A bomb blast has killed one person and injured 13 others near a bus stop in Turkey's biggest city of Istanbul.

A Kurdish separatist group, the TAK, said it carried out the attack in response to recent violence in the mainly Kurdish south-east of Turkey.

Reuters - Monday, March 27, 2006; A12

IRBIL, Iraq, March 26 -- An Iraqi-born Kurd with Austrian citizenship was sentenced to a year and a half in prison Sunday for defaming a Kurdish leader, in a case that has raised questions about press freedoms in postwar Iraq.

By Robert F. Worth The New York Times

THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 2006

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq Like most young Kurds in this northern city, Asad Ali does not speak Arabic. He has heard about the rising wave of sectarian killings down in Baghdad, but it seems a world away from the quiet rhythms of daily life here in Kurdistan.

Mon Mar 13, 2006 8:43 AM ET
By Ross Colvin and Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's president pressed political parties on Monday to accelerate efforts to form a broad government to arrest a slide into civil war after bomb blasts in a Baghdad Shi'ite slum killed 52 people.

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, March 10, 2006; A19

Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides. In the first parliament after the first set of elections, they allied themselves with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government led by Ibrahim al-Jafari.

13 March 2006

BRUSSELS — A report from the Belgian ambassador in Turkey has poured cold water on suspicions that the death of the parents of Kurdish activist Derwish Ferho was the work of a death squad.

  03 Mar 2006 13:24:18 GMT
TUNCELI, Turkey, March 3 (Reuters) - A Turkish court heard charges on Friday that nine journalists and human rights workers, including a reporter for Reuters, had given help to Kurdish rebel fighters.

10:50 ET 20 February 2006 Monday / Ankara -Turkey's media watchdog has announced that broadcasts in the Kurdish language may commence in March on private radio and television stations.

Allowing broadcasts in languages other than Turkish was one of the requirements set by the European Union.

  Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.20.2006

BAGHDAD Iraqi political parties have run into major obstacles in talks on a new national unity government, officials said Sunday, raising the possibility of a major delay that could set back U.S. hopes for a significant reduction in troop levels this year.