YEZDIES DEMAND SEPARATE UNIT

Panorama.am
16:29 21/08/2007

"We demand that the territories of the village of Tmbar of Northern
Iraq, about ten thousand square kilometers, where 1.2 million Yezdies
live, be given to us and our nation be settled as a separate unit
because we are oppressed all the time," Chairman of World Yezdi
National Union Aziz Tamoyan told a news conference today.

"Persecutions have started again and we are applying to the governments
of all countries in order to stop these criminal acts," the union
chairman announced. In the words of Tamoyan, the Kurds have set an
entire Yezdi village on fire on August 15 causing death of 500. One
thousand two hundred people were taken to hospital with different
injuries and burns.

Tamoyan assures the persecutions are done in order to displace the
local population, however, as he said: "Kurds will not be able to do
that because U.S. troops came to help the Yezdies."

"The Americans are our salvation and we rely on them," union chairman
said. Tamoyan said that their letters are not answered from the
United State of America which, he believes, is strange because it is
against democracy.

The Yezdies of Armenia do not complain about their situation but
they gathered in front of the government house today asking from the
Republic of Armenia authorities to take measures in order to prevent
and punish the crime executed against Yezdies in the North of Iraq.

As Tamoyan mentioned "they were received and promised to deal with
the issue."