Word: kurdistan
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...farmer's wife in Zurkan, a remote village close to the Iranian border in northeastern Iraqi Kurdistan, Amina Khidir began performing the operation when her mother became too old to carry on. Her first patient was her own daughter. "I didn't feel nervous, because I had spent years watching how the cut was done," Khidir remembers. "And my daughter was a baby at the time, too small to understand what was happening. That's the best age to do it." Matter-of-factly, Khidir describes dealing with the aftermath of her work. She applies oak charcoal to reduce pain...
...According to the Shafi'i school [of Islamic law] to which we Kurds belong, circumcision is obligatory for both men and women," explains Mohamed Ahmed Gaznei, chief cleric in the city of Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan's second city. "The Hanbali [school] says it is obligatory only for men." Personally opposed to female circumcision, Gaznei in 2002 issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for imitation of Hanbali practice. He has since appeared on a short film about FGM shot by a Kurdish filmmaker that WADI medical teams now take with them when visiting villages...
...main parties have given their blessing to the law, and FGM is now openly discussed by the local media. Back in parliament, Pakhshan Zangana knows the law represents only the end of the beginning of this struggle. Her aim now, she says, is to end FGM in Iraqi Kurdistan within five years. "A law on its own can't do that," Zangana says. "What can is full cooperation between government departments, and people like me, in parliament, making sure the law is enforced...
...close to two weeks, Turkey has been targeting the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) inside Iraqi territory. And they are not unhappy with the response of the Americans, who control the skies over Iraq. The Turkish President, according to Turkey's state-controlled media, has praised the United States for providing intelligence that was used by the Turkish military in its operations. America too has backed Turkey's right to go after the PKK, which it has long called a "terrorist organization...
...trickiness of the political climate was apparent earlier in the week, when Iraq's President, who is a Kurd, its Sunni Arab vice president and the leader of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) met in northern Iraq and denounced the Turkish raids. "We condemn operations and they should be ended as soon as possible," said Massoud Barzani, the KRG head. But the condemnation was not as full-throated as it could have been. President Jalal Talibani stressed that Iraqis valued Turkey's friendship, and said that he hoped problems could be addressed through diplomacy...