Kurds, a people yearning for
Self Governance /Statehood (JR149)
Introduction
The
Kurds are one of the indigenous peoples of the Mesopotamian plains and the
highlands in what are now south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Syria, northern
Iraq, north-western Iran and south-western Armenia. Today, they form a distinctive
community, united through race, culture and language, even though they have no
standard dialect. They also adhere to a number of different religions and
creeds, although the majority is Sunni Muslims .Kurd or the Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic
group of the Middle
East, mostly inhabiting a contiguous
area known as Kurdistan.
Geographically, those four adjacent and often-mountainous areas include
southeastern Turkey,
northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria There are also exclaves of Kurds in central Anatolia
and Khorasan.
Additionally, there are significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities
of western Turkey, in particular Istanbul, while a Kurdish
diaspora has developed in Western
Europe, primarily in
Germany. Numerically, the Kurds are
estimated to number anywhere from a low of 30 million, to possibly as high as
45 million. Baluch
tribes of Pakistan also seem to have Kurdish origin.
Historically,
after World War One
and the defeat of the Ottoman
Empire, the victorious Western allies
made provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty
of Sevres. However, that promise was
nullified three years later, when the Treaty of Lausanne
set the boundaries of modern Turkey and made no provision for a Kurdish state,
leaving Kurds with minority status in their respective countries. Over the next 80 years, any move by Kurds to
set up an independent state was brutally quashed.
This fact has led to numerous genocides and rebellions, along with the current ongoing armed guerrilla conflicts in Turkey, Iran,
and Syria / Rojava.
Although Kurds are the majority population in the autonomous region of Iraqi
Kurdistan, because of their statelessness, Kurdish nationalist
movements continue to pursue greater cultural
rights, autonomy, and independence throughout Greater Kurdistan.
Name
The
exact origins of the name Kurd are unclear.The underlying toponym is recorded in Assyrian as Qardu and in Middle
Bronze Age Sumerian as Kar-da. Assyrian Qardurefers to an area in the upper Tigris basin, and it is presumably reflected in corrupted form in Classical
Arabic Ǧūdī, re-adopted in Kurdish as Cûdî. The name would be
continued as the first element in the toponym Corduene, mentioned by Xenophon as the tribe who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand
through the mountains north of Mesopotamia in the 4th century BC. There are, however, dissenting
views, which do not derive the name of the Kurds from Qardu and Corduene
but opt for derivation from Cyrtii (Cyrtaei) instead
Regardless
of its possible roots in ancient toponymy, the ethnonym Kurd might be derived from a term kwrt- used
in Middle Persian
as a common noun to refer to "nomads" or "tent-dwellers," which could be applied
as an attribute to any Iranian group with such a lifestyle. The term gained the characteristic of an ethnonym following
the Muslim conquest of Persia, as it was adopted into Arabic and gradually became
associated with an amalgamation of Iranian and Iranicised tribes and groups in
the region.It is also hypothesized that Kurd could derive from the Persian word gord because
the Arabic script lacks a symbol corresponding uniquely to g
Sherefxan
Bidlisi in the 16th century states that
there are four division of "Kurds": Kurmanj, Lur,
Kalhor and
Guran, each of which speak a different dialect or language
variation. Paul (2008) notes that the 16th-century usage of the term Kurd
as recorded by Bidlisi, regardless of linguistic grouping, might still reflect
an incipient Northwestern Iranian "Kurdish" ethnic identity uniting
the Kurmanj, Kalhur,
and Guran.
Present Status
In mid-2013, the
jihadist group Islamic State (IS) turned its sights on three Kurdish enclaves
that bordered territory under its control in northern Syria. It launched
repeated attacks that until mid-2014 were repelled by the People's Protection
Units (YPG) - the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party
(PYD).
An IS advance in
northern Iraq in June 2014 also drew that country's Kurds into the conflict.
The government of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region sent its Peshmerga forces
to areas abandoned by the Iraqi army. In August 2014, the jihadists launched a
surprise offensive and the Peshmerga withdrew from several areas. A number of
towns inhabited by religious minorities fell, notably Sinjar, where IS
militants killed or captured thousands of Yazidis.
In
response, a US-led multinational coalition launched air strikes in northern Iraq and sent military
advisers to help the Peshmerga. The YPG and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for three decades and has bases
in Iraq, also came to their aid.
In September 2014,
IS launched an assault on the enclave around the northern Syrian Kurdish town
of Kobane, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee across the nearby
Turkish border. Despite the proximity of the fighting, Turkey refused to attack
IS positions or allow Turkish Kurds to cross to defend it. In January 2015,
after a battle that left at least 1,600 people dead and more than 3,200
buildings destroyed or damaged, Kurdish forces regained control of Kobane.
Since then, the
Kurds - fighting under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)
alongside several local Arab militias, and helped by US-led coalition airpower
- have driven IS out thousands of square kilometres of territory in Syria and
established control over hundreds of kilometres along the border with Turkey.
In October 2017, SDF fighters captured the de facto IS capital of Raqqa and
were advancing south-eastwards into the neighbouring province of Deir al-Zour -
the jihadists' last major foothold in Syria.
The gains have, however,
brought the Kurds and their allies into direct contact with Russian-supported
Syrian government forces and Turkish-backed rebels, triggering clashes that
have raised tensions between competing world powers.
There is deep-seated
hostility between the Turkish state and the country's Kurds, who constitute 15%
to 20% of the population. In response to uprisings in the 1920s and 1930s, many
Kurds were resettled, Kurdish names and costumes were banned, the use of the
Kurdish language was restricted, and even the existence of a Kurdish ethnic
identity was denied, with people designated "Mountain Turks".
In 1978, Abdullah
Ocalan established the PKK, which called for an independent state within
Turkey. Six years later, the group began an armed struggle. Since then, more
than 40,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
In the 1990s the PKK
rolled back on its demand for independence, calling instead for greater
cultural and political autonomy, but continued to fight. In 2013, a ceasefire
was agreed after secret talks were held. The ceasefire collapsed in July 2015,
after a suicide bombing blamed on IS killed 33 young activists in the mainly
Kurdish town of Suruc, near the Syrian border. The PKK accused the authorities
of complicity and attacked Turkish soldiers and police. The Turkish government
subsequently launched what it called a "synchronised war on terror"
against the PKK and IS. Since then, several thousand people - including
hundreds of civilians - have been killed in clashes in south-eastern Turkey.
In August 2016,
Turkey sent troops and tanks into northern Syria to support a Syrian rebel
offensive against IS. Those forces captured the key border town of Jarablus and
the IS stronghold of al-Bab, preventing the YPG-led SDF from seizing the
territory itself and linking up with the Kurdish enclave of Afrin to the west.
Turkey's government
says the YPG and the PYD are extensions of the PKK, share its goal of secession
through armed struggle, and are all terrorist organisations. Kurds make up
between 7% and 10% of Syria's population. Before the uprising against President
Bashar al-Assad began in 2011 most lived in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo,
and in three, non-contiguous areas around Kobane, Afrin, and the north-eastern
city of Qamishli.
