2017

The Kurds and Kurdistan

The only friends we have are the mountains.
Kurdish Proverb
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation
Kurdistan (Land of the Kurds) refers to an area of Kurdish
settlement that roughly includes the mountain systems of the
Zagros and the eastern extension of the Taurus. Since ancient
times the area has been the home of the Kurds, a people whose
ethnic origins are uncertain. For 600 years after the Arab conquest
and their conversion to Islam, the Kurds played a recognizable
and considerable part in the troubled history of western Asia - but
as tribes, individuals or turbulent groups rather than as a people.
The vast majority of Kurds live in a
territory divided among Turkey, Iran,
Iraq and Syria. Kurdistan, is a roughly
defined geo-cultural region where
the Kurdish people form a
prominent majority population, and
where Kurdish culture, language
and national identity have
historically been based.
Kurds from the Jaff tribe cheering
as they watch a horse race
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation
• state: an independent political unit holding sovereignty over a
specified territory (example: Canada), casually referred to as
“country”
• nation: a community of people with common ancestry, culture and
territory, does not imply an independent political unit (examples:
French Quebec, Acadians in Eastern Canada, “First Nations”
throughout Canada ... several different nations within the boundaries
of the Canadian state)
• The territory of the ‘Arab nation’ extends over several Arab states.
• stateless nation: an ethnic group (nation) that occupies territory, but
does not belong to a single state (example: The Basques in Spain and
France want autonomy or independence for a Basque state. )
• Kurdistan is a stateless nation. As is usually the case, boundaries
were drawn for political, not ethnographic reasons and those
boundaries divided the Kurdish nation among four states.
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation
Comparing Nation and State
NATION STATE
• single language • clearly delineated
• common history territory
• similar ethnic • substantial population
background • well-organized
• unity from a common government
political system • shared political and
• emotional commitment cultural history
• emotional ties to
institutions, political
system or ideology
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation
Kurdistan was erased from the world's maps after WW I when the
Allied powers carved up Southwest Asia and denied the Kurds a
state. Contemporary use of the term refers to four parts of
Kurdistan, which include southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan),
northern Syria (Rojava or Western Kurdistan), northern Iraq
(Southern Kurdistan), and northwestern Iran (Eastern Kurdistan).
Some Kurdish nationalist organizations seek to create an
independent state consisting of some or all of these areas with a
Kurdish majority, while others campaign for greater autonomy
within the existing national boundaries.
For decades, the Kurds looked to the
US for support in their struggle against
other governments. Washington's
response has been classic real politik -
using the Kurds when it wanted to hurt
an opponent and then dropping them
when their usefulness had run out.
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation
The Kurds are very big on the trappings of statehood. It's as if
they're eager to prove that they exist. When you arrive in Irbil
(Iraq), immigration officers give your passport a Kurdish
stamp. The Citadel in Irbil is considered the world’s oldest
continuously inhabited settlement.
The Kurdistan flag consists of three horizontal stripes in red, white and
green with a yellow sun with 21 rays at its center. Number 21 is an
important number in the Yazidi faith. It stands for rebirth. The population
includes Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriacs, Turkmen, Yazidis, Arabs and Kurds
living together in harmony.
Kurdistan’s most prominent geophysical
feature is mountains. The mountains are very
important to Kurds. They have not only shaped
their history, people, tradition and culture; they
have also been used more practically as hide
outs for the Kurdish peshmerga and for
guerrillas fighting oppressing regimes. Kurdish
domains end abruptly where the plains begin.
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation
Iraqi Kurds have their own 175,000-man Army, the peshmerga,
which means "those who face death.”
Typically, their arsenal is made up mostly of AK-47 rifles, rocket
launchers, surface-to-air missiles and aging Soviet howitzers. The
Kurds have asked Washington for advanced weaponry, but so far
have been denied it, probably because of pressure on NATO from
the Turks who have argued that any powerful weapons the Kurds
receive might be used later in a war with Turkey.
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation

Kurds: World’s
largest Nation
without a
State
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation
The quest for independence is intrinsic to Kurdish identity.
However, not all Kurds envision a unified Kurdistan that
would span the Kurdish regions of all four countries.
Most Kurdish movements and political parties are focused
on the concerns and the autonomy or independence of
Kurds in their specific countries.
Within each country, there are also Kurds who have
assimilated, and whose aspirations may be limited to
greater cultural freedoms and political recognition.

The Time of the Kurds (9:53)

The Kurds: A Stateless Nation

Kurdish Nationalist Movement

Kurdish National Anthem

The Kurds: A Stateless Nation

Largest stateless
nation?
Many Oromo
would disagree
but certainly it’s
the most
geopolitically
significant.
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation

(mostly gone)

Distribution of Kurds: A rough estimate by the CIA Factbook has populations

of 14.5 million in Turkey, 6 million in Iran, about 5 to 6 million in Iraq, and less
than 2 million in Syria, which adds up to close to 28 million Kurds in Kurdistan
or adjacent regions. Recent emigration resulted in a Kurdish diaspora of
about 1.5 million people, about half of them in Germany.
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation

aspirational maps of a
united, independent
Kurdistan expanded
not Kurdish territory
The Kurds: A Stateless Nation
• The Kurdish issue at its core is simply this: A people with a
distinct ethnic heritage aspires to control its own ancestral
domains, and to be recognized as a state in the modern
world.
• But there is nothing simple about the Kurds:
• the rise and fall of the ancient Kurdish empire
• the carving up of Kurdish lands after the 20th century's
world wars
• the chronic strife between Kurds and Turkey, Iraq, Iran
and Syria
• a series of betrayals by the US over the last several
decades
• the current factional infighting among Kurds themselves
that is perhaps as serious a threat to their future survival as
any
Kurdish Origins
The Kurdish region has seen a long list of invaders and conquerors: Ancient
Persians from the east, Alexander the Great from the west, Muslim Arabs in
the 7th Century from the south, Seljuk Turks in the 11th Century from the
east, the Mongols in the 13th Century from the east, medieval Persians
from the east and the Ottoman Turks from the north in the 16th Century
and most recently, the US in its 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The Kurds reinvented themselves as Muslims after the Arab invasion and
conquest, as Sunni Muslims after the Ottoman Turks conquest, as Shiite
Muslims after the Persian conquest, as Kurdish Nationalists in the aftermath
of World War I and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, as political
revolutionaries (Kurdish Workers Party – PKK) in Turkey and Iraq (Kurdistan
Democratic Party – KDP) in the 1970s, as freedom fighters (peshmerga) in
the 1990s and as a unified secular, democratic Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) that provides all basic civil rights to its citizens including
equal rights to women, all ethnic groups and all religions.
Kurdish Origins

