.Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Basln Özeti
advanced on this village, hoping to
capture Najat's brother, Zayed, who,
they said was spying for the other
side. .
Nearly seven years later, details of
the fight and the sacking of several
Sourchi homes that ensued are still
. in dispute. But no one disputes that
Hussein' Agha al-Sourchi, the tribal
elder, was fatally shot by Barzani
fighters. Thirteen Barzani fighters
were also killed. Zayed al-Sourchi,
. whom the Barzanis still say was a
. spy, escaped.
The Barzanis have expressed regret
about the death of the Sourchi
chief, saying he was not the target of
. the raid. "I was sorry before and I
am sorry now that that happened,"
Mr. Barzani said.
Najat andZayed say that regret is
not enough and that Mr. Barzani
. must publicly accept responsibility
and apologize. .
They also want to kill Nerchervan
Barzani, Massoud Barzani's nephew
.and the prime minister of the western
Kurdish zone, who they say
helped plan the raid.
After the killing, many Sourchis"
remained in or near Kalakin, and,
SOllle are loyal to Mr. Barzani. Ali
. Hussein al-Sourchi, a lawyer, recently
walked among ruined houses and
said what befell the tribal leaders
was their own fault, because they
were jash working for the Irl:\qi government.
"They hurt the people of
this area so much,'~ he said.
Other Sourchis joirted the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan. They now live in
internal exile in Sulaimaniya, where
they claim to have 706 gunmen on
their payroll, some of whom provide
military support to Jalal Talabani,
the head of the Patriotic Union.
From a heavily guarded house in
Sulaimaniya,. Najat al-Sourchi says
it is the Barzanis who are jash, noting
that. they invited Mr. Hussein's
army to attack Erbil in 1996when the
civil war against Mr. Talabani's
fighters was going badly.
"How could a man who says he is a
Kurdish hero collaborate with Saddam
Hussein?" he said. "I ask this:
Who is the real jash?"
The Sourchis' reassertion of the
feud has baffled and angered many
Kurdish officials, who say it is badly
timed Kurds are trying to show unity
now, not fractures in their ranks .
"These people should be quiet,"
said Sami Abdul Rahman, one of Mr.
Barzani's closest confid~ts.
Mr. Barzani, as the leader of a
principal political party and the de
facto commander of a local army
" tens of thousands strong, is indisput-
'ably important to the future of Iraq ..
He expressed exasperation at the
Sourchis' call for his head, describing
Najat as "somebody who was'
brought up with the milk of treachery
and treason."
But he chose a calmer path, offering
to let the exiled tribesmen return
to their village and suggesting he
'.was too well guarded to be killed by
Najat al-Sourchi. "We have opened a
new page," he said. "He knows very
well he cannot assassinate me, and I
do not want to kill him."
Mr. Sourchi rejects talk of truce.
"There is blood between us, and every
day, every minute of every day, I
think of killing him," he said. "It is
like a dream in my mind."
Still, in qUIet moments, sipping tea
and talking softly, he sometimes re-
. flects about the sadness of it all. "I'm
not saying this is good, but it is the
tradition of Kurdistan," he said. "I
know it is not good."
NATO chief
• ••
wins praise
from u.s. for
Turkeyrole
By Michael R. Gordon
The New York TImes
had the legal authority to take action to
. protect its air spaceeven without the
approval from all its members.
As it happened, this extraordinary.
step turned out to be unnecessary when
Belgium finally yielded during a marathon.
session that ended shortly before
midnight Feb.16.
The alliance's mission to bolster Thrkey's
defense was approved and.
NATO's AWACSare scheduled to be flying
missions over Turkey by Thursday.
But NATO diplomats report that
Robert~on was not bluffing. Worried
that the alliance's credibility wouldbe
threatened üit did not act, NATO's staff
WASHINGTON: When NATO ambas- had developed the maneuver as a lastsadors
gathered in Brussels for a final' ditch way to break the deadlock. .
showdown over Iraq on Feb. 16,the alli- . Significantly, Robertson and Nichance's
secretary-general, Lord olas BUrns, the US. ambaSsador to
Robertson, held a secret trump card. NATO,told Belgium's representatives of
The NATO chief was ready to author- their plan to have.NATO go ahead with
ize the dispatch of U.S. AWACSplanes . or without Belgium's support. Belgium
and Patriot anti-missile batteries to would have been isola,ted diploinatic~
help protect Turkey even ifBelgium, the ally if it had failed to go along ànd its
lone holdout, failed to drop its objections,
diplomats say.
dissent would have had no practical ef-.
fect. .
Such a move would have been an a~ . ~ NATO official, using the alliance's
rupt departure from NATO's time-. te~ for the supreme allied commander
honore~ tradition of opeI'll;tingonly on in Europe; Gelleral James Jones, said, "If
the basIS of consensus, w~Ich normally .. Belgium hadnot agreed,. Robertson.
would have allowed BelgIUm to block ,would have delegated authority to
the action. Saceur tosend AWACSand Patriotsun- .
~t with the stro~ b!lcking of the' der his' own authority to protect alli-
UDlted States and BntalD, Robertson ance air spacë."
would have asserted that the alliance Critics of Robertson complain that he
. .wa.C! too confrontational in trying to
(orge a NATO decision. But his defenders
sa~ inactio~ would have damag~
.the Western allIance far more.
In Washington, the Bush administration
has nothing but admiration for how
Robertson, a Scottish-born former British
labor leeder and defense minister,
played his hand.
Three days after Belgium acquiesced,
Robertson arrived at the White House.
Ûpon entering the OvalOffice for a
meeting with President George W.
Bush, the president led the -Americans
in the room in a standing ovation for the
NATO chief. The president, one official
recalled, said Robertson .was a "conquering
hero."
Some NATO traditiopalÏSts, however,
~re surprised at the lengthS RObertson
and the Bush administration went to
win the debate; . .'
. Actingwithout. unanimity from
NATO "would have been precedent-setting,"
~aid Stanley Sloan, a NATO expert
and visiting scholar at Middlebury
College. , .
"If one' country is stiU standing aside
from the consensus and is not willing to
. go along, " Sloan said, "the NATO rule is
nothing happens."
101