Kurdish refugees in Turkey need help
The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees has called on the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to cease its stalling on granting refugee status to thousands of people who have fled from Iraqi Kurdistan into Turkey.
The federation says that the UNHCR has rejected or delayed many applications in the last year on the grounds that US-brokered negotiations between the two nationalist parties which control Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iraq-United Nations food-for-oil deal have made the area safe.
The federation also says that its members in Turkey have been threatened by a UNHCR official that if they do not cease their protests they will be reported to Turkish authorities and deported.
Thousands of Kurds and Iraqis flee into Turkey each year, leaving a region beset by violence, political assassinations and economic collapse.
The federation is demanding that the UNHCR recognise as refugees all those who have fled Iraq and Kurdistan due to security or political reasons, review all cases already rejected and speed up those pending and allow a representative of the Iraqi Refugees Council in Turkey to regularly meet with UNHCR officials to review concerns. It is asking that supporters send a letter to: Mirza Hussain Khan, Regional Representative UNHCR, Ankara, Turkey, fax (0011) 90 312 4382702. Send a copy to the federation's Sydney secretary, fax (02) 9760 0074.