Tag: Kurdish

Sen. Blackburn Urges President Trump to Protect Kurdish Allies as America Looks to Leave Syria

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) on Thursday sent a letter urging President Donald Trump to protect the United States’ Kurdish partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Blackburn posted a copy of the letter on Twitter, tweeting, “This morning, I joined @SenDuckworth in writing a letter to the president to express the importance of protecting our Kurdish friends as the administration plans its withdrawal of American troops from Syria.” “The protection of our Kurdish friends and allies is in the national security interest of the United States,” said Blackburn. “The Kurds have been a reliable partner in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and we must not abandon them now.” Nashville is home to the largest Kurdish population of any city in the United States, Blackburn said. The letter comes as the administration considers a withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Syria. Blackburn and Duckworth are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The White House officially announced Dec. 19 that nearly 2,000 U.S. troops would leave Syria, Townhall reported. “Five years ago, ISIS was a very powerful and dangerous force in the Middle East, and now the United States has defeated the territorial caliphate. These…

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Metro Nashville Public Schools May Reportedly Add Study of Kurdish Language to High School Curriculum

Chris Butler

The Metro Nashville Public School Board was scheduled to decide Tuesday night whether to arrange for high school students to learn Kurdish, according to Nashville Public Radio. According to the station, schools would add this to its list of world language curriculum for high school credit. Metro officials want to do this because of Nashville’s sizable Kurdish community. Nashville Public Radio did not say precisely how many Kurdish people live in Nashville. But the station did say there are more than 1,100 students from that community attending Nashville’s public schools and that many live in South Nashville. Educators are on board with the proposed plan because “they believe it will boost students’ academic performance.” “Research has shown that when a student is literate in his or her own native language, it helps them become literate in a new language faster, such as English,” the station quoted Jill Petty as saying. Petty manages literacy and world languages for Metro schools, Nashville Public Radio reported. “That would actually help them in the long run,” Petty reportedly told the station. Nashville Public Radio then quoted Nawzad Hawrami, who directs the Salahadeen Center, which caters to the growing number of Kurds in the area,…

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