Don’t sacrifice the Kurds
The Kurdish region along the Iran-Iraq border is an imposing landscape of sublime beauty this time of year. The snow-capped Zagros Mountains tower above high valleys lush with cherry and almond blossom, budding walnut and pistachio trees. Spring lambs graze alpine meadows speckled with iris and fritillaries, thyme and sage. Rivers – gorged with the first snow-melt – carve deep canyons through which run spurs of the Silk Road. The area is studded with ancient Assyrian and Achaemenid sites. It is also a Jurassic Park of lost causes. Every valley seems to hold another Iranian-Kurdish separatist group; a couple of valleys hold several factions of the same group. Everyone speaks the Kurdish dialect of Sorani on both sides of this border, but these groups rarely talk to each other.