Uncertain Origin of the Word “Kurd”

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 Qardu
refers to an area in the upper Tigris basin, and it is
presumably reflected in corrupted form in Arabic (Quranic)
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 BCE.
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 many groups with such a lifestyle.
Kurdish Origins
The origin of the Kurdish ethnic group is also uncertain but
historians generally agree to consider them as belonging to
the Iranian branch of the large family of Indo-European
races.
In prehistoric times, kingdoms such as Mitanni, Kassites and
Hourites reigned the mountainous areas situated between
the Iranian plateau and the Euphrates.
Iranian plateau

Euphrates

Zagros Mountains
 Kurdish Origins

Expansion of
Indo-European, Indo-Iranian
Languages
Kurdish Origins

Conclusion: The Kurds seem to be descendants of many ancient ancestors

in the Near-East and Eurasia, who over time spoke various languages, the
present Iranian being only the last one.
Kurdish Origins
modern Kurdish area outlined in red

Height of the Bronze Age 1300 BCE

Kurdish Origins
Kurdish National Anthem
Oh, enemy! The Kurdish people live on,
They have not been crushed by the weapons of any time.
Let no one say Kurds are dead, they are living.
They live and never shall we lower our flag.
We are descendants of the red banner of the revolution.
Look at our past, how bloody it is.
Let no one say Kurds are dead, they are living.
They live and never shall we lower our flag.
The Kurdish youth rise bravely,
With their blood they colored the crown of life.
Let no one say Kurds are dead, they are living.
They live and never shall we lower our flag.
We are the descendants of the Medes and Cyaxares.
Kurdistan is our religion, our credo.
Let no one say Kurds are dead, they are living.
They live and never shall we lower our flag.
The Kurdish youth are ready and prepared
To give their life as the supreme sacrifice.
Let no one say Kurds are dead, they are living.
They live and never shall we lower our flag.
Kurdish Origins

In the 7th century BCE, the Medes founded an empire

which, in 612 BCE, conquered Assyria and spread its
domination through the whole of Iran as well as central
Anatolia. The date 612 is considered by Kurdish nationalists
as the beginning of the 1st Kurdish year.
 Kurdish Origins Kurdish connection to
Median language but
Median almost unknown

Farsi
Kurdish Origins
The political reign of the Medes was to end towards the
end of 6 BCE, but their religion and civilization were to
dominate Iran until the time of Alexander the Great. From
this date until the advent of Islam, the fate of the Kurds,
who geographers and Greek historians call Karduchoi, was
to remain linked to that of the other populations of the
empires which succeeded one another on the Iranian
scene: the Seljuks, the Parthes and the Sassanids.

Parthes: 247 BCE – 224 CE Sassanids: last imperial Seljuks: 1037 – 1194 CE, Sunni
dynasty before the rise of Muslim
Islam, 224 – 651 CE,
Zoroastrianism
Kurdish Origins

Median Empire yields to Persian Empire

Kurdish Origins
Parthian Empire, 50 BCE

First Persian Empire yields to Parthian Empire, which

in turn yields to second Persian Empire.
Kurdish Origins
Having put up fierce resistance to the Arabo-Muslim invasions, the
Kurds ended up joining Islam, without, as a result, becoming
Arabized. This resistance continued for about a century.
The Kurdish tribes resisted the Arab tribes for social rather than
religious reasons. All methods were used to coax the Kurds and
convert them to Islam, even, for example, the matrimonial strategy,
the mother of the last Omayyad caliph, Marwān Hakim, was Kurdish.
Due to the weakening of the caliphs' power, the Kurds, who already
had a key role in the arts, history and philosophy fields, begin to
assert, from the middle of the 9th century onwards, their own
political power.
In 837, a Kurdish lord, Rozeguite, founded the town of Akhlat on the
banks of Lake Van and made it the capital of his principality,
theoretically vassal of the caliph, but in actual fact virtually
independent.
Kurdish Origins

600s: Kurds conquered by Arab Muslims, eventually most

converted to Islam but kept their own language
Kurdish Origins
In the second half of the 10th century Kurdistan was shared
among 4 big Kurdish principalities. In the North, the Shaddadids,
(951-1174), in the East, the Hasanwayhids (959-1015) and the Banu
Annaz (990-1116) and in the West the Marwanids (990-1096) of
Diyarbakir.
One of these dynasties would have been able to impose its
supremacy on the others and build a state incorporating the
entire Kurdish nation if the course of history hadn't been disrupted
by the massive invasions of tribes surging out of the steppes of
Central Asia.
Having conquered Iran and imposed their yoke on the caliph of
Baghdad, the Seljuk Turks annexed the Kurdish principalities one
by one. Around 1150, Sultan Sandjar, the last of the great Seljuk
monarchs, created a province from Kurdistan.
Kurdish Origins
1000 CE

political fragmentation of Muslim world,

establishment of minor Kurdish dynasties,
westward migration
Kurdish Origins

late 1000s: Seljuk (Turkic) conquest

Kurdish Origins

First Crusades: European/Byzantine response to Seljuks

Kurdish Origins
Sets the stage for the most famous Kurd in history
Only about twelve years after the disappearance of the last great
Seljuk, a Kurdish dynasty, that of the Ayyubids (1169-1250),
founded by Saladin emerged and took over the leadership of the
Muslim world for about a century, until the Turko-Mongolian
invasions of the 13th century.
Saladin and his exploits against the crusaders are well-known in
Europe. His empire incorporated almost the whole of Kurdistan,
and all Syria, Egypt and Yemen. It was the time of the Crusades, of
the hegemony of the religious on the political and the national.
Kurdish Origins

