Israel, in a humanitarian gesture, will admit more than 200 Kurdish orphans from Iraq who are presently refugees in eastern Turkey.
The Foreign Ministry already has instructed the Israeli Mission in Ankara to determine the most practical means of transferring the group as quickly as possible.
The plans were announced here over the weekend, after Foreign Minister Shimon Peres obtained Premier Yitzhak Shamir’s approval of the project.
The Kurds have long been a persecuted minority in Iraq. They came under fierce attack by the Iraq army immediately after the cease-fire in the Persian Gulf war, allegedly with chemical weapons. Large numbers fled to Turkey.
The youngsters will be educated at Youth Aliyah facilities run by the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency for Israel. Presumably they will not be brought up as Jews or converted to Judaism.
The Israeli gesture is reminiscent of events in 1977, when Menachem Begin, shortly after becoming premier, accepted about 200 Vietnamese “boat people” as refugees in Israel.
Many have since made comfortable lives in Israel, chiefly in the Oriental restaurant business.
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