Kurds on The Way

By PAUL GRAY/

Some 27,000 Kurds, driven from Iraq two years ago by Saddam Hussein's poison- gas attacks, still live in camps on the Iraqi-Turkish border. The U.S. has been urging Turkey to assimilate these refugees, but Turkey, which has 8 million Kurds (out of a total population of 57 million), is reluctant to take in more. A Kurdish separatist movement is simmering in Turkey, and the border camps contain experienced fighters. To demonstrate its concern -- and to set an example -- Washington plans to allow about 1,500 Kurds into the U.S., probably beginning in January, with more to follow.

With reporting by David E. Thigpen