Syria's Kurds have
long been suppressed and denied basic rights. Some 300,000 have been denied
citizenship since the 1960s, and Kurdish land has been confiscated and
redistributed to Arabs in an attempt to "Arabize" Kurdish regions.
When the uprising evolved into a civil war, the main Kurdish parties publicly
avoided taking sides. In mid-2012, government forces withdrew to concentrate on
fighting the rebels elsewhere, and Kurdish groups took control in their wake.
In January 2014,
Kurdish parties - including the dominant Democratic Union Party (PYD) -
declared the creation of "autonomous administrations" in the three
"cantons" of Afrin, Kobane and Jazira. In March 2016, they announced
the establishment of a "federal system" that included mainly Arab and
Turkmen areas captured from IS.The declaration was rejected by the Syrian
government, the Syrian opposition, Turkey and the US.
The PYD says it is
not seeking independence, but insists that any political settlement to end the
conflict in Syria must include legal guarantees for Kurdish rights and
recognition of Kurdish autonomy. President Assad has vowed to take back control
of all of Syria, but his foreign minister said in September 2017 that he was
open to negotiations with Kurds over their demand for autonomy.
Kurds make up an
estimated 15% to 20% of Iraq's population. They have historically enjoyed more
national rights than Kurds living in neighbouring states, but also faced brutal
repression. In 1946, Mustafa Barzani formed the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
to fight for autonomy in Iraq. But it was not until 1961 that he launched a
full armed struggle. In the late 1970s, the government began settling Arabs in
areas with Kurdish majorities, particularly around the oil-rich city of Kirkuk,
and forcibly relocating Kurds.
The policy was
accelerated in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, in which the Kurds backed
the Islamic republic. In 1988, Saddam Hussein unleashed a campaign of vengeance
on the Kurds that included the chemical attack on Halabja. When Iraq was
defeated in the 1991 Gulf War, Barzani's son Massoud and Jalal Talabani of the
rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led a Kurdish rebellion. Its violent
suppression prompted the US and its allies to impose a no-fly zone in the north
that allowed Kurds to enjoy self-rule. The KDP and PUK agreed to share power,
but tensions rose and a four-year war erupted between them in 1994.
The parties
co-operated with the US-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam and governed
in coalition in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), created two years
later to administer Dohuk, Irbil and Sulaimaniya provinces. Massoud Barzani was
appointed the region's president, while Jalal Talabani became Iraq's first
non-Arab head of state. In September 2017, a referendum on independence was
held in both the Kurdistan Region and the disputed areas seized by the
Peshmerga in 2014, including Kirkuk. The vote was opposed by the Iraqi central
government, which insisted it was illegal. More than 90% of the 3.3 million
people who voted supported secession. KRG officials said the result gave them a
mandate to start negotiations with Baghdad, but Iraqi Prime Minister Haider
al-Abadi demanded that it be annulled. The following month Iraqi pro-government
forces retook the disputed territory held by the Kurds. The loss of Kirkuk and
its oil revenue was a major blow to Kurdish aspirations for their own state.
President Trump has declared withdrawl of US
forces form Syria. The only thing stopping Turkey from running over Kurdish
positions was the presence of U.S. troops. Removing them would leave the Kurds
deeply exposed. Details about the U.S. withdrawal from Syria remain sketchy.
But whatever Washington ultimately decides to do, Trump’s announcement marked a
cruel turn for Kurds across the Middle East. Back in mid-2017, the Kurds had
been enjoying a renaissance. Syrian Kurds, allied with the world’s only
superpower, had played the central role in largely defeating ISIS on the
battlefield and had seized the group’s capital, Raqqa. The People’s Protection
Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish militia, controlled large swaths of Syrian
territory and looked set to become a significant actor in negotiations to end
the country’s civil war. Turkish Kurds, although besieged at home, were basking
in the glow of the accomplishments of their Syrian counterparts, with whom they
are closely aligned. And in Iraq, the body that rules the country’s Kurdish
region—the Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG—was at the height of its
powers, preparing for a September 2017 referendum on independence.
Language
Kurds
speak the Kurdish language,
with several varied dialects such as Kurmanji, Sorani, and Zazaki; they are culturally and linguistically classified as
belonging to the Iranian peoples Religiously, although the majority of Kurds
belong to the Shafi‘i
school of Sunni Islam,
there also are prominent numbers of Kurds who practice Shia
Islam and Alevism. Minority of the Kurdish people are adherents to Yarsanism (Ahl-i Haqq), Yazidism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity
Kurdish
is a collection of related dialects spoken by the Kurds. It is mainly
spoken in those parts of Iran,
Iraq, Syria and
Turkey which comprise Kurdistan . Kurdish holds
official status in Iraq as a national language alongside Arabic, is recognized in Iran as a regional language, and in
Armenia as a minority language. The Kurdish
languages belong to the northwestern
subgroups of the Iranian
languages, which in turn belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch
of the Indo-European family.
Most Kurds are either bilingual or
multilingual, speaking the language of their respective nation of
origin, such as Arabic,
Persian,
and Turkish as
a second language
alongside their native Kurdish, while those in diaspora communities often speak
three or more languages. The Kurdish dialects are
classified as : Northern group (the Kurmanjibdialect group); Central group (part of the Sorani dialect group); Southern group (part of the Sorani dialect group) including Kermanshahi, Ardalani and Laki
The Dream of
Autonomy
Kurdish
nationalism emerged after World War I with the dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire which had historically successfully
integrated (but not assimilated) the Kurds, through use of forced repression of
Kurdish movements to gain independence. Revolts did occur sporadically but only
in 1880 with the uprising led by Sheik
Ubeydullah did the Kurds as an ethnic group or
nation make demands. Ottoman sultan Abdul
Hamid responded with a campaign of
integration by co-opting prominent Kurdish opponents to strengthen Ottoman
power with offers of prestigious positions in his government. This strategy
appears to have been successful given the loyalty displayed by the Kurdish Hamidiyeregiments
during World War I.
The
Kurdish ethno-nationalist movement that emerged following World War I and the
end of the Ottoman Empire was largely a reaction to the changes taking place in
mainstream Turkey, primarily to the radical secularization, which the strongly Muslim Kurds abhorred, to the centralization of authority, which
threatened the power of local chieftains and Kurdish autonomy, and to rampant Turkish nationalism
in the new Turkish Republic, which obviously threatened to marginalize them.
Some
of the Kurdish groups sought self-determination and the confirmation of Kurdish
autonomy in the Treaty of Sèvres,
but in the aftermath of World War I, Kemal Atatürk prevented such a result. Kurds backed by the
United Kingdom declared independence in 1927 and established theRepublic of Ararat.
Turkey suppressed Kurdist revolts in 1925, 1930, and 1937–1938,
while Iran in the 1920s suppressed Simko
Shikak at Lake
Urmia and Jaafar Sultan of the Hewraman
region, who controlled the region between Marivan and north of Halabja. A short-lived Soviet-sponsored Kurdish Republic of Mahabad
in Iran did not long outlast World War II.
