Word: barzanis
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...most pressing issue between the two is the Kurds-the fiercely independent tribesmen who inhabit neighboring areas of both nations. For six years, Kurds in Iraq, led by Mustafa Barzani and seeking autonomy, have been in rebellion against the Baghdad government. Last week Barzani's guerrilla war had touched off an angry border clash between Iraq and Iran...
...holed up in the Zag ros Mountains. Latest to do so is President Abdul Salam Aref, who seized power last November. With a flourish of drums and trumpets, Radio Baghdad last week proclaimed an end to the three years of off-again, on-again war with Kurdish Leader Mustafa Barzani and his 35,000 pyejmargas, guerrilla fighters...
Peace had been hammered out in an eleven-day conference at Barzani's mountain headquarters at Rania. Statements by Barzani and Aref sealed the pact. To safeguard national unity, stop bloodshed and end a fratricidal fight, said Barzani, "we have decided to take the initiative in ordering a cease-fire." Declared Aref: "In the name of Allah the all-merciful, we have decreed the following in our desire to restore normal life and end the bloodletting." There followed a nine-point communique covering everything from "recognition of the national rights of our Kurdish brethren" to general amnesty...
...Kurdish rebellion soon be resumed, seems to depend on how the various terms of the agreement are interpreted by each side. Aref's acceptance of the "national rights" of the Kurds may or may not turn out to be the equivalent of the "Kurdish autonomy" for which Barzani and his pyejmargas have fought so long and so tenaciously...
Broad-shouldered Mustafa Barzani, 60, has spent most of his adult life fighting for independence. After World War II, with Russian backing, Barzani became military boss of the Soviet-inspired Kurdish People's Republic in Iran and, when it collapsed, was for twelve years in exile in the Soviet Union. The younger brother of the ruling sheik of the Barzan tribe, Barzani denies he is a Communist, but echoes other Kurdish leaders who say that if war breaks out again the Kurds will "accept all the help we can get from anyone"-Russians included...