Word: northerners
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...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...
Turkey has long been hostile to the emerging power of Iraq's Kurdish minority, located primarily in northern Iraq. Concerned that Kurds might take control of the oil rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk, Turkey inserted itself into Iraq's domestic political problems by dubiously claiming stewardship of Kirkuk's minority Turkoman population (with whom ethnic Turks share a distant Central Asian past and little else.) More recently, Turkey has demanded that Iraq's Kurds rid northern Iraq of the PKK, a job that the government-sanctioned Kurdish peshmerga militias are unable to do. The peshmerga are currently overstretched in Baghdad...
...Turkish army invaded northern Iraq, sending some 35,000 soldiers across the border to destroy the guerilla infrastructure of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) a militant group made up of Turkish Kurds that had found refuge in the lawless mountain region. Operation Steel, as it was called, killed over 500 militants, but still the PKK survived to fight another day. In early 1997, the Turks sent in another 30,000 soldiers - this time as part of Operation Hammer - to finish the job. They didn't. The Turks had to go in again later that year with Operation Dawn...
...slain entertainers all played related styles of music. Hailing from ranches and small towns in northern Mexico, the genre (which includes Banda, Nortena, Grupero and Durangense) combines Mexican folk melodies with the marching band ryhthms of German immigrants. The music has now evolved to include electric guitars and keyboards and is as popular in big Mexican and U.S. cities as it is in the countryside...
American commanders are open about the CLCs' motivations; patriotism is not high on the list. Gen. Mark Hertling, who commands American forces in northern Iraq, said at a press conference last week that most volunteers were in it for the paycheck they received via the U.S. military. "They're doing that to get a job, primarily," he said. A CLC fighter gets paid roughly $300 a month, slightly less than his counterpart in the Iraqi police force. Nevertheless, of the 15,000 volunteers in his area, Hertling said, only about 20% have expressed an interest in joining the government...