From
1922–1924 in Iraq a Kingdom of Kurdistan existed. When Ba'athist administrators thwarted Kurdish nationalist ambitions in Iraq, war broke out in the 1960s. In 1970 the Kurds rejected
limited territorial self-rule within Iraq, demanding larger areas including the
oil-rich Kirkuk region.
During
the 1920s and 1930s, several large scale Kurdish revolts took place in
Kurdistan. Following these rebellions, the area of Turkish Kurdistan was put
under martial law
and a large number of the Kurds were displaced. The Turkish government also
encouraged resettlement of Albanians from Kosovo and Assyrians in the region to change the make-up of the population.
These events and measures led to a long-lasting mutual distrust between Ankara
and the Kurds .
During the relatively open government of the 1950s, Kurds gained
political office and started working within the framework of the Turkish
Republic to further their interests, but this move towards integration was
halted with the 1960 Turkish coup d'état. The 1970s saw an evolution in Kurdish nationalism as Marxist political thought influenced some in the new generation of
Kurdish nationalists opposed to the local feudal authorities who had been a traditional source of opposition
to authority; eventually they would form the militant separatist organization PKK,
also known as the Kurdistan Workers' Party in English. The Kurdistan Workers' Party later abandoned Marxism-Leninism.
Kurds
are often regarded as "the largest ethnic group without a state The
Kurdish claim of "statelessness" is rejected by some researchers such
as Martin van Bruinessen ]and some other scholars who seem to agree
with the official Turkish position. They argue that while some level of Kurdish
cultural, social, political and ideological heterogeneity may exist, the
Kurdish community has long thrived over the centuries as a generally peaceful
and well integrated part of Turkish society, with hostilities erupting only in
recent years.Michael Radu
who had worked for the United
States's Pennsylvania Foreign Policy Research Institute argued that the claim of
Kurdish "statelessness" comes primarily from Kurdish nationalists, Western human rights activists, and European leftists.
Kurdish nationalism
came about through the conjunction of a variety of factors, including the
British introduction of the concept of private property, the partition of
regions of Kurdish settlement by modern neighbouring states, and the influence
of British, U.S., and Soviet interests in the Persian Gulf region. These
factors and others combined with the flowering of a nationalist movement among
a very small minority of urban, intellectual
Kurds.
The first Kurdish newspaper appeared
in 1897 and was published at intervals until 1902. It was revived at Istanbul in 1908 (when the first Kurdish
political club, with an affiliated
cultural society, was also founded) and again in Cairo during World War I. The Treaty of Sèvres, drawn up in 1920, provided for an autonomous
Kurdistan but was never ratified; the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which replaced the Treaty of Sèvres, made no
mention of Kurdistan or of the Kurds. Thus the opportunity to unify the Kurds
in a nation of their own was lost. Indeed, Kurdistan after the war was more
fragmented than before, and various separatist movements arose among Kurdish
groups.
Population
The
number of Kurds living in Southwest
Asia is estimated at close to 30
million, with another one or two million living in diaspora. Kurds comprise anywhere from 18% to 20% of the population
in Turkey, possibly as
high as 25%; 15 to 20% in Iraq 10% in Iran [and 9% in Syria. Kurds form regional majorities in all four of
these countries, viz. in Turkish
Kurdistan, Iraqi
Kurdistan, Iranian
Kurdistan and Syrian
Kurdistan. The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in West Asia after the Arabs, Persians, and Turks. The total number of Kurds in 1991 was placed at 22.5
million, with 48% of this number living in Turkey, 18% in Iraq, 24% in Iran,
and 4% in Syria Recent emigration
accounts for a population of close to 1.5 million in Western countries, about
half of them in Germany. A special case are the Kurdish populations in
the Transcaucasus and
Central
Asia, displaced there mostly in the time
of the Russian Empire,
who underwent independent developments for more than a century and have
developed an ethnic identity in their own right. This groups'
population was estimated at close to 0.4 million in 1990
History
Prehistory
The prehistory of the Kurds is
poorly known, but their ancestors seem to have inhabited the same upland region
for millennia. The records of the early empires of Mesopotamia contain frequent
references to mountain tribes with names resembling “Kurd.” The Kardouchoi whom
the Greek historian Xenophon speaks of in Anabasis (they attacked the
“Ten Thousand” near modern Zākhū, Iraq, in 401 BCE) may have been Kurds, but
some scholars dispute this claim. "The
land of Karda" is mentioned on a Sumerian clay-tablet dated to the 3rd
millennium B.C. This land was inhabited by "the people of Su" who
dwelt in the southern regions of Lake
Van; The philological connection
between "Kurd" and "Karda" is uncertain but the
relationship is considered possible.[42] Other Sumerian clay-tablets referred to the people,
who lived in the land of Karda, as the Qarduchi and the Qurti. Karda/Qardu is etymologically related to the Assyrian term Urartu
and the Hebrew
term Ararat.
Qarti
or Qartas, who were originally settled on the mountains north of Mesopotamia, are considered as a probable ancestor of the Kurds. Akkadians were attacked by nomads coming through Qartas territory at
the end of 3rd millennium B.C. Akkadians distinguished them as Guti. They conquered Mesopotamia in 2150 B.C. and ruled with 21 kings until defeated by the Sumerian king Utu-hengal.
Many
Kurds consider themselves descended from the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, and even use a calendar dating from 612 B.C., when the Assyrian capital of Nineveh was conquered by the Medes. The claimed Median descent is reflected in the words of the Kurdish
national anthem: "We are the children of the
Medes and Kai Khosrow However, MacKenzie and Asatrian challenge the relation of the Median
language to Kurdish. The Kurdish
languages, on the other hand, form a subgroup
of the Northwestern Iranian
languages like Median.
Some researchers consider the
independent Kardouchoi
as the ancestors of the Kurds, while others prefer Cyrtians. The term "Kurd," however, is first encountered in
Arabic sources of the seventh century. Books from the early Islamic era, including those containing
legends such as the Shahnameh
and the Middle PersianKar-Namag i Ardashir
i Pabagan, and other early Islamic sources provide
early attestation of the name Kurd. The Kurds have ethnically diverse origins
The name Kurd can be
dated with certainty to the time of the tribes’ conversion to Islam in the 7th century CE. Most Kurds
are Sunni
Muslims, and among them are many who practice Sufism and other mystical sects. Despite
their long-standing occupation of a particular region of the world, the Kurds
never achieved nation-state status. Their reputation for military prowess has
made them much in demand as mercenaries in many armies. The sultan Saladin, best
known to the Western world for exploits in the Crusades, epitomizes the Kurdish military
reputation.
During the Sassanid
era, in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i
Pabagan, a short prose work
written in Middle Persian, Ardashir
I is depicted as having
battled the Kurds and their leader, Madig. After initially sustaining a heavy defeat,
Ardashir I was successful in subjugating the Kurds. In a letter Ardashir I received from his foe, Ardavan V, which is also featured in the same work, he is referred to as
being a Kurd himself.