An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (1137 –

March 1193), known as Saladin, was the first
sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of
the Ayyubid dynasty. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish
origin, Saladin led the Muslim military
campaign against the Crusader states in the
Levant.
Under Saladin's command, the Ayyubid army
defeated the Crusaders at the decisive Battle
of Hattin in 1187, and thereafter wrested
control of Palestine from the Crusaders, who
had conquered the area 88 years earlier.
Although the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem
continued to exist until the late 13th century, its
defeat at Hattin marked a turning point in its
conflict with the Muslim powers of the region.
 Kurdish Origins

Saladin’s Ayyubid dynasty at his death, 1193

[If you get the chance, try to catch a re-run of The Kingdom of Heaven (2005, 145 min). It’s
from the Crusaders’ point of view but gives a pretty realistic look at the Crusades and Saladin.]
 Kurdish Origins
In the 12th century, Kurdistan emerged as a recognized geographical entity,
a Kurdish dynasty was supreme in the Muslim world and written literature in
the Kurdish language blossomed.
It's also during this century that the Nestorian Church (Christian community of
Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, US and Malabar, India, represents the ancient
church of Persia, sometimes called the Assyrian Church), with its
metropolitan center in Kurdistan, developed with extraordinary rapidity. Its
missions spread across the whole of Asia, as far as Tibet, Sin Kiang, Mongolia
and Sumatra. The most spectacular success of these missions was the
conversion of the great Mongolian Khan Guyuk in 1248.
In 1258, when the Mongolian Hulagu, influenced by these missions, took
Baghdad, he put the caliph to death but saw to it that the palace was
given to the Nestorian Church.
By the end of the 13th century, Islam had gained the upper hand over the
Mongolians and the Nestorians were massacred. The center of the Nestorian
patriarchate moved over the centuries but still remained in Kurdistan.
Kurdish Origins
In the second half of the 15th century the Kurdish region took the
form of an autonomous entity, united by its language, culture and
civilization, but politically split up into a series of principalities.
However, at least among the well-read, there was an awareness
of belonging to a single country.
At the beginning of the 16th century the Kurdish region became
the main stake of rivalry between the Ottoman (Sunni) and
Persian (Shia) empires. The new shah of Persia, who had imposed
Sufism as the state religion, tried to spread it across the
neighboring countries. The Ottomans wanted to put a stop to the
shah's expansionist aims and to secure their Iranian border in order
to embark on the conquest of the Arab countries. Caught in the
pincer movement of the two giant powers, the Kurds, politically
split, had no chance of surviving as an independent entity.

Persian Shah Abbas I and his court

Kurdish Origins
In 1514, the Ottoman sultan inflicted a bitter defeat on the shah of
Persia. Fearing the victory, would be short-lived, one of his most
valued advisors, the Kurdish religious scholar, Idris Bitlisi, came up
with the idea of recognizing all the former rights and privileges of
the Kurdish princes in exchange for a commitment from the latter
to guard the border and to fight at the side of the Ottomans in the
case of a Persian-Ottoman conflict.
Confronted with the choice of being annexed at some point by
Persia or formally accepting the supremacy of the Ottoman sultan
in exchange for a very wide autonomy, the Kurdish leaders opted
for the latter and Kurdistan, or more exactly its countless fiefs and
principalities, entered the Ottoman empire via diplomacy.

traditional Kurdish house

from the 15th century
Kurdish Origins
As the Ottomans pushed deeper eastward into Persian
domains, entire Kurdish regions of Anatolia (westernmost
Asia, making up the majority of modern Turkey) were at
one point or another exposed to horrific acts of
despoliation and deportation. These began under the
reign of the Safavid Shah Tahmasp I (ruled 1524–1576).
Between 1534 and 1535, Tahmasp, using a policy of
scorched earth against his Ottoman enemies, began the
systematic destruction of the Kurdish cities and countryside.
Retreating before the
Ottoman army,
Tahmasp ordered the
destruction of all crops
and settlements,
driving the inhabitants
before him into
Azerbaijan from where
they were later
permanently
transferred nearly 1,000
miles east.
Kurdish Origins

1500s: First History of the Kurds

The Sharafnama is the book of Sharaf al-
Din Bitlisi (medieval Kurdish historian and
poet, 1543–1599), written in 1597 in
Persian. The Sharafnama is regarded as
the main source of Kurdish history. Bitlisi
wrote mostly about minor Kurdish
dynasties, the vassals of larger states. The
book deals with Kurdish dynasties such as
Saladin the Great and his Ayyubid
Dynasty, ancient and Medieval Kurdish
principalities in Southwest Asia and the
Caucasus, as well as mention of the pre-
Islamic ancestors of the Kurds.
Kurdish Origins

1600s: Ottoman (Sunni Turkish) vs. Safavid (Shia Persian) empires

with the Kurds in the middle
Kurdish Origins
1835: Kurdish kingdoms and autonomous principalities mid 1800s: Ottoman
and Persian empires
weakened, leading
to de facto
independence
of minor Kurdish
states
 Kurdish Origins
This de facto independence was to assure Kurdistan about
three centuries of peace. The Ottomans controlled some
strategic garrisons on Kurdish territory, but the rest of the
region was governed by Kurdish lords and princes
possessing wide autonomy. The Ottomans, protected by
the powerful Kurdish barrier against Persia, were able to
concentrate their forces on other fronts. As for the Kurds,
they were virtually independent in the management of
their affairs. This arrangement functioned until the
beginning of the 19th century.
Every Kurdish court was the center of important literary and
artistic life. As a whole, despite the political division, this
period constitutes the golden age of Kurdish literary,
musical, historical and philosophical creation. Kurds were
known throughout the Muslim world for their theological
schools, teaching of natural sciences, masters of Sufism,
poets and literature. It was not until the beginning of the
19th century, when the Ottoman Empire interfered in their
affairs and tried to bring an end to their independence,
that the Kurds attempted to create a unified Kurdistan.
Kurdish Origins
Late 1800s: Problems for the Ottoman
Empire
Ottoman centralization initiatives
undermined Kurdish autonomy. In 1847,
the last independent Kurdish principality,
that of Bohtan, collapsed. Ottoman
forces were advised and helped by
European powers in their fight against the
Kurds.
initial development of Kurdish nationalism:
Sheikh Ubeydullah (a Sayyid, a
descendant of Muhammad and leader of
this first modern Kurdish nationalist
struggle) demanded recognition from the
Ottoman Empire and Qajar dynasty
(Persia) authorities of an independent
Kurdish state, or Kurdistan, which he
would govern without interference.
 Kurdish Origins

