Feyli Kurds urge govt. not to reconcile with Baathists

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Feyli Kurds on Saturday called on the Iraqi government not to reconcile with members of the dissolved Baath Party and to hold them accountable for the crimes they have committed during the former regime’s time. “Reconciliation with Baath is unacceptable on the grounds that those Baathists have perpetrated inhumane crimes against the Iraqi people, including the Feyli Kurds,” according to a statement they read out during a Baghdad ceremony of their annual commemoration of 17,000 young Feyli Kurds who had been eliminated by the former regime. On January 26, 2009 , Iraq ‘s higher criminal court had held its first session to try 16 figures of the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein on charges of involvement in the murder and forced relocation – to Iran – of Feyli Kurds. Feyli Kurds are largely a Shiite community living in Baghdad and the province of Diala around Khanaqin and Mandil i. They are an estimated 2-3 million Feylis living in Iraq. Also in Iran, mainly in Ilam and Kermanshah as well as due to migration, to cities such as Tabriz, Tehran and Hamadan. Feyli s speak Feyli , a dialect of the Pahlawani . The roots of the Feyli s go back to the Aryan immigrants of the first millennium BC, and more specifically, the Parthian /Pahlawi/Pahlawanid settlements of the 2nd century BD. They embraced Islam in the early stages of the Islamic conquest and colonisation of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Iran, though archaeological evidence from the Ilam province in Iran indicates that a significant proportion of Feyli were Nestorian Christians until the 18th Century. When the Safavid dynasty (1507-1721) held sway over Persia , Feyli Kurds switched to the Shiite Jaafari doctrine under Persian influence. In modern times the Feylis have been subject to state persecutions. In the mid 1970s, Iraq expelled around 40,000 Shiite Feyli Kurds who had lived for generations near Baghdad and Khanaqin , alleging that they were Iranian national s. AmR (S)/SR 1