Iraq approves plans to move 3,100 Iranian Kurdish refugees: UNHCR

GENEVA - Iraq's government has approved plans to move the remaining 3,100 Iranian Kurds from a refugee camp in central Iraq to a safer site in the north of the country, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday.
Some 3,200 people in the Al Tash camp had already fled violence in recent months, many of them to the proposed location near Suleimaniyah where they were receiving help from local authorities, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.
"We have just been informed that the Iraqi prime minister's office has approved a proposed plan to relocate Al-Tash camp's remaining population to a much safer location near Suleimaniyah," UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told journalists.
Al-Tash is near the flashpoint town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, in an area dominated by the Sunni Muslim community where the insurgency is strong.
Iranian Kurds started fleeing last November after a police station in the camp was attacked.

05/31/2005 14:13 GMT