Word: talabani
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Dates: during 1991-1991
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...would ever have imagined that kiss? There on Iraqi TV was Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, whose people have been betrayed, gassed, shot and forced into exile by Saddam Hussein, reaching out to the tormentor himself. There was Saddam, who once said he would run a sword through the rebellious Talabani before permitting him to return to Iraq, pressing his lips against the cheek of the Kurdish representative. It was enough to make even the most cynical Middle East watcher blink hard and move closer...
...forces so that when the next fight with Baghdad comes, they will be ready. Concerns that the delegation was hopelessly naive were somewhat mitigated by the participation of Nashirwan Barzani, who represented his uncle Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish guerrilla chief whose Democratic Party of Kurdistan is more militant than Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan...
...matter what deal Talabani and his associates may finally end up with, many of their constituents will remain deeply skeptical of Saddam's intentions and will resist returning to their homes. They have seen Baghdad renege before -- on agreements made in 1966, 1970 and 1984 -- leading in each case to renewed fighting. Many Kurds insist that they will not accept any accord unless its enforcement is guaranteed by the U.N. That might be unacceptable to Saddam, who initiated this process to regain control of his country, not to cede...
...convergence of propitious factors. Because Baghdad at first considered the unrest in the Shi'ite areas more threatening, it moved troops in the north southward, giving the guerrillas a more open field. Popular disgust with Saddam's disastrous Kuwaiti adventure fertilized the ground. "Uprising is an art," says Jalal Talabani, Damascus-based leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. "There must be a climate...
...insurrectionists in the south, both Kurdish and Shi'ite groups belong to the Joint Action Committee formed by Iraqi opposition organizations in December. Still, the ambitions of the Kurds, who are Sunnis, and the Shi'ites, who want a fundamentalist government in Baghdad, are hopelessly in conflict. Last week Talabani said bluntly, "There will not be an Islamic regime in Iraq." Meanwhile, the Shi'ites suspect that in victory Kurdistan would bolt from the republic at the first opportunity. Outsiders are equally skeptical that the Kurds would settle for autonomy. "As the first step, yes," says Michael Lazarev, an expert...