Having annexed the Kurdish principalities one

by one, the Ottoman government tried to
integrate the Kurdish aristocracy by distributing
posts and payments fairly generously and by
setting up so-called tribal schools, intended to
instill in the children of Kurdish lords the
principal of faithfulness to the sultan.
This attempt at integration was successful to an
extent but it also furthered the emergence of
elite Kurdish modernists. Under their leadership
a modern phase in the Kurdish political
movement rose, charitable and patriotic
associations and societies multiplied, and the
idea of organizing a structured movement in
the Kurdish population began.
Lady Adela Jaff (1847-1924) and children
 Kurdish Origins

The emergence of Islamic sheikhs, as national

leaders among the Kurds was the result of the
elimination of the hereditary semi-autonomous
Kurdish principalities in the Ottoman Empire
following the Ottoman centralization policies of the
early 19th century.
Sheikh Ubeydullah was one of several religious
leaders who were there to fill the void and re-
establish a sense of lawfulness in the former
principalities that had been left to feuding
chieftains. Despite previous revolts by Kurdish
leaders to reassert control over their former
principalities, Sheikh Ubeydullah is regarded as the
first Kurdish leader whose cause was nationalist and
who wished to establish an ethnic Kurdish state.
 Kurdish Origins

Ubeydullah wrote in a letter to a Christian missionary in the

region: "The Kurdish nation, consisting of more than 500,000
families is a people apart. Their religion is different, and their laws
and customs distinct... We are also a nation apart. We want our
affairs to be in our hands, so that in the punishment of our own
offenders we may be strong and independent, and have
privileges like other nations... This is our objective... Otherwise, the
whole of Kurdistan will take matters into their own hands, as they
are unable to put up with these continual evil deeds and the
oppression, which they suffer at the hands of
the Persian and Ottoman governments."
Ubeydullah was able to gain the military support of Kurdish
Kurdish tribesmen, 1873
tribesmen but his militia was defeated by the Qajar army and he
withdrew his forces to Ottoman territories. Facing attacks on
both sides of his territory, Ubeydullah eventually surrendered to
Ottoman authorities in 1881.
Kurdish Origins
Two efforts in the WWI years worked against the Kurds.
1. At the end of the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was prey to
severe nationalist convulsions, each people aspiring to the creation of
its own state. Having tried in vain to keep this conglomeration alive by
the ideology of pan-Ottomanism, then of pan-Islamism, the Turkish
elite became pan-Turkish and in favor of the creation of a Turkish
empire from the Balkans to Central Asia (Young Turk movement).
2. During WWI, the British and French formed a secret agreement called
the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The agreement consisted of plans to
carve up Southwest Asia into spheres of control to support their own
colonial interests.
The Syrian and Mesopotamian
provinces under the Ottoman Empire
would be divided into five states:
Lebanon and Syria under French
control, and Palestine, Jordan and
Iraq under British control.

Kurdistan is superimposed on the map only

to show its location in relation to Sykes-Picot.
Kurdish Origins
In the early years of the 20th century, a group of Kurdish intellectuals
launched a movement for a separate Kurdish state. This national
movement developed in tandem with the Young Turk movement in Turkey.
After the outbreak of WWI, which pitted the Ottoman Empire against
Czarist Russia, the leaders of the Young Turks (including Mustafa Kemal -
later known as Kemal Atatürk) launched a campaign against Christian
Armenians, who were accused of siding with the Russians. This nationalist
campaign included pro-Islamic propaganda aimed at the Turkish and
Kurdish masses.
The result was the first state-sponsored genocide of the 20th century. At
least a million Armenians (as well as other Christians, for example, the
Assyrians) were killed in the course of the government's campaign to expel
them from Turkey. Kurdish nationalists today prefer to ignore or deny the
fact that Kurds also played a role in the Turkish state's genocidal
persecution of the Armenians.
Kurdish Origins

Post WWI: Strong development of Kurdish nationalism

and demands for a Kurdish state
Kurdish Origins

At the end of WWI, the Treaty of Sèvres 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.
 Kurdish Origins

Treaty of Sèvres, 1920: Dismemberment

of the Ottoman Empire
Kurdish Origins
Kurdish Origins
Following the Ottoman Empire's defeat and subsequent dissolution after
WWI, Kemal Atatürk (Young Turks) led the Turkish National Movement,
established a provisional government in Ankara, defeated the forces sent
by the Allies in the Turkish War of Independence, rejected the Treaty of
Sèvres and negotiated the Treaty of Lausanne (1923).
Until 1923, Atatürk’s resistance movement had close cooperation from
Kurdish feudals in southeast Anatolia. Kurds fought with his movement
against the allies’ occupations in southeast Anatolia with their own armed
forces. The first forces of Turkey's war of independence were in fact
recruited from the Kurdish provinces.
Kurdish Origins
According to some sources, in 1920 Atatürk
promised a common "state of Turks and
Kurds" to win the support of the Kurdish
clans in resisting the harsh terms of the
Treaty of Sèvres [the equivalent of the
Versailles Treaty imposed on Germany the
year before] and in driving the Greeks out
of Asia Minor.
However, the Treaty of Lausanne, which
annulled the Treaty of Sevres, gave 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.
 Kurdish Origins

British
French control
control

1923 Treaty of Lausanne: Turkey established in almost its modern boundaries

Kemalist Turkey: A state based on Turkish identity
Kurdish Origins
Several years later Atatürk rewarded his Kurdish allies (who were
by then officially designated merely as "mountain Turks") with
merciless persecution. The teaching of Kurdish in schools was
outlawed and it was even forbidden to mention the existence of
Kurds or other national minorities within Turkey. Under Atatürk, a
series of Kurdish uprisings were brutally suppressed, and hundreds
of thousands of Kurds were deported into central and western
Turkey.

