Calm reportedly returned to the Kurdish cities late this week after Kurdish members of Parliament appealed to the protesters.

The crackdown, they said, was aimed at rounding up suspected Kurdish underground members who are suspected of plotting uprisings inside Iraq.

"In the end, maybe Americans will say they want their boys back," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the governing council.

A Turkish court orders a retrial of four Kurdish former members of parliament who were jailed in 1994.

In the constitution talks, Mr. Othman, the Kurdish member of the committee, said some new agreements had been struck.

Nearly the entirety of the old, largely Baghdadi leadership had been imprisoned, creating a void the Kurdish members quickly filled.

"We do not want Turkish troops in Iraq," said a Kurdish member of Iraq's Governing Council last week.

Four of the six Kurdish members of parliament are still in prison, and should be released immediately.

When are all these Kurdish members of parliament, currently held in detention, going to be released?

"This is a formula that everyone can agree on," said Mahmood Othman, a Kurdish member of the constitutional committee.