Assad says no foreign hand in Kurd riots

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says no evidence has been found linking riots by Syrian Kurds in March to any
foreign group.

"The investigations that have been conducted did not prove any foreign intervention...so far we do not see any external link," Assad said in
an interview on Saturday with the Qatar-based television station al-Jazeera.

About 30 people were killed in unprecedented clashes between Syrian Kurds and police in March after a soccer match brawl in the northern
town of Kameshli escalated.

Officials suggested that there could be a foreign link in the disturbances but did not accuse any specific group.

Kurdish politicians have said the allegations could drive a wedge between Arabs and Kurds as it suggested that Kurds were traitors to
Syria.

Kurds make up about two million of Syria's mainly Arab 17 million population. They have often demanded the right to teach their language
and the right to Syrian citizenship for some 200,000 stateless Kurds.

Assad said in the interview that Damascus had been working on a solution to the issue of stateless Kurds when the riots and clashes took
place.

He said he was fulfilling a promise he made during a visit in 2002 to the northeastern province of Hassaka, home to most of Syria's Kurds,
to solve the problem created when a 1962 census left several thousand Kurds stateless.

Earlier on Saturday a lawyer and Syrian Kurdish parties said 27 Kurdish minors arrested during unrest in Damascus in March were facing
trial on charges ranging from inciting riots to holding the president in contempt.

They said the youths, under 18, questioned in a juvenile criminal court, denied the charges that also include harming national sentiment and
undermining the state's standing.

Syrian officials were not immediately available for comment.

DETAINED AFTER RIOTS

Khalil Maatouk, a lawyer defending the youths, told Reuters they had been detained after riots in Damascus and that their charges carried
jail sentences of one month to two years.

He said the detainees should be sent home or held in a juvenile rehabilitation centre pending trial rather than in the capital's main jail.

Syrian Kurds have accused the authorities of arbitrarily arresting hundreds from their community and torturing some to death since the
unrest in March in the northeast and Damascus.

Syria has not released its own figures, but officials have said that most of those arrested were held for a few hours only to stop violence.

Kurdish parties said in a statement that families of the 27 detainees had not been allowed to visit them since their arrest.

"We condemn these dangerous charges against them just because they are Kurdish children and reiterate that the state's standing cannot
be imposed with repressive means and human rights violations but with democratic reforms," said the statement, faxed to Reuters in Beirut.