You've bitten off more than you can chew
and you have brought death to yourself.
O son of a Kurd, raised in the tents of the Kurds,
who gave you permission to put a crown on your head?
and you have brought death to yourself.
O son of a Kurd, raised in the tents of the Kurds,
who gave you permission to put a crown on your head?
The usage of the term Kurd during this time period most
likely was a social term, designating Northwestern Iranian nomads, rather than
a concrete ethnic group.
Similarly, in AD 360, the Sassanid king Shapur
II marched into the Roman province Zabdicene, to conquer its chief city, Bezabde,
present-day Cizre. He found it heavily fortified, and guarded
by three legions and a large body of Kurdish archers. After a long and hard-fought siege, Shapur II
breached the walls, conquered the city and massacred all its defenders.
Thereafter he had the strategically located city repaired, provisioned and
garrisoned with his best troops.
There is also a 7th-century text by an unidentified author,
written about the legendary Christian
martyr Mar
Qardagh. He lived in the 4th
century, during the reign of Shapur II, and during his travels is said to have
encountered Mar Abdisho, a deacon and martyr, who, after having been questioned of his
origins by Mar Qardagh and his Marzobans, stated that his parents were originally from
an Assyrian village called Hazza, but were driven out and subsequently settled
in Tamanon, a village in the land of the Kurds, identified as being in
the region of Mount Judi.
Medieval period
Early
Syriac sources use the terms Hurdanaye, Kurdanaye, Kurdaye to refer to
the Kurds. According to Michael the Syrian,
Hurdanaye separated from Tayaye Arabs and sought refuge with the Byzantine
Emperor Theophilus.
He also mentions the Persian troops who fought against Musa chief of Hurdanaye in the
region of Qardu in 841. According to Barhebreaus, a king appeared to the Kurdanaye and they rebelled against
the Arabs in 829. Michael the Syrian considered them as pagan, followers of mahdi and adepts of Magianism. Their mahdi called himself Christ and the Holy
Ghost.
In
the early Middle Ages,
the Kurds sporadically appear in Arabic sources, though the term was still not
being used for a specific people; instead it referred to an amalgam of nomadic
western Iranic tribes, who were distinct from Persians. However, in the High
Middle Ages, the Kurdish ethnic identity
gradually materialized, as one can find clear evidence of the Kurdish ethnic
identity and solidarity in texts of the 12th and 13th century, though, the term was also still being used in the social
sense. From 11th century onward, the term Kurd is explicitly
defined as an ethnonym and
this does not suggest synonymity with the ethnographic category nomad.[ Al-Tabari wrote that in 639, Hormuzan, a Sasanian general originating from a noble family,
battled against the Islamic
invaders in Khuzestan, and called upon the Kurds to aid him in battle. However, they were defeated and brought under Islamic rule.
In
838, a Kurdish leader based in Mosul, named Mir
Jafar, revolted against the Caliph Al-Mu'tasim who sent the commander Itakh to combat him. Itakh won this
war and executed many of the Kurds. Eventually
Arabs conquered the Kurdish regions and gradually converted the majority of
Kurds to Islam, often incorporating them into the military, such as the Hamdanids whose dynastic family members also frequently intermarried
with Kurds.
In 934 the Daylamite Buyid dynasty
was founded, and subsequently conquered most of present-day Iran and Iraq.
During the time of rule of this dynasty, Kurdish chief and ruler, Badr ibn
Hasanwaih, established himself as one of the most important emirs of the time In
the 10th-12th centuries, a number of Kurdish principalities and dynasties were founded, ruling Kurdistan and
neighbouring areas:
Due
to the Turkic invasion of Anatolia, the 11th century Kurdish dynasties crumbled
and became incorporated into the Seljuk Dynasty. Kurds would hereafter be used
in great numbers in the armies of the Zengids. ]Succeeding
the Zengids, the Kurdish Ayyubids established
themselves in 1171, first under the leadership of Saladin. Saladin led the Muslims to recapture the city of Jerusalem from the Crusaders at the Battle
of Hattin; also frequently clashing with the Hashashins. The Ayyubid dynasty lasted until 1341 when the Ayyubid
sultanate fell to Mongolian invasions.
Safavid period
The
Safavid Dynasty, established in 1501, also established its rule
over Kurdish-inhabited territories. The paternal line of this family actually
had Kurdish roots, tracing back to Firuz-Shah Zarrin-Kolah, a dignitary who moved from Kurdistan to Ardabil in the
11th century. The Battle of Chaldiran
in 1514 that culminated in what is nowadays Iran's West Azerbaijan Province, marked the start of the Ottoman-Persian Wars between the Iranian Safavids (and successive Iranian
dynasties) and the Ottomans.
For the next 300 years, many of the Kurds found themselves living in
territories that frequently changed hands between Ottoman Turkey and Iran
during the protracted series of Ottoman-Persian Wars.
The
Safavid king Ismail I (r.
1501-1524) put down a Yezidi rebellion which went on from 1506-1510. A century
later, the year-long Battle
of Dimdim took place, wherein the Safavid
king Abbas I (r.
1588-1629) succeeded in putting down the rebellion led by the Kurdish ruler Amir Khan Lepzerin.
Thereafter, a large number of Kurds were deported to Khorasan, not only to weaken the Kurds, but also to protect the
eastern border from invading Afghan and Turkmen tribes Other forced movements and deportations of other
groups were also implemented by Abbas I and his successors, most notably of the
Armenians, the Georgians, and the Circassians, who were moved en masse to and from other districts within
the Persian empire.
The
Kurds of Khorasan, numbering around 700,000, still use the Kurmanji Kurdish dialect.Several Kurdish noblemen served the
Safavids and rose to prominence, such as Shaykh Ali Khan Zanganeh, who served as the grand vizier of the Safavid shah Suleiman I (r.
1666–1694) from 1669 to 1689. Due to his efforts in reforming the declining
Iranian economy, he has been called the "Safavid Amir
Kabir" in modern historiography His
son, Shahqoli Khan Zanganeh, also served as a grand vizier from 1707 to 1716. Another
Kurdish statesman, Ganj Ali Khan,
was close friends with Abbas I, and served as governor in various provinces and
was known for his loyal service.
Zand period
After
the fall of the Safavids, Iran fell under the control of the Afsharid
Empire ruled by Nader
Shah at its peak. After Nader's death,
Iran fell into civil war, with multiple leaders trying to gain control over the
country. Ultimately, it was Karim
Khan, a Laki general of the Zand
tribe who would come to power. The country would flourish during Karim Khan's reign; a
strong resurgence of the arts would take place, and international ties were
strengthened. Karim Khan was portrayed as being a ruler who truly cared
about his subjects, thereby gaining the title Vakil e-Ra'aayaa (meaning
Representative of the People in Persian). Though not as powerful in its geo-political and military
reach as the preceding Safavids and Afsharids or even the early Qajars, he
managed to reassert Iranian hegemony over its integral territories in the Caucasus, and presided over an era of relative peace, prosperity,
and tranquility. In Ottoman Iraq,
following the Ottoman–Persian War (1775–76), Karim Khan managed to seize Basra for several years.
