Baghdad sends three million schoolbooks for Kurds 

 BAGHDAD, July 13 (AFP) Iraq's education ministry announced Friday it was about to
 send three million text books to schoolchildren in the country's northern Kurdish provinces.

 Hussein Mohammad Kadduri, head of the ministry's Kurdish studies department, told Al-Iraq
 newspaper the books will be delivered on July 21 to Arbil, Sulaymaniya and Dahuk, three
 provinces which since 1991 have been controlled by Kurdish factions in defiance of Baghdad.

 The move was "testimony to President Saddam Hussein's interest in his Kurdish sons and their
 culture, including knowledge of the Kurdish language in teaching," Kadduri said.

 The books were to help Kurdish children pursue their studies despite the UN embargo, which
 has been in force since Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, he said.

 Iraqi authorities have now sent more than 8.5 million schoolbooks to Iraqi Kurdistan since 1994,
 according to official figures.
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