The return of the 12,000 refugees in the UN-run camp at Makhmour is part of the Turkish government's as-yet undetailed plan to broaden freedoms for its Kurdish community and secure an end to the 25-year violence by separatist Kurdish rebels.

But the inhabitants of the camp, set up in 1998 in a dry and arid zone about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Arbil, want to see concrete guarantees before they make their way back home.

"We are here for a cause and as long as we do not get what we want, we will not come back," says Makbule Oren, 29-year-old mother of six.

And their demands -- constitutional recognition of the Kurdish identity, Kurdish-language education, regional autonomy and immediate end of the violence -- are exactly the same as those of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has been fighting Ankara since 1984 for self-rule.

"We are all supporters of the PKK even though we are not members," says Mahmud Manav, a member of the camp's administrative council. "We are the families of the PKK; our brothers, children are currently fighting within their ranks."

Turkey has long been pressing for the closure of Makhmour, charging that the camp is controlled by the PKK and serves as a supply base of fresh militants to the organization which is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.

In the heart of the sprawling camp, a mausoleum covered with pictures of about 600 "martyrs" -- PKK rebels killed in fighting -- with family ties to the camp stands as testimony to the strong ties uniting the refugees and the rebels.

The plight of Makhmour's inhabitants -- now told to the camp's 5,000 children as an "epic" -- is closely linked to the PKK's armed campaign.

The refugees fled from Turkey across rugged mountains in 1994 at the peak of the bloodshed between the rebels and the army. They spent the next four years drifting from place to place in the north of Iraq under harassment from Iraqi Kurds, who were then a close ally of Ankara against the PKK.

They finally found refugee at the 36th parallel, the no man's land that at the time separated the Kurdish-run north of Iraq and the south of the country, controlled by former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.

"On one side, the Iraqi Kurds were shooting at us; on the other side, there was a minefield of Saddam," recalls Manav, whose son lost a leg in a mine explosion.

"Our kids were lying under plastic bags amid scorpions...In one night, 51 people were stung by scorpions", he adds.

Since then, conditions at the camp have improved considerably. The UN refugee agency UNHCR took charge of the camp and the refugees built houses, schools and coffeeshops. They now work in nearby fields and construction sites.

But, even if they emphasize their devotion to the "cause", the inhabitants of Makhmour nonetheless express a strong desite to return home.

"Of course, I miss home a lot...Many members of our family who stayed in Turkey are now married; they have children who we never saw," explains Oren.

Last month, 26 refugees from the camp, among them four children, crossed the border into Turkey, along with eight PKK rebels as a show of support for Ankara's so-called Kurdish opening.

To decide who would join the peace group, camp authorities issued a call for candidates.

"In one day, we recieved 400 applications. If the city assembly had authorised it, everyone from seven-year-old children to 77-year-old grandads would have applied," Manav says.

earlier related report
Lots of success for Iraqi stamp auction
Reckoned to be Iraq's top expert on cement, Anis Amjad does the rounds of factories during the week but nothing can stop him conducting the stamp auction in old Baghdad every Saturday.

On that day the 56-year-old chemical engineer takes off his white coat and raises his auctioneer's gavel. The lots are knocked down in an old Ottoman building dating from 1908 which, nine years later, became the first British Post office and where a traditional red letter box still adorns the facade.

"I am head of the inspection department at the industry ministry and I supervise Iraq's cement works. But I have always declined foreign assignments so as not to miss this meeting," says the confirmed bachelor, who first ran the auction 12 years ago.

Interest is reviving fast at the Iraqi Philatelic and Numismatic Society, founded in 1951, which has only recently resumed meeting after three years of suspension because of a violent struggle between Iraq's Shiite and Sunni populations and a strong Al-Qaeda presence in the neighbourhood.

Official membership stands at more than 2,000, though only around 80 are active buyers and sellers.

Stamp prices are rising sharply, in particular any ones showing Saddam Hussein, the dictator overthrown by the US-led invasion in 2003.

"Before 2003, the country was closed in on itself and we were cut off from the international market. But now business is going well. American and British collectors snap up stamps with Saddam on them," says Kamal Kamel, 46, who runs a stall in the Bab al-Muazzam district where the society meets.

"Unlike us, they couldn't get enough of him -- they could not buy the stamps, because of the embargo," he said, referring to UN sanctions on trade with Iraq introduced after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

"A series showing Saddam Hussein which was worth 200 dinars sells today for 5,000 dinars (4.3 dollars). My monthly revenues have passed from 200 to 1,500 dollars. Prices really have risen," Kamel said.

"Only Iraqis come into my shop but I have an intermediary with access to the Green Zone who sells a lot to American soldiers and diplomats," he added.

-- When you accuse them, some go silent --

------------------------------------------

Sitting round a long table, 30 or so dealers and collectors examine the stamps, bank notes and coins which comprise the lots on offer that day.

Anis livens up the sale with auctioneer's patter but all the bids are below prices given in foreign catalogues.

Festooning walls of the room are photocopies of letters from the British Philatelic Association dating from 1917, along with many stamps from Iraq and other Arab countries.

Since Iraq's first stamp in 1917, the postal service has issued 1,824 series of stamps, including 24 from after the fall of Saddam.

Garo Manaskan, a 51-year-old Iraqi of Armenian origin who is an accountant and runs a well-known Baghdad restaurant, is selling several items from his collection of three million stamps.

"I started at the age of six. It is my passion -- when some cease to please me I sell them to buy others. As I am unmarried, I will leave my collection to the Armenian church," he says.

Next to him, Haqqi Abdel Karim, a 45-year-old coin enthusiast, is at the auction for the first time in three years since seeking exile in Syria to avoid intercommunal violence.

"Today things are better and I am thinking of coming back but the association should move. This is not a safe district," Karim said.

Members come from a range of religious and ethnic backgrounds, but old animosities have prevented the election of a committee for the past six years.

"Two thirds of the people around this table made a lot of money by taking part in or even leading the looting of post offices which happened in the wake of the American invasion," confides Mohammed Dhia, an active member of the society.

"When you accuse them, some go silent and others promise to give them back without having any intention of doing so. Then there are those who try to convince you the stamps are better off in their hands than with philistines knowing nothing of philately," he added.

His point is illustrated by the society's location at al-Koshla ("clock" in Turkish) post office, in Seraglio Street in Bab al-Muazzam neighbourhood, where the stamp museum stood before 2003. The museum's collections were all stolen and sold... to stamp collectors.

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