Atatürk and his Kurdish allies

BEFORE AFTER
Kurdish Origins

After the overthrow of the Turkish monarchy by Kemal Atatürk,

Turkey, Iran and Iraq each agreed not to recognize an
independent Kurdish state.
Before WWI, traditional Kurdish life was nomadic, revolving around
sheep and goat herding throughout the Mesopotamian plains
and highlands of Turkey and Iran. The breakup of the Ottoman
Empire after the war created a number of new nation-states, but
not a separate Kurdistan. Kurds, no longer free to roam, were
forced to abandon their seasonal migrations and traditional ways.
Thus at the end of 1925, the land of the Kurds, known since the
12th century by the name Kurdistan, found itself divided between
four states: Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. And for the first time in its
long history, it was even deprived of its cultural autonomy.
Kurdish Origins

Turkey: Harsh Cultural Measures Worsen

The Turkish state banned speaking and singing in Kurdish. To write
in Kurdish and to publish Kurdish language books, newspapers
and journals was prohibited.
The original names of majority Kurdish cities and towns were
replaced with Turkish names.
There was an attempt to rewrite the Kurdish narrative. Kurds, who
would disown their identity and accept assimilation could have
achieved any rank in the state. But public space was banned to
those who insisted on preserving their Kurdish identity and who
were not ashamed of being a Kurd. The only treatment such Kurds
would get was oppression and marginalization.
 Kurdish Origins
• 1920: After WWI, the Kurds are promised independence by the Treaty of
Sevres.
• 1923: Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk rejects the treaty and Turkish
forces put down Kurdish uprisings in the 1920s and 1930s. The Kurdish
struggle lies dormant for decades.
• 1945: Kurds succeed in establishing the Republic of Mahabad, with Soviet
backing. A year later, the Iranian monarch crushes the embryonic state.
• 1978: Abdullah Öcalan, one of seven children of a poor farming family,
establishes the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) which advocates
independence.
• 1979: Öcalan flees Turkey for Syria. Turmoil of Iran's revolution allows Kurds
to establish unofficial border area free of Iranian government control.
Kurds don’t hold it for long.
• 1984: Öcalan's PKK begins armed struggle, recruiting thousands of young
Kurds, who are driven by Turkish repression of their culture and language
and by poverty. Turkish forces fight the PKK guerrillas, who also establish
bases across the border in Iraq, for years. Conflict costs about 30,000 lives.
• 1998: Öcalan, who has directed his guerrillas from Syria, is expelled by
Syria under pressure from Turkey. He begins his multi-nation odyssey until
he is captured in Kenya in 1999 and taken to Turkey.
Kurdish Origins
1920s, 1930s: Failed Efforts to
Establish Kurdish States,
Rebellions
The Kingdom of Kurdistan refers
to a short-lived unrecognized
state proclaimed in the city of
Sulaymaniyah following the
collapse of the Ottoman
Empire. Officially, the territory
involved was under the
jurisdiction of the British
Mandate of Mesopotamia.
The Republic of Ararat or
Kurdish Republic of Ararat was
a self-proclaimed Kurdish state.
It was located in eastern
Turkey, centered on Karaköse
Province. (Agirî is the Kurdish
name for Ararat.)
Kurdish Origins
Kurdistansky Uyezd (Red Kurdistan) was a Soviet administrative unit that
existed for six years from 1923 to 1929. The majority of Kurds in the region
were Shia.
In the late 1930s, the Soviet Union deported most of the Kurdish population
of Azerbaijan and Armenia to Kazakhstan. The Kurds of Georgia were
victims of Stalin's purges in 1944.
Iran was invaded by the Allies in 1941, with
the Soviets controlling the north. In the
absence of a central government, the
Soviets attempted to attach northwestern
Iran to the Soviet Union, and promoted
Kurdish nationalism. A group of middle-
class people supported by tribal chiefs
took over the local administration.
Although the Kurdish Republic of
Mahabad was not declared until1945, the
area administered itself for more than five
years. In 1946, the Iran military took the
area, destroyed or banned everything
Kurdish and executed the leaders.
 Kurdish Origins
• Kurds in northern Iraq - under a British mandate - revolted in 1919,
1923 and 1932, but were crushed. Under Mustafa Barzani, they
have waged an intermittent struggle against Iraq.
• 1970: Iraq granted Kurds language rights and self rule, but the
deal broke down partly over oil revenues.
• 1974: New clashes erupted; Iraqis forced 130,000 Kurds into Iran.
But Iran withdrew support for Kurds the following year.
• 1988: Iraqis launched poison-gas attack, killing 5,000 Kurds in
town of Halabja.
• 1991: After Persian Gulf War, northern Iraq's Kurdish area came
under international protection.
• 1999: Two rival Iraqi Kurdish factions, one led by Mustafa Barzani's
son Massoud, the other by Jalal Talabani, brokered a peace
deal; goal is for Kurdish area to become part of a democratic
Iraq.
Kurdish Origins
From the end of WW 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
and the Kurdish people suffered greater repression each time.
Since the Gulf War in 1990-1991 and the enforcement by the US of
no-fly zones in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, the Iraqi Kurds have had
autonomy. However, supply routes have been blockaded by the
Iraqis and the Kurds have suffered great hardship.
Kurdish Origins
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 a modern independent state in a federation
with the rest of Iraq. They have their own parliament,
military (the peshmerga), borders and foreign policy.
In 1994, a power-sharing arrangement between the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
collapsed. This decay led to civil war and two separate
administrations, one formed in Irbil and the other in Sulaymaniyah.
The Civil War continued for four years until 1998 when the PUK and
KDP signed the Washington Agreement, concluding the war.
Kurdish Origins
In 2003, the Americans invaded Iraq and the peshmerga joined
the fight to overthrow Saddam Hussein. After Hussein was driven
from office, an Iraqi national referendum approved a new
constitution. The new constitution recognized the Kurdistan
Regional Government and the Kurdistan Parliament.
In 2006, the PUK and KDP arranged to unify administrations under
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
Islamic State, the latest threat, now controls a large swath of land
straddling the Iraq and Syrian borders. Islamic State has attacked
Kurdish cities in both Syria and Iraq. The peshmerga has defended
and attempted to retake cities previously under the control of the
Kurds. The peshmerga has shown to be an effective fighting force,
but has few resources.
Kurdish Culture
The Kurdish people quite literally live and die by the geography
and politics surrounding the Kurdish region. The Kurdish
people have had to fight to maintain their culture for centuries.
Borne from a long history of strife, Kurdish culture places value
on individual freedoms. Whether it be overt religious tolerance,
strides towards equality in the status of women, or democratic
government, Kurdish culture values individual life and has fiercely
defended its ability to live free from external rule.
Kurdish Culture
Kurdish culture has a rich oral tradition. Most popular are epic
poems called lawj, which often tell of adventure in love or battle.
Kurdish literature first appeared in the 7th century CE. In 1596,
Sharaf Khan, Emir of Bitlis, composed a history of the Kurds in Persian
called the Sharafnama. Almost one hundred years later, in 1695, a
great national epic called the Memozin was written in Kurdish by
Ahmed Khani.
Dengbej refers to a musician who performs traditional Kurdish folk
songs. The word deng means voice and bej means to sing. Dengbej
are best known for their stran, or songs of mourning. Traditional
Kurdish instruments include the flute, drums and the ut-ut (similar to a
guitar).
Popular sports include soccer, wrestling, hunting and
shooting, and cirit, a traditional sport that involves throwing
a javelin while mounted on horseback. Camel- and horse-
racing are popular in rural areas.
Kurdish Culture
Carpet-weaving is by far the most significant Kurdish folk art.
Kurdish rugs and carpets use medallion patterns; however, far
more popular are the all-over floral, Mina Khani motifs and the Jaff
geometric patterns. The beauty of Kurdish designs are enriched by
high-chroma blues, greens and saffrons as well as terracotta and
burnt orange hues made richer still by the lustrous wool used.

