RFE/RL IRAN REPORT
Vol. 4, No. 7, 19 February 2001

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said during the 9 February Friday Prayers sermon in Tehran that
after the Islamic revolution the U.S. tried to separate Kurdistan Province from the rest of the
country and "tempted the various ethnic minorities by making false promises." These efforts
failed, he said, and "the peaceful coexistence of the different nationalities and ethnic groups
in the country through the centuries" is a point of Iran's strength. There are continuing
indications, however, that Iranian Kurds want greater attention to their ethnic
concerns.
 
Bahaedin Adab, who heads the parliament's 21-member Kurdish faction, said he expects the
Kurds' problems to be resolved this year, Neu-Isenberg's Turkish-language "Ozgur Politika"
reported on 2 January. Kurdish parliamentarian Jalal Jalalizadeh, who represents Sanandaj,
said that the Kurdish faction in parliament wants to begin a dialogue with President
Mohammad Khatami regarding the Kurds' cultural, social, and economic problems.
Jalalizadeh said that the right to teach in Kurdish needed to be addressed, "Ozgur Politika"
reported on 15 January. The majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims, and Jalalizadeh asked
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to appoint a Sunni adviser. Khamenei replied that
"he was directly in contact with followers of the Sunni sect," Jalalizadeh told the 11
January "Hayat-i No." And in a late November speech in parliament in the Kurdish
language, Jalalizadeh accused the government of conducting a campaign of "repression,
serial murder, and banning of the faith" against Sunni Kurds. (Bill Samii)
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com