the right to self-determination if they so chose. In most cases, self determination (ie independant state) makes no sense whatsoever (ie Scotland) but hey, if they want it, let them.

the kurds are a separate nation, they speak a separate language, there are well over 25 million of them (closer to 40 million if you include the diaspora), and they want their own country

if they got it, it would make them the 30th largest country in the world (again, including diaspora population - sure, a lot of them would go back, half the kurds i knew here in munich moved back after they killed uday and qusay)

the reason they *don't* have it is a hangover, basically, from centuries of colonialism and being used and then stabbed in the back again and again by larger nations
they're currently being used by the TWAT-alliance, no doubt they'll be stabbed in the back again
sometimes i think they shouldn't be such nice, decent and effing peaceful people, then they might have got their own country years ago
*grrrrrr*

OK, name me smart ass or whatever, but the kurds mainly are sunnis, while Iran is a shi'ite country. If you take a look at the map of the region, you'll see that the only way to Syria is through Irak (Turkey is no option). Since the sea route to their dear friend Mr. Nazrallah is effectively blocked now and still will be for quite some time, they gotta find some other supply route. The vast majority of US troops (as well as the british) is stationed in and around the shi'ite triangle, whilst in the north there are nearly no coalition forces. The iraki security forces (kurds up there) take care. Iran is giving it's neighbours a slight hint: "Hello everyone! Let us do as we want to and you'll be spared. Cheerio, tata have a nice day.". Saying they do the "Israel" and by that implying Israel is the one to blame, is only pathetic.

In what way does an independent Scotland 'make no sense'? I don't support independence for Scotland but even I can see why it would make a great deal of sense.

Couple of grieving Irish parents of holiday makers might disagree with you there...

are you thinking what i'm thinking.

come again, parnell
what you on about?

You have to admit, guys like Ocalan and the PKK aren't exactly treehugging peaceniks.

Well being nice never won you a thing didn't it? Be an idiot and you get what you want!

i think he referrign to the PKK targetting turkish tourist resorts in the 90's. In fact, up until Ocalan was captured really.

Open your eyes about your "oppressed":

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0710/turkey.html
Kurdish rebels claim Turkey bomb attack - A Kurdish rebel group has claimed it carried out a bombing on a holiday resort in Turkey in which 20 people were wounded.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0723/turkey.html
Two hurt in Istanbul explosion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Whelan

The bomber was arrested in İstanbul on 8 April 2006 and is currently being tried in İzmir. He reported that he had mixed with militant circles after having started to live in Germany as an asylum-seeker and had been trained in camps based in Germany and the Netherlands

EDIT: Fuck them.

EDIT @ OG - July 05

Even more annoying

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0710/kurds.html
RTE News - Kurdish families to be resettled in Ireland

...
A group of Kurdish families, who have been refugees for more than 25 years, have arrived in Ballyhaunis Co Mayo to begin new lives in Ireland.

If we cant learn to share a country with other peoples, not only share the country but also our cultures, languages, opinions, religions and peace with those within our nation, then what hope have we of doing the same on an inter-national level?

Nope, first step towards being a good citizen of the world is to be a good citizen in your own country.

Why should certain sub-tribes of certain countries be promoted to sovereign nation status, and be expected to play the part of a modern tolerant member of the international community when they cant even get along with the national community they are already part of?

Its a catch-22 though really, expecting cultures to prove their maturity and achieve peace and cooperation with their countrymen before achieving nationhood, because once they have that peace and cooperation they dont need to segregate their country into ethnic groups. A bit like a bank loan really.

Clearly the solution is to promote a global system where all countries have to declare their total impartiality regarding race and religion and anyone who seems to think their mono-cultural racially-pure nation is legitimate and justified needs to be corrected.

Changing borders will only make things worse, because land is finite, whenever you give someone land you steal it from someone else, and we have seen how long such injustices last.

As the dubwize song goes, "integration not segregation".

The problem isn't the learning to share - the problem is forcing newcomers to participate - no state has the resources to ensure that people who don't wish to participate (i.e. radicals) remain outside - hence states must and should remove the means by which those people are able to remain outside - as per the US - dismantling the welfare state and forcing them to participate in the general economy in order to survive - rather than fester - it's interesting that this usually economic argument holds such water from a moral and defence perpective.

@parnell - re: the terrorism thing, you're right, obv
when i typed that they were peace-loving, i was thinking mainly of the iraqi kurds, since they are the ones that i know personally

mind, looking at the way the kurds in turkey have been treated, you can kind of understand them getting a bit hot under the collar
if i get time later on i'll dig out a couple of links

@ Topsy
Koolio... but ur comments referred to the entire Kurdish people - I sincerely and bitterly loathe people who adopt the idea that its cool to target tourists because the host country (Turkey) is treating them shit - which no doubt it is - another reason why I do not feel Turkey should be in the EU anytime soon.

As the above link demonstrates , our subsidized asylum seeking friends right here in Germany should be far from free of suspicion - again they couldnt be joining together planning such shit if they were out in the economy mingling with the common German and Turk rather than signing on.

Subtribes? what are you smoking?
the kurds aren't a sub-tribe of anybody

god, kza, sometimes you really do take the biscuit

@ parny - the thing with turkey wanting to join the EU has been good for the kurds in turkey, actually. It's only through pressure from the EU that they have recently officially been allowed to speak their own language, for instance.

I didnt say they were topsy, I didnt even mention the kurds in that post.

I was speaking generally, as I find it always helps to speak generally about such topics. Particularly speaking to you in this case, as your opinion seems to be mostly based on you personally knowing and having a friendship with a kurdish person or people. Now thats a bias, but heck everyones biased, nothing wrong with that, it just that speaking generally helps remove that bias. For example, someone might have palestinian friends and kurdish friends and therefore think its ok for kurds to have a ethnicly oriented homeland but not israelis. This isnt really hypocrasy, because personal circumstances are valid in forming opinions. Its not as useful in making broad decisions on what to do in case this general situation occurs elsewhere though.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to just have discussions about country A and country B. Explain their situations (based on real events of course) and then let people debate the actual situation in general terms rather than based on any personal relationships or biases the debaters might have with the specific situation.

But you can still apply my general statements to the kurdish situation if you want, just change sub-tribe for ethnic group if the terminology fits your worldview better.

@ Topsy
Perhaps so - and the EU should continue to say "fuck off" until Turkey makes torture in its own country illegal... at the very least... once they clean that up and do a bit of a swish on corruption then I'm happy. Which reminds me - throw out the Greeks!

@kza - yeah, you're right, i do have a lot of kurdish friends
i think generally the level of awareness of their situation is not v. high, so i do tend to go on about it a bit, as a one-woman attempt to put that right...

i believe in self-determination as a general principle, though, whether it be kurdistan, scotland or east timor

Suggest we throw out the Irish, the French, the Germans +? too while we're at it (Charles Haughey, Francois Mitterand, Helmut Kohl etc. ad infinitum).

don't forget the Italians, pike!

*waves and smiles at jules*

Jeez - how could I forget those maestros!

Yeah... CJH died of prostate cancer ... shed a lot of tears over him but c'mon ... Germany and France ??? Amount of times I've dropped my mobile in this city only for some punter to pick it up and give it back to me...

The Guardian...

Somebody actually reads it!