The traditional Kurdish rug uses Kurdish symbols. It is

possible to read the dreams, wishes and hopes of the
rug maker from the sequence of symbols used.
Kurdish people study how meaning is constructed
and understood by talking with the rug maker.

Other crafts include embroidery, leather-working and metal

ornamentation. Kurds are especially known for copper-working.
Kurdish Languages
Who Are the Kurds?
A Language Group?
Not exactly.
Commenting on the differences between the dialects of
Kurdish, Kreyenbroek clarifies that in some ways, Kurmanji
[Kurdish] and Sorani [Kurdish] are as different from each
other as English and German, giving the example that
Kurmanji has grammatical gender and case endings but
Sorani does not, and observing that referring to Sorani and
Kurmanji as "dialects" of one language is supported only by
"their common origin...and the fact that this usage reflects
the sense of ethnic identity and unity of the Kurds.”
Kurdish Languages

Turkey

Syria Iran

Iraq

Kurdish is a continuum of Northwestern Iranian languages spoken by the

Kurds in Western Asia. Kurdish forms three dialect groups known as Northern
Kurdish (Kurmanji), Central Kurdish (Sorani), and Southern Kurdish
(Pehlewani). A separate group of languages, Zaza-Gorani, is also spoken by
several million Kurds, but is linguistically not Kurdish.
 Kurdish Languages

Sorani alphabet: The Sorani Kurdish dialect is mainly written using a modified Arabic
script with 33 letters introduced by Sa'id Kaban Sedqi. Unlike the standard Arabic
alphabet, which is an abjad, Sorani is almost a true alphabet in which vowels are
mandatory, making the script easier to read. Yet contemporary Sorani does not
have a complete representation of Kurdish sounds, as it lacks short i, and is also
unable to differentiate the consonant w from the short vowel u, and the consonant
y from the long vowel î.
Kurdish Languages

Current Attempt to Create Unified Alphabet

 Kurdish Languages
Kurdish Nationalists: Ambivalence over language standardization

We are in firm belief of "purifying" the Kurdish language as the different dialects are
infested with foreign, Semitic (Arabic), Turkic and Persian words and expressions. A
language undeniably creates borrowed words from geographically and linguistic
nearby languages, but when a language is forced upon another, the latter will lose
its integrity, heritage, future and will endanger the culture’s survival as a whole.
Kurdish Languages

In 2005, a Turkish court fined 20 Kurds 100 lira (US$74) for holding up
placards at a New Year's celebration containing the letters Q and W. The
use of those letters - and X as well - violated the law of Nov. 1, 1928 on
Adoption and Application of Turkish Letters, the purpose of which was to
change the writing system of Turkish from the Arabic-based system of the
Ottomans to the Roman-based system developed under the secular,
modernizing regime of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Q, W and X appear in Kurdish but not in Turkish, and restricting a minority
language - Kurdish has historically been spoken by 10-25% of the country's
population - is one way to oppress a minority.
And although the fine represented a technically correct application of the
statute, enforcement of the law was selective. Western companies
routinely used the banned letters - in advertising and promotion - without
consequence, for example in the case of Xerox Turkey, a longstanding,
habitual abuser of the dreaded X.
Now, after 85 years, the letters Q, W and X have apparently been
legalized as part of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's
Democratization Package of Sept. 30, 2013.

