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Yes, I agree with you. The condition of the Kurds is desperate. I firmly believe that when the nations were carved out following WWI & WWII by Britain and France that they made a serious mistake not giving the Kurds their own homeland. How many know that these nations (Iraq, Syria, etc. are not "ancient" nations but were created less than a hundred years ago.)

I beg to differ. Iraq and Syria are both ancient - very ancient! - nations. But we're talking about the Kurds, right? There are some 25 million of them. They're mostly found in SE Turkey and Northen Iraq.

Since Iraq has been designated an 'international pariah', we'll turn to Turkey for the time being.

Turkey should be forced to respect the rights of its minorities, especially the Kurds. Turkey doesn't have to give them their own country or make them more special than any other minority. Turkey just has to act like a normal country. Did you know that the Turkish Kurds aren't even allowed to use their own language (not to mention anything else a minority should have the right to)?

How can such a country be a member of NATO? I always thought the club was for democracies only.

Turkey wants to join the EU, too. With such a poor HR record, there is no way it will be accepted anytime soon.

They should immediately receive northern Iraq. It would be appropriate punishment for Hussein.

Well, read that one again. You are so wrong. Screw Hussein! What about the Iraqi people? Why should anyone break Iraq apart? Yes, what about the Iraqis? Do you think they'll appreciate their country being butchered? They have rights too, and one of them includes the right to their own country. Would you support an independent "Aztlan"? Didn't think so.

They would be protected until able themselves by Nato.

I don't like the idea of NATO protecting anyone. That's called nation-building and it always ends in disaster (The Serbian Province of Kosovo and Metohia, Bosnia...). The International Law is there to protect the World's nations.

But, as I've already said, the Kurds' rights must be respected in both Turkey and Iraq. The Kurds are Kurds anywhere you go. I don't see why Turkey should be allowed to opress the Turkish Kurds. We turn a blind eye to that but we never seem to miss when Saddam does it. It's called double standards - and I hate double standards.

All the best.

It is a fact that the Kurds are a separate people. As such they deserve their own homeland.

It is true that Iraq and Syria represent ancient peoples, but what I have said is that the BORDERS established by primarily Britain and France were arbitrary borders.

We should simply redraw those borders to establish a Kurdish nation.

The difference between Aztlan and the Kurdish nation is that the US has the power to prevent its borders being carved up. Iraq does not AND they deserve to be punished for using chemical weaponry against the Kurds.

Another factor nobody ever mentions is that there are 2,000,000 Christians in Iraq (I think mostly Chaldeans), and are NOT being massacred or expelled. I read that the oldest continuously-functioning Christian church building in the world is in Baghdad (and was hit by a bomb back during Desert Storm).

By contrast, the supposedly "secular" "ally" Turkey has killed or expelled virtually all Christians since 1915, so that the 4,000,000 who lived there a century ago (Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians) are all gone. And that was AFTER the Turks had been oppressing the Christians of the Balkans and Middle East for many centuries.

In both cases, there is a Muslim majority, so one can not be accused of religious bigotry in pointing out these obvious differences.