After
Karim Khan's death, the dynasty would decline in favour of the rival Qajars due to infighting between the Khan's incompetent offspring.
It wasn't until Lotf Ali Khan,
10 years later, that the dynasty would once again be led by an adept ruler. By
this time however, the Qajars had already progressed greatly, having taken a
number of Zand territories. Lotf Ali Khan made multiple successes before
ultimately succumbing to the rivaling faction. Iran and all its Kurdish
territories would hereby be incorporated in the Qajar
Dynasty.The Kurdish tribes present in Baluchistan and some of those in Fars are believed to be remnants of those that assisted and
accompanied Lotf Ali Khan and Karim Khan, respectively.
Ottoman period
When
Sultan Selim
I, after defeating Shah Ismail
I in 1514,
annexed Western Armenia
and Kurdistan, he entrusted the organisation of the conquered territories to Idris, the historian, who was a Kurd of Bitlis. He divided the territory into sanjaks or districts,
and, making no attempt to interfere with the principle of heredity, installed
the local chiefs as governors. He also resettled the rich pastoral country
between Erzerum and Erivan,
which had lain in waste since the passage of Timur, with Kurds from the Hakkari and Bohtan districts. For the next centuries, from the Peace
of Amasya until the first half of the 19th
century, several regions of the wide Kurdish homelands would be contested as
well between the Ottomans and the neighbouring rival successive Iranian dynasties (Safavids, Afsharids, Qajars) in the frequent Ottoman-Persian Wars.
The
Ottoman centralist policies in the beginning of the 19th century aimed to
remove power from the principalities and localities, which directly affected
the Kurdish emirs. Bedirhan Bey was
the last emir of the Cizre Bohtan Emirate after initiating an uprising in 1847 against the Ottomans
to protect the current structures of the Kurdish principalities. Although his
uprising is not classified as a nationalist one, his children played
significant roles in the emergence and the development of Kurdish nationalism
through the next century.
The
first modern Kurdish nationalist movement emerged in 1880 with an uprising led
by a Kurdish landowner and head of the powerful Shemdinan family, Sheik
Ubeydullah, who demanded political autonomy or
outright independence for Kurds as well as the recognition of a Kurdistan state
without interference from Turkish or Persian authorities.[The uprising against Qajar
Persia and the Ottoman
Empire was ultimately suppressed by the
Ottomans and Ubeydullah, along with other notables, were exiled to Istanbul.
Kurds
in Turkey
According
to CIA Factbook,
Kurds formed approximately 18% of the population in Turkey (approximately 14
million) in 2008. One Western source estimates that up to 25% of the Turkish
population is Kurdish (approximately 18-19 million people). Kurdish sources claim there are as many as 20 or 25 million
Kurds in Turkey. ]In 1980, Ethnologue estimated the number of Kurdish-speakers in Turkey at around five million, when the
country's population stood at 44 million.[ Kurds form the largest
minority group in Turkey, and they have posed the most serious and persistent
challenge to the official image of a homogeneous society. This classification
was changed to the new euphemism
of Eastern Turk in 1980. ]Nowadays the Kurds, in Turkey, are still known under the
name Easterner (Doğulu).
Several
large scale Kurdish revolts in 1925, 1930 and 1938 were suppressed by the
Turkish government and more than one million Kurds were forcibly relocated
between 1925 and 1938. The use of Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names were banned and the Kurdish-inhabited areas
remained under martial law
until 1946. The Ararat
revolt, which reached its apex in 1930,
was only suppressed after a massive military campaign including destruction of
many villages and their populations. By the 1970s, Kurdish leftist
organizations such as Kurdistan Socialist Party-Turkey (KSP-T) emerged
in Turkey which were against violence and supported civil activities and
participation in elections. In 1977, Mehdi Zana a supporter of KSP-T won
the mayoralty of Diyarbakir
in the local elections. At about the same time, generational fissures gave
birth to two new organizations: the National Liberation of Kurdistan and
the Kurdistan Workers Party.
The treatment at the hands of the Turkish government,
which tried to deprive them of their Kurdish identity by designating them
“Mountain Turks,” by outlawing the Kurdish language (or representing it as a dialect of Turkish), and
by forbidding them to wear distinctive Kurdish dress in or near the important
administrative cities. The Turkish government suppressed Kurdish political
agitation in the eastern provinces and encouraged the migration of Kurds to the
urbanized western portion of Turkey, thus diluting the concentration of Kurdish
population in the uplands. Periodic rebellions occurred, and in 1978 Abdullah Öcalan formed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (known by its
Kurdish acronym, PKK), a Marxist
organization dedicated to creating an independent Kurdistan. Operating mainly
from eastern Anatolia, PKK fighters engaged in guerrilla operations against
government installations and perpetrated frequent acts of terrorism. PKK attacks and government reprisals led
to a state of virtual war in eastern Turkey during the 1980s and ’90s. Following
Öcalan’s capture in 1999, PKK activities were sharply curtailed for several
years before the party resumed guerilla activities in 2004. In 2002, under
pressure from the European Union (in which Turkey sought membership), the
government legalized broadcasts and education in the Kurdish language. Turkey
continued to mount military operations against the PKK, including incursions
into northern Iraq.
The
words "Kurds", "Kurdistan", or "Kurdish" were officially banned by the
Turkish government Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public
and private life. Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were
arrested and imprisoned. The Kurds are still not allowed to get a primary education
in their mother tongue and they don't have a right to self-determination, even
though Turkey has signed the ICCPR. There is ongoing discrimination against and “otherization”
of Kurds in society
The
Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê) is
Kurdish militant organization which has waged an armed struggle against the
Turkish state for cultural and political rights and self-determination for the
Kurds. Turkey's military allies the US, the EU, and NATO label the PKK as a terrorist organization while the UN, Switzerland, Russia, China and India have
refused to add the PKK to their terrorist list. Some of them have even
supported the PKK
Between
1984 and 1999, the PKK and the Turkish military engaged in open war, and much
of the countryside in the southeast was depopulated, as Kurdish civilians moved
from villages to bigger cities such as Diyarbakır, Van,
and Şırnak,
as well as to the cities of western Turkey and even to western Europe. The
causes of the depopulation included mainly the Turkish state's military
operations, state's political actions, Turkish Deep state actions,
the poverty of the southeast and PKK atrocities against Kurdish clans which
were against them. Turkish State actions have included forced inscription,
forced evacuation, destruction of villages, severe harassment, illegal arrests
and executions of Kurdish civilians
Since
the 1970s, the European Court of
Human Rights has condemned Turkey for the
thousands of human rights abuses. The
judgments are related to executions of Kurdish civilians, ]torturing, forced displacements[ ]systematic destruction of villages,[ arbitrary arrests murdered and disappeared Kurdish journalists. Leyla
Zana, the first Kurdish female MP from
Diyarbakir, caused an uproar in Turkish Parliament
after adding the following sentence in Kurdish to her parliamentary oath during the swearing-in ceremony
in 1994: "I take this oath for the brotherhood of the Turkish and Kurdish
peoples
In
March 1994, the Turkish Parliament
voted to lift the immunity of Zana and five other Kurdish DEP
members: Hatip Dicle, Ahmet Turk, Sirri Sakik, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak.
Zana, Dicle, Sadak and Dogan were sentenced to 15 years in jail by the Supreme
Court in October 1995. Zana was awarded the Sakharov
Prize for human rights by the European Parliament
in 1995. She was released in 2004 amid warnings from European institutions that
the continued imprisonment of the four Kurdish MPs would affect Turkey's bid to
join the EU.
The 2009 local elections resulted in 5.7% for Kurdish political party DTP.
Officially
protected death squads are accused of the disappearance of 3,200 Kurds and
Assyrians in 1993 and 1994 in the so-called "mystery killings".
Kurdish politicians, human-rights activists, journalists, teachers and other
members of intelligentsia were among the victims. Virtually none of the
perpetrators were investigated nor punished. Turkish government also encouraged
Islamic group Hezbollah to assassinate suspected PKK members and often ordinary
Kurds. ]Azimet Köylüoğlu,
the state minister of human rights, revealed the extent of security forces'
excesses in autumn 1994: While acts of terrorism in other regions are
done by the PKK; in Tunceli it is state terrorism. In Tunceli, it is the state
that is evacuating and burning villages. In the southeast there are two million
people left homeless
Iran
The
Kurdish region of
Iran has been a part of the country since ancient times. Nearly
all Kurdistan was part of Persian
Empire until its Western part was lost
during wars against
the Ottoman Empire. Following the dissolution of the
Ottoman Empire, at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 Tehran had demanded all lost territories including Turkish
Kurdistan, Mosul, and even Diyarbakır, but demands were quickly rejected by Western powers This
area has been divided by modern Turkey, Syria and
Iraq. Today, the Kurds inhabit mostly northwestern territories
known as Iranian Kurdistan
but also the northeastern region of Khorasan, and constitute approximately 7-10% of Iran's overall population (6.5–7.9 million), compared to
10.6% (2 million) in 1956 and 8% (800 thousand) in 1850.
Unlike
in other Kurdish-populated countries, there are strong ethno linguistical and
cultural ties between Kurds, Persians and others as Iranian
peoples. Some modern Iranian dynasties like the Safavids and Zands are
considered to be partly of Kurdish origin. Kurdish literature
in all of its forms (Kurmanji, Sorani, and Gorani) has been developed within historical Iranian boundaries under strong influence of the Persian
language The Kurds sharing much of their
history with the rest of Iran is seen as reason for why Kurdish leaders in Iran
do not want a separate Kurdish state
The
government of Iran
has never employed the same level of brutality against its own Kurds like Turkey or Iraq,
but it has always been implacably opposed to any suggestion of Kurdish
separatism. During and shortly after the First
World War the government of Iran was
ineffective and had very little control over events in the country and several
Kurdish tribal chiefs
gained local political power, even established large confederations. At the same time waves of nationalism from the disintegrating Ottoman Empire partly influenced
some Kurdish chiefs in border regions to pose as Kurdish nationalist leaders. Prior to this, identity in both countries largely relied
upon religion i.e. Shia Islam in
the particular case of Iran.[161][162] In 19th century Iran, Shia–Sunni animosity and the
describing of Sunni Kurds
as an Ottoman fifth column was
quite frequent.
During
the late 1910s and early 1920s, tribal revolt led
by Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak struck
north western Iran. Although elements of Kurdish nationalism
were present in this movement, historians agree these were hardly articulate
enough to justify a claim that recognition of Kurdish identity was a major
issue in Simko's movement, and he had to rely heavily on conventional tribal
motives. Government forces
and non-Kurds were not the only ones to suffer in the attacks, the Kurdish population
was also robbed and assaulted. Rebels do not appear to have felt
any sense of unity or solidarity with fellow Kurds. Kurdish insurgency and seasonal migrations in the late
1920s, along with long-running tensions between Tehran and Ankara, resulted in
border clashes and even military penetrations in both Iranian and Turkish
territory. Two regional powers have used Kurdish tribes as tool for own
political benefits: Turkey has provided military help and refuge for
anti-Iranian Turcophone Shikak rebels in
1918-1922, while Iran did the same during Ararat
rebellion against Turkey in 1930. Reza
Shah's military victory over Kurdish and
Turkic tribal
leaders initiated a repressive era toward non-Iranian minorities. Government's forced detribalization
and sedentarization
in 1920s and 1930s resulted with many other tribal revolts in Iranian regions
of Azerbaijan,
Luristan and Kurdistan. In particular case of the Kurds, this repressive policies
partly contributed to developing nationalism among
some tribes.
As
a response to growing Pan-Tu rkism and
Pan-Arabism in region which were seen as potential threats to the
territorial integrity of Iran, Pan-Iranist ideology has been developed in the early 1920s. Some of such groups and journals openly advocated Iranian
support to the Kurdish rebellion against Turkey. Secular Pahlavi
dynasty had endorsed Iranian ethnic nationalism[ which seen the Kurds as integral part of the Iranian nation.[ Mohammad Reza Pahlavi has personally praised the Kurds as "pure
Iranians" or "one of the most noble Iranian
peoples Another significant ideology during
this period was Marxism which
arose among Kurds under influence of USSR. It culminated in the Iran crisis of 1946
which included a separatist attempt of KDP-I and communist groups to establish the Soviet puppet
government
called Republic of Mahabad.
It arose along with Azerbaijan People's
Government, another Soviet puppet state. The state itself encompassed a very small territory,
including Mahabad and the adjacent cities, unable to incorporate the southern
Iranian Kurdistan which fell inside the Anglo-American zone, and unable to
attract the tribes outside Mahabad itself to the nationalist cause. As a result, when the Soviets withdrew from Iran in December
1946, government forces were able to enter Mahabad unopposed
Several
nationalist and Marxist insurgencies
continued for decades (1967,1979, 1989–96) led by KDP-I and
Komalah, but those two organization have never advocated a separate
Kurdish state or greater Kurdistan as did the PKK
in Turkey.
Still, many of dissident leaders,
among others Qazi Muhammad and
Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, were executed or assassinated. During Iran–Iraq
War, Tehran has provided support for
Iraqi-based Kurdish groups like KDP
or PUK,
along with asylum for 1,400,000 Iraqi refugees, mostly Kurds. Kurdish Marxist groups have been marginalized in Iran
since the dissolution of the
Soviet Union. In 2004 new insurrection started
by PJAK, separatist organization affiliated with the
Turkey-based PKK and designated as terrorist by Iran, Turkey and the United States. Some analysts claim PJAK do not pose any serious threat to
the government of Iran. ]Cease-fire has been established in September 2011 following
the Iranian offensive on PJAK bases, but several clashes between PJAK and IRGC
took place after it. Since the Iranian Revolution
of 1979, accusations of "discrimination" by Western organizations and
of "foreign involvement" by Iranian side have become very frequent
Kurds
have been well integrated in Iranian
political life during reign of various
governments. Kurdish liberal political Karim
Sanjabi has served as minister of education
under Mohammad Mossadegh
in 1952. During the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi some members of parliament and high army officers were
Kurds, and there was even a Kurdish Cabinet Minister During the
reign of the Pahlavis Kurds received many favours from
the authorities, for instance to keep their land after the land
reforms of 1962. In the early 2000s, presence of thirty Kurdish deputies in
the 290-strong parliament has
also helped to undermine claims of discrimination.[ Some of the more influential Kurdish politicians during
recent years include former first vice president Mohammad Reza Rahimi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Mayor
of Tehran and second-placed presidential
candidate in 2013. A
large number of Iranian Kurds show no interest in Kurdish nationalism, particularly Kurds of the Shia faith who sometimes even vigorously reject idea of
autonomy, preferring direct rule from Tehran.
The issue of Kurdish nationalism and
Iranian national identity is generally only questioned in the peripheral
Kurdish dominated regions where the Sunni faith is prevalent
Kurds in Iran and
Iraq
Kurds also felt
strong assimilationist pressure from the national government in Iran and
endured religious persecution by that country’s Shīʿite Muslim majority. Shortly after World War II (1939–45),
the Soviet Union
backed the establishment of an independent country around the largely Kurdish
city of Mahābād,
in northwestern Iran. The so-called Republic of Mahābād collapsed after Soviet
withdrawal in 1946, but about that same time the Kurdish Democratic Party of
Iran (KDPI) was established. Thereafter, the KDPI engaged in low-level
hostilities with the Iranian government into the 21st century.
Although the
pressure for Kurds to assimilate
was less intense in Iraq (where the Kurdish language and culture have been
freely practiced), government repression has been the most brutal. Short-lived
armed rebellions occurred in Iraq in 1931–32 and 1944–45, and a low-level armed
insurgency took place throughout the 1960s under the command of Muṣṭafā al-Barzānī, leader of the Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party (IKDP),
who had been an officer of the Republic of Mahābād. A failed peace accord with
the Iraqi government led to another outbreak of fighting in 1975, but an
agreement between Iraq and Iran—which had been supporting Kurdish efforts—later
that year led to a collapse of Kurdish resistance. Thousands of Kurds fled to
Iran and Turkey. Low-intensity fighting followed. In the late 1970s, Iraq’s Baʿth Party instituted
a policy of settling Iraqi Arabs in areas with Kurdish majorities—particularly
around the oil-rich city of Kirkūk—and uprooting Kurds from those same
regions. This policy accelerated in the 1980s as large numbers of Kurds were
forcibly relocated, particularly from areas along the Iranian border where
Iraqi authorities suspected Kurds were aiding Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War
(1980–88). What followed was one of the most brutal episodes in Kurdish
history. In a series of operations between March and August
1988, code-named Anfal (Arabic: “Spoils”), Iraqi forces sought to quell Kurdish
resistance; the Iraqis used large quantities of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians. Although technically it was
not part of Anfal, one of the largest chemical attacks during that period took
place on March 16 in and around the village of Ḥalabjah, when Iraqi troops
killed as many as 5,000 Kurds with mustard gas and nerve agent. Despite these
attacks, Kurds again rebelled following Iraq’s defeat in the Persian Gulf War (1990–91) but were again brutally suppressed—sparking
another mass exodus.
With the help of
the United States, however, the Kurds were able to establish a “safe
haven” that included most areas of Kurdish settlement in northern Iraq, where
the IKDP and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan—a faction that split from the IKDP in
1975—created an autonomous civil authority that was, for the most part, free
from interference by the Iraqi government. The Kurds were particularly
successful in that country’s 2005 elections, held following the fall of Saddam Hussein and the Baʿth Party in
2003 and in mid-2005 the first session of the Kurdish parliament was convened
in Irbīl.
Violence and
instability in Iraq following the removal of Saddam Hussein and in Syria
following the outbreak of civil war in 2011 threatened the security of Kurdish
communities but also offered new opportunities for Kurds to advance their
claims to autonomy.
The primary threat to Kurds was the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which captured and occupied
territory adjacent to Kurdish areas in Iraq and Syria in 2013. Kurdish fighters
in northern Syria entered into heavy fighting with ISIL and quickly proved to
be some of the most effective ground forces against the group. Meanwhile, Iraqi
Kurdish forces participated in a multinational campaign to expel ISIL from its
strongholds in northern and western Iraq.
Kurds
constitute approximately 17% of Iraq's population. They are the majority in at
least three provinces in northern Iraq which are together known as Iraqi
Kurdistan. Kurds also have a presence in Kirkuk, Mosul,
Khanaqin, and Baghdad.
Around 300,000 Kurds live in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, 50,000 in the city of Mosul and around 100,000 elsewhere in southern Iraq
Kurds
led by Mustafa Barzani
were engaged in heavy fighting against successive Iraqi regimes from 1960 to
1975. In March 1970, Iraq announced a peace plan providing for Kurdish
autonomy. The plan was to be implemented in four years. However, at the same time, the Iraqi regime started an
Arabization program in the oil-rich regions of Kirkuk and Khanaqin. The peace agreement did not last long, and in 1974, the
Iraqi government began a new offensive against the Kurds. Moreover, in March
1975, Iraq and Iran signed the Algiers Accord, according to which Iran cut supplies to Iraqi Kurds. Iraq
started another wave of Arabization by moving Arabs to the oil fields in
Kurdistan, particularly those around Kirkuk
Between 1975 and 1978, 200,000 Kurds were deported to other parts of
Iraq.
During
the Iran–Iraq War in
the 1980s, the regime implemented anti-Kurdish policies and a de factocivil
war broke out. Iraq was widely condemned by the international community, but
was never seriously punished for oppressive measures such as the mass murder of
hundreds of thousands of civilians, the wholesale destruction of thousands of
villages and the deportation of thousands of Kurds to southern and central
Iraq.
The
genocidal campaign, conducted between 1986 and 1989 and culminating in 1988,
carried out by the Iraqi government against the Kurdish population was called Anfal
("Spoils of War"). The Anfal campaign led to destruction of over two
thousand villages and killing of 182,000 Kurdish civilians The campaign
included the use of ground offensives, aerial bombing, systematic destruction
of settlements, mass deportation, firing squads, and chemical attacks,
including the most infamous attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 that killed 5000 civilians instantly.
After
the collapse of the Kurdish uprising in March 1991, Iraqi troops recaptured
most of the Kurdish areas and 1.5 million Kurds abandoned their homes and fled
to the Turkish and Iranian borders. It is estimated that close to 20,000 Kurds
succumbed to death due to exhaustion, lack of food, exposure to cold and
disease. On 5 April 1991, UN Security Council
passed resolution 688 which condemned the repression of Iraqi Kurdish civilians
and demanded that Iraq end its repressive measures and allow immediate access
to international humanitarian organizations This was the first international
document (since the League
of Nations arbitration of Mosul in 1926) to
mention Kurds by name. In mid-April, the Coalition established safe havens
inside Iraqi borders and prohibited Iraqi planes from flying north of 36th
parallel.
5In October 1991, Kurdish guerrillas captured Erbil and Sulaimaniyah after a series of clashes with Iraqi troops. In late
October, Iraqi government retaliated by imposing a food and fuel embargo on the
Kurds and stopping to pay civil servants in the Kurdish region. The embargo,
however, backfired and Kurds held parliamentary elections in May 1992 and
established Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The
Kurdish population welcomed the American troops in 2003 by holding celebrations
and dancing in the streets. The area controlled by Peshmerga was expanded, and Kurds now have effective control in Kirkuk and parts of Mosul. The authority of the KRG
and legality of its laws and regulations were recognized in the articles 113
and 137 of the new Iraqi Constitution
ratified in 2005 By the beginning of 2006, the two Kurdish administrations of
Erbil and Sulaimaniya were unified. On 14 August 2007, Yazidis were targeted in
a series of bombings
that became the deadliest suicide attack since the Iraq
War began, killing 796 civilians,
wounding 1,562
Syria
Kurds
account for 9% of Syria's
population, a total of around 1.6 million people. This makes them the largest ethnic minority in the country.
They are mostly concentrated in the northeast and the north, but there are also
significant Kurdish populations in Aleppo and Damascus. Kurds often speak
Kurdish in public, unless all those present do not. According to Amnesty International, Kurdish human rights activists are mistreated and
persecuted. ]No political parties are allowed for any group, Kurdish or
otherwise.
Techniques
used to suppress the ethnic identity of Kurds in Syria include various bans on the use of the Kurdish
language, refusal to register children with
Kurdish names, the replacement of Kurdish place names with new names in Arabic, the prohibition of businesses that do not have Arabic
names, the prohibition of Kurdish private schools, and the prohibition of books
and other materials written in Kurdish ]Having been denied the right
to Syrian nationality, around 300,000 Kurds have been deprived of any social rights,
in violation of international law. As
a consequence, these Kurds are in effect trapped within Syria. In March 2011,
in part to avoid further demonstrations and unrest from spreading across Syria,
the Syrian government promised to tackle the issue and grant Syrian citizenship
to approximately 300,000 Kurds who had been previously denied the right
On
12 March 2004, beginning at a stadium in Qamishli (a largely Kurdish city in northeastern Syria), clashes
between Kurds and Syrians broke out and continued over a number of days. At
least thirty people were killed and more than 160 injured. The unrest spread to
other Kurdish towns along the northern border with Turkey, and then to Damascus and Aleppo. As a result of Syrian
civil war, since July 2012, Kurds were able
to take control of large parts of Syrian Kurdistan from Andiwar in extreme
northeast to Jindires in extreme northwest Syria. The Syrian Kurds started the Rojava
Revolution in 2013. Kurdish-inhabited Afrin
Canton has been occupied by Turkish Armed Forces and Turkish-backed Free
Syrian Army since the Turkish military
operation in Afrin in early 2018. Between 150,000 and
200,000 people were displaced due to the Turkish intervention.
Transcaucasus
Between
the 1930s and 1980s, Armenia was
a part of the Soviet Union,
within which Kurds, like other ethnic groups, had the status of a protected
minority. Armenian Kurds were permitted their own state-sponsored newspaper,
radio broadcasts and cultural events. During the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, many non-Yazidi Kurds were forced to leave their homes
since both the Azeri and non-Yazidi Kurds were Muslim.
In
1920, two Kurdish-inhabited areas of Jewanshir (capital Kalbajar) and eastern Zangazur (capital Lachin)
were combined to form the Kurdistan
Okrug (or "Red Kurdistan"). The
period of existence of the Kurdish administrative unit was brief and did not
last beyond 1929. Kurds subsequently faced many repressive measures, including
deportations, imposed by the Soviet government. As a result of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, many Kurdish areas have been destroyed and more than
150,000 Kurds have been deported since 1988 by separatist Armenian forces
Diaspora
According
to a report by the Council
of Europe, approximately 1.3 million Kurds
live in Western Europe.
The earliest immigrants were Kurds from Turkey, who settled in Germany, Austria,
the Benelux countries, the United
Kingdom, Switzerland and France during
the 1960s. Successive periods of political and social turmoil in the region
during the 1980s and 1990s brought new waves of Kurdish refugees, mostly from
Iran and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, came to Europe In recent years, many
Kurdish asylum seekers from both Iran and Iraq have settled in the United
Kingdom (especially in the town of Dewsbury and in some northern areas of London), which has sometimes caused media controversy over their
right to remain. There have been tensions between Kurds and the established
Muslim community in Dewsbury, which is home to very traditional mosques
such as the Markazi.
Since the beginning of the turmoil in Syria many of th refugees of the
Syrian Civil War are Syrian
Kurds and as a result many of the current
Syrian asylum seekers in Germany are of Kurdish descent.
There
was substantial immigration of ethnic Kurds in Canada and the United
States, who are mainly political refugees
and immigrants seeking economic opportunity. According to a 2011 Statistics Canada household survey, there were 11,685 people of Kurdish
ethnic background living in Canada, ]and according to the 2011 Census, 10,325 Canadians spoke
Kurdish language In the United States, Kurdish immigrants started to settle in
large numbers in Nashville in 1976,[ which is now home to the largest Kurdish community in the
United States and is nicknamed Little Kurdistan. ]Kurdish population in Nashville is estimated to be around
11,000. Total number of ethnic Kurds residing in the United States
is estimated by the US
Census Bureau to be 15,400. Other sources claim that there are 20,000 ethnic Kurds in
the United States
IS
and Kurds: May,25,2019:
In a bid to extort revenues from local farmers during the
harvest season, Islamic State (IS) militants are threatening to set fire to
thousands of acres of wheat fields in territories disputed between the Iraqi
government and the Kurdistan region, according to local officials. The
militants, hiding mostly in caves and mountains of a large territory between
the Iraqi forces and Kurdish peshmerga, pour into small towns and villages at
night and ask local residents to pay a religious tax known as zakat or find
their crops destroyed the next day. IS fighters have told farmers and workers
to give them 15% of their harvest revenues or their wheat fields and hay will
be set to fire hundreds of acres of land
have already been set ablaze in Makhmour town, 60 kilometers (37 miles)
southwest of Irbil governorate. IS is taking advantage of the security gap
created by the lack of cooperation between the Iraqi forces and Kurdish
peshmerga in the disputed areas.
The vast disputed
territories, consisting of Kirkuk and parts of Nineveh, Saladin and Diyala
provinces, have been a point of contention between the central government and
the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for decades as both sides claim
ownership over them. The Kurdish peshmerga held the area during IS emergence in
2014 but were forced out shortly after a Kurdish referendum for independence
was held in September 2017. The two sides then stopped joint counter-be operations. Kurdish
officials say they fear the continuation of the fires could ignite violent
clashes between Kurdish and Arab residents of the area, especially as the
Kurdish 
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