Q W X
 Kurdish Languages Zazaki/Gorani

Kurdish within the Iranian Kurdish

Language Tree

Farsi
Kurdish Languages

(Farsi)

Iranian Languages
Kurdish Calendar
The Kurdish calendar was originally a lunisolar calendar related to the
Babylonian calendar, but is now a solar calendar related to the Iranian
calendar. For example, on March 21, 2016, it was the first new-day in the
Kurdish calendar which was the first of Cejnan 2628.
It has been proposed that the standard Kurdish calendar should start at
612 BCE or the taking of Nineveh by the Medes. According to this if the
Gregorian calendar is used as a reference for calculation then the simple
equation would give the correct Kurdish year on 20 or 21 March
depending on the Gregorian year;
1+ (Actual Gregorian Year + 611) = Kurdish Year
1+ (2011 + 611) = 2623 on March 21, 2011
Religion Among the Kurds
As a whole, the Kurdish people are adherents to a large number of
different religions and creeds, perhaps constituting the most
religiously diverse people of West Asia. Traditionally, Kurds have
been known to take great liberties with their practices. The Kurdish
parliament formed new ministries to represent religious minorities,
including Jews, Zoroastrians, Yazidis and Baha’i.
98% of Kurds in Iraq identify themselves as Sunnis and only 2%
identify as Shias. (A small minority of Iraqi Kurds, including Yazidis,
are not Muslims.) But being a Kurd does not necessarily mean
alignment with a particular religious sect. In neighboring Iran, Kurds
are split about evenly between Sunnis and Shias.
Islamic Schools of Thought
Turkey, Syria, Iraq

Kurdistan
Kurds

Iran

A madhhab (way to act) is a school of thought

within fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).One of the
many differences between the Shafi'i and Hanafi
schools of thought is that the Shafi'i school does
not consider istihsan (personal preference of
Islamic legal scholars) as an acceptable source
of religious law because it amounts to human
legislation of Islamic law.
Religious Composition of
Southwest Asia

Kurdish region
outlined in red
Distribution of Alevi Population
in Turkey
Alevism is a branch of Shi'a Islam that is practiced in Turkey and the
Balkans among ethnic Turks and Kurds, and is related to - though
distinct from - Alawism in Syria. Alevis make up 20% of Turkish
Muslims and comprise Turkey's largest religious minority community.
Instead of adherence to the shari`a, Alevis profess obedience to a
set of simple moral norms. They claim to live according to the inner
(batin) meaning of religion rather than its external (zahir) demands.

Zaza
Core
Alevi Population in Turkey

Alevis differ from Turkey’s majority Sunnis and, according to some,

are not Muslims at all. They drink alcohol, worship on Thursdays
rather than Fridays, and doubt the existence of heaven and hell,
while revering the Imam Ali, central to Shia Islam.
“Ours is a kind of secular religion,” says Vedat Kara, a spokesman
for many of Istanbul’s Alevi organizations, who emphasizes that
men and women worship together. “But they are trying to
assimilate us into mainstream Islam.”
The Ahl-e Haqq in Iran and Iraq

Yarsan or Ahl-e Haqq (people of truth) or Kaka’i is a syncretic

religion (blending of two or more religious belief systems into a new
system) founded by Sultan Sahak in the late 14th century in
western Iran. The total number of members is estimated at 500,000
-1,000,000, primarily found in western Iran and eastern Iraq, mostly
ethnic Goran Kurds.
The Ahl-e Haqq follow the mystical teachings of Sultan Sahak.
From the Ahl-e Haqq point of view, the universe is composed of
two distinct yet interrelated worlds: the internal (bātinī) and the
external (zāhirī), each having its own order and rules. Although
humans are only aware of the outer world, their lives are governed
according to the rules of the inner world. Among other important
pillars of their belief system are that the Divine Essence has
successive manifestations in human form (mazhariyyat) and a
belief in the transmigration of the soul (dunaduni in Kurdish).
The Ahl-e Haqq in Iran and Iraq

One aspect the Yarsani faith has in common with Islam is the
ghulat Shia Islamic assertion of the divinity or godhead/godhood
of Ali, although it can be identified as Kurdish esoterism which
emerged under the intense influence of Bātinī-Sufism during the
last two centuries.
There are however, some followers of the
Ahl-e Haqq who believe that they are an
Islamic group and that all other doctrines
contradicting the Quran occurred
centuries later by other influences. They
believe that some followers today who
claim they aren't Muslim lack knowledge,
since the Ahl-e Haqq belief sees Ali as a
perfect example to follow.
The Yazidis of Kurdistan
The Yazidis (also Yezidis) are an ethnically Kurdish religious group
indigenous to northern Mesopotamia. Yazidism is an ancient
religion that is strictly endogamous (marriage within a specific
group as required by custom or law). Yazidism is linked to ancient
Mesopotamian religions. Even though they are ethnically Kurdish,
Yazidis are a distinct and independent religious community with
their own unique culture. The number of Yazidis in their native
lands has been in decline since the 1990s as a result of significant
migration to Europe, especially to Germany.
The Yazidis are monotheists believing in God as creator of the
world, which he has placed under the care of seven holy beings
or angels, the chief of whom is Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel.
The Peacock Angel, as world-ruler, causes both good and bad to
befall individuals, and this ambivalent character is reflected in
myths of his own temporary fall from God's favor, before his
remorseful tears extinguished the fires of his hellish prison and he
was reconciled with God.
The Jews of Kurdistan

Until their immigration to Israel in the 1940s

and early 1950s, the Jews of Kurdistan
lived as closed ethnic communities. The
Jews of Kurdistan largely spoke Aramaic,
as a lingua franca, with some additionally
speaking Kurdish dialects, in particular the
Kurmanji dialect in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The vast majority of Kurdish
Jews was forced out of Iraqi
Kurdistan and evacuated to
Israel in the early 1950s,
together with the Iraqi Jewish
community. The vast majority
of the Kurdish Jews of Iranian
Kurdistan relocated mostly to
Israel in the 1950s.
The Jews of Kurdistan
The Jews of Kurdistan - until their great exodus in 1950-51 - lived mainly in
the Iraqi region (146 communities), with some in the Iranian region (19
communities) and only a few in Turkey (11 communities). There were also a
few Jews in the Syrian region and other places (11 communities).
An ancient tradition relates that the Jews of Kurdistan are the descendants
of the Ten Tribes from the time of the Assyrian exile (722 BCE) ... The places
to which King Shalmaneser V exiled the tribes are in the vicinity of
Kurdistan.
Too, during the 1st century, the kingdom of Adiabene was situated in this
region. Its inhabitants, their king, Monobaz, and his mother Helena
converted to Judaism in the middle of the 1st century. It is assumed that
there are descendants of these proselytes among the Jews of Kurdistan.
The Jews of Kurdistan

In more modern times, the number of Jewish merchants in this area was
greater than the number of craftsmen. The tradesmen were wholesalers,
shopkeepers and peddlers. The craftsmen were weavers, gold- and silver-
smiths, dyers, carpenters, tanners, cobblers and unskilled workers. Jewish
farmers cultivated mainly wheat, barley, rice, sesame, lentils and tobacco.
They owned orchards, vineyards, flocks of sheep, and herds of cattle.
There were also agricultural villages, all of whose inhabitants were Jews.
Today on the streets of Irbil Kurdistan a small group of local Jews wear their
kippahs proudly. It is a sight only the city’s elderly can recall having seen
before, and seeing this long-forgotten religious headgear has brought a
few to tears.
 Israel and Kurdistan

Photo: Kurdish demonstration in

Stockholm Sweden in late
November 2007
Israel and Kurdistan

Israel has been arming the Kurds for many years. It also has special forces
trainers on the ground advising them. For more than a decade, the Israelis
have been persuading Kurdish leaders to establish an independent
Kurdistan in northern Iraq. For Israel, it would mean having a pro-Israeli,
Sunni Muslim state sandwiched between Hezbollah in Lebanon and the
Shiite majorities of Iraq and Iran.
The largest Kurdish population of 15 million is in Turkey, but the most
powerful Kurdish group, which is half that number, is based in northern Iraq
where it has a sizable arsenal and controls the rich oil fields around Kirkuk.
In the past, the Mossad has trained Kurdish groups in Iran to carry out
terrorist bombings against the government in Tehran.

an American Jew in Iraqi Kurdistan

Israel and Kurdistan
The Kurds have always practiced a moderate, more secular form
of Islam and have tended to focus more on their nationalistic goal
of an independent Kurdistan that could attract Kurds from across
the region, a prospect that worries Turkey.
Israel is, nevertheless, determined to win the argument in
Washington for the Kurds because it believes the creation of an
independent Kurdish state with ties to Tel Aviv is a foregone
conclusion. For Israel, the Kurds could be a new political force in
Southwest Asia that will form a distinct, mutually beneficial
relationship with Israel.
The Bahá’í in Iran and Iraq
The Bahá'í faith is a monotheistic religion which emphasizes the spiritual
unity of all humankind. Three core principles establish a basis for Bahá'í
teachings and doctrine: (1) the unity of God, that there is only one God
who is the source of all creation; (2) the unity of religion, that all major
religions have the same spiritual source and come from the same God;
and (3) the unity of humanity, that all humans have been created equal,
coupled with unity in diversity, that diversity of race and culture are seen as
worthy of appreciation and acceptance. The human purpose is to learn to
know and to love God through such methods as prayer, reflection and
being of service to humanity.
The Bahá'í faith was founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia.
Bahá'u'lláh was imprisoned and exiled from Persia to the Ottoman Empire.
Under the leadership of his son, `Abdu'l-Bahá, the religion gained a footing
in Europe and America, but it still suffers intense persecution where it
originated, in present-day Iran.

`Abdu'l-Bahá
The Bahá’í in Iran and Iraq
Bahá'ís continue to be persecuted in Islamic countries, as Islamic leaders
do not recognize the Bahá'í Faith as an independent religion, but rather
as apostasy from Islam.
The most severe persecutions have occurred in Iran, where over 200
Bahá'ís were executed between 1978 and 1998, and in Egypt.
The rights of Bahá'ís have been restricted to greater or lesser extents in
numerous other countries, including Iraq. There are no official statistics on
Bahá‘ís in Iraq, but there are communities in Baghdad and in
Sulaymaniyah, as well as in the Kurdistan Region, where they have a
degree of security.
Iran has a history of persecuting members of the Bahá'í faith. Its outlawed
Bahá‘ís living in the country’s Kurdish regions enjoy good relations with the
local Sunni community and there is mutual respect between both sides.

house of the Báb, Shiraz, Iran, before

being demolished and replaced
with an Islamic religious center
Contemporary Kurdish Christians
An educated guess for the total number of Christian Kurds would place
them in the range of tens of thousands.
The Kurdish-Speaking Church of Christ (The Kurdzman Church of Christ)
was established in Irbil by the end of 2000, and has branches in the
Silêmanî and Duhok governorates. This is the first evangelical Kurdish
church in Iraq. Its logo is formed of a yellow sun and a cross rising up
behind a mountain range. Kurdzman Church of Christ held its first three-
day conference in Ainkawa north of Irbil in 2005 with the participation of
300 new Kurdish converts.
There is also a tiny Armenian Christian community in the Kurdish area of
Turkey. According to other sources, 500 Kurdish Muslim youths have
converted to Christianity since 2006 throughout Kurdistan. In recent years,
the trend of Kurds converting to Christianity continues.

A Christian church in the Kurdish city of

Dirk in Western Kurdistan
Photo: Rozh Ahmad/Rudaw
Contemporary Kurdish Christians
Kurds who converted to Christianity usually turned to the Nestorian
Church. In the 12th century, the Nestorian Church (Assyrian
Church), with its metropolitan center in Kurdistan, developed with
extraordinary rapidity. By the end of the 13th century, Islam had
gained the upper hand and the Nestorians were massacred. The
center of the Nestorian patriarchate moved over the centuries
but still remained in Kurdistan.
Some non-Christian Kurds of Anatolia and even central Kurdistan
still bless their bread dough by pressing the sign of the cross on it
while letting it rise. They also make pilgrimages to the old
abandoned or functioning churches of the Armenian and Assyrian
Christians. This may well be a cultural tradition left with the non-
Christian