Thirty Million People Without a Country

Thirty Million People Without a Country

There are between 25 – 35 million ethnic Kurds in the Middle East without their own county.  There are approximately 15 million Kurds in Turkey, 7 to 8 million in Iran and 1 to 2 million in Syria. There are another roughly 5 million Kurds in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), a semi-autonomous region in Iraq.

Some history:

During WWI, the British and French formed a secret agreement called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which concluded in May 1916. The agreement consisted of plans to carve up the Near and Middle East into nation-states and spheres of influence to support their own colonial interests. The former provinces of Syria and Mesopotamia under the Ottoman Empire would be divided into five nation-states: Lebanon and Syria which would be under French control and Palestine, Jordan and Iraq including Mosul Province which would be under British control.
At the end of the War, the Treaty of Sevres was drafted to deal with the dissolution and partition of the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty bolstered Kurdish nationalists’ aspirations by providing for a referendum to decide the issue of the Kurdistan homeland.

The Treaty of Sevres was rejected by the new Turkish Republic, and a new treaty (The Treaty of Lausanne) was negotiated and signed in 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne annulled the Treaty of Sevres, giving control of the entire Anatolian peninsula to the new Turkish Republic including the Kurdistan homeland in Turkey. There was no provision in the new treaty for a referendum for Kurdish independence or autonomy. Kurdistan’s hopes for an autonomous region and independent state were dashed.

From the end of World War I to the Gulf War in 1990, the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria fought separate guerrilla campaigns to achieve autonomy. All of the campaigns were forcibly put down.

Turkey: 

The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey. According to various estimates, they compose between 15% and 20% of the population of Turkey. There are Kurds living in various provinces of Turkey, but they are primarily concentrated in the east and southeast of the country, within the region viewed by Kurds as Turkish Kurdistan.

Kurds in Turkey have been severely oppressed.  Massacres, such as the Dersim ethnocide and the Zilan massacre, have periodically occurred against the Kurds since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" until 1991, and the words "Kurds", "Kurdistan", or "Kurdish" were officially banned by the Turkish government. Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish languages were officially prohibited in public and private life.  Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. In Turkey, it is illegal to use Kurdish as a language of instruction in both public and private schools. The Kurdish language is only allowed as a subject in some schools.

Kurds have rebelled against the oppression of the Turkish government. The Kurdish–Turkish conflict is an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and various Kurdish insurgent groups, which have demanded separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan, or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds inside the Republic of Turkey. The main rebel group is the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, a far-left militant and political organization with Leninist roots, based in Turkey and Iraq. Although insurgents have carried out attacks in many regions of Turkey, the insurgency is mainly in southeastern Turkey. The PKK's presence in Iraq's Kurdistan Region, from which it has also launched attacks, has resulted in the Turkish military carrying out frequent ground incursions and air and artillery strikes in the region. The conflict has cost the economy of Turkey an estimated $300 to 450 billion, mostly military costs. It has also affected tourism in Turkey.

Syria: 

The Syrian Kurdish–Islamist conflict, a major theater in the Syrian Civil War, started after fighting erupted between the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Islamist rebel factions in the city of Ras al-Ayn. Kurdish forces launched a campaign in an attempt to take control of the Islamist-controlled areas in the governorate of al-Hasakah and some parts of Raqqa and Aleppo governorates after al-Qaeda in Syria used those areas to attack the YPG. The Kurdish groups and their allies' goal were also to capture Kurdish areas from the Arab Islamist rebels and strengthen the autonomy of the region of Rojava.

Iraq: 

In 1992, an alliance of political parties, the Iraqi Kurdistan Front, held parliamentary and presidential elections. As a result, the Iraqi Kurdistan Front established the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), a new autonomous Government of Kurdistan in Iraq.
The KRG is a secular government modeled along the lines of modern independent nation-state in a federation with the rest of Iraq. They have their own parliament, military (the “Peshmerga”), borders and foreign policy.

Iran:

The government of Iran has never employed the same level of brutality against its Kurds as did Turkey or Iraq, but it has always been implacably opposed to any suggestion of Kurdish separatism.  Unlike in other Middle Eastern countries with Kurdish populations, Kurdish separatism in Iran has little to no support due to the very strong ethno-linguistical ties and the common history and culture they share with other Iranian peoples.  Many Kurds in Iran have shown no interest in Kurdish nationalism, especially Shia Kurds, who even vigorously reject the idea of autonomy, preferring direct rule from Tehran. The Kurds sharing a common history with the rest of the Iranian peoples is seen as another reason for why even Kurdish leaders in Iran do not want a separate Kurdish state.

Ray Gruszecki
October 10, 2019