ARBIL, Iraq, Feb 10 (AFP) - 16h16 - Kurdish leader Massud Barzani spoke out Thursday against any one of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups dominating the country's new government, following talks with interim prime minister Iyad Allawi.

STRASBOURG, Feb 8 (AFP) - 18h35 - The European Court of Human Rights Tuesday censured Turkey for violating the right to free speech of a Kurd, jailed because a book he published was considered separatist Kurdish propaganda.

"The tenor of the book was not such as to justify the applicants criminal conviction," the court ruled, according to a press release.

ANKARA - Wednesday, February 9, 2005

'My advice to all Iraqi political leaders is this: Such rhetoric would lead them nowhere. What they should do is turn their faces towards Baghdad,' says Gül

Kurdish candidate in Kirkuk wins the race for governor, news reports say


Wednesday, February 9, 2005
ANKARA - Iraqi Kurds and Shiite groups will soon launch post-election talks over sharing government posts, Iraqi interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said yesterday.

By: PETER W. GALBRAITH
The New York Times - February 1, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

"Erbil, (Southern Kurdistan) — OF all the remarkable things that happened at the Iraqi polls on Sunday, perhaps the most striking was pulled off by the Kurdish independence movement. With almost no advance notice, hundreds of Kurds erected tents at official polling places in Iraq's Kurdish areas and asked those emerging from the ballot booths to take part in an informal referendum on whether Kurdistan should be independent or part of Iraq. From what I saw, almost everyone stopped to vote in the referendum, and the tally was running 11 to 1 in favor of independence.

"Japanese authorities have detained a Turkish Kurd recognized as a refugee by the United Nations, saying a Tokyo court overruled his petition to block deportation, officials said Tuesday. The unidentified man was taken into custody by the Tokyo Immigration Bureau on Monday, bureau spokesman Shoichiro Okabe said. The move follows the forced expulsion last month of two Turkish Kurds also recognized as refugees by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

By Jim Muir
BBC correspondent in northern Iraq

In a mountain hamlet so small and remote that it does not even have a name, Aisha was drawing water from the outside standpipe which supplies her family of eight and her neighbours in the cluster of mud-brick houses.

The spectacular ranges which crowd the horizon were mantled in snow.

"Of course we'll all be voting in the elections," she said.

KIRKUK, Iraq, Feb 6 (AFP) - 15h51 - Turkmen and Arab parties in the crucial Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk on Sunday accused majority Kurds of fixing the result of provincial elections, adding to tensions in the region.

Official results for the election, held the same day as Iraq's historic national vote on January 30, have not yet been released.

But Turkmen and Arab parties in the city, a longstanding ethnic tinderbox, say Kurds from other parts of the country flooded Kirkuk on election day to inflate the community's vote.

Kurd sees Sunni role in drafting constitution

Associated Press - 07/02/2005 -
By Scheherezade Faramarzi

QALA CHWALAN, Iraq -- The Kurdish leader who hopes to become Iraq’s new president pledged to try to bring the country’s disaffected Sunni Arabs into the political process although many of them stayed away from the polls in landmark elections.

Jalal Talabani, a Sunni nominated last week by Kurdish leaders as their candidate for one of Iraq’s two top posts, said he would urge Sunni Arabs to participate in drafting a constitution -- one of the key tasks of the new government that will soon take office.

Zaman- Feb 4, 2005-Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Massoud Barzani has said it is unacceptable for Turkey to declaring Kirkuk as a "red line". Turkey should not interfere with Iraq's internal affairs, Barzani said: "It is our very natural right to have a state. This fact should be seen from now on and accepted."