The World - News from June 11, 1989

Kurdish rebels accused Iraq of razing several towns and forcibly relocating 19,000 people in a drive to stamp out the Kurdish identity and carve a security zone along the Iranian border. Diplomats and others in Iraq said the government has moved up to 500,000 Kurds and destroyed about 3,000 villages over the past few years in a major relocation effort. They said the plan is to cut the rebels off from sympathizers and to break up the tight-knit Kurdish clan system. “The Iraqis are pressing ahead with their mass deportation plan, and they’re getting away with it,” said a spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a leading rebel group. In Tehran, Iranian President Ali Khamenei pledged to support the Iraqi Kurds in their fight with the Baghdad regime.