Baghdad grants right of asylum to 7,000 Turkish Kurds

Iraqi sources told ArabicNews.com today that Baghdad agreed to grant the right of asylum to 7,000 Turkish Kurds and added that there are nearly 10,000 more waiting to be granted the right of asylum.

The sources said these refugees were in El-Khot area at the line seperating areas controlled by the government and Iraqi Kurds in the north of the country.

Turkish Kurds fled from their villages in 1994, and spent time in refugee camps in northern Iraq, but the United Nations closed these camps in 1997 after the Turkish Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) took control of these camps.