AZERI SOURCES SAY US ENCOURAGES KURDISH SEPARATISM

PanARMENIAN.Net - "La Vanguardia" Spanish newspaper reports Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have prepared an eight-week plan of dethroning the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The edition notes that a mass strike on Iraq by US Air Force is necessary to cause insurrection of the Iraqi military personnel and the population against "the dictator." The newspaper possesses data that the Kurdish opposition is given a special role in realization of the plan. Baku "Turan" information agency makes reference to the data of the Russian military sources reporting that US special services prepare "the anti-Saddam coalition" in the north of Iraq with participation of Kurdish groupings - the Democratic Party of Kurdistan headed by Masud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan guided by Jalal Talabani. It is stressed that Pentagon is already engaged in supplying material and technical equipment to the Kurdish military structures, which will wage war against Saddam Hussein. According to the US plan the Kurdish troops should become something like the Northern Alliance, which played the key role in the US war against talibs. The agency commentators suppose that supporting the separatist moods in the Kurds the Washington aims at disorganizing not only the Iraqi State, but also that of Iran and Syria, where representatives of this ethnic group also compactly reside. At the same time "Turan" expresses uneasiness that such a scenario will result in anti-American sentiments in Turkey. As it is known Ankara has been suppressing the Kurdish national liberation movement making use of the cruelest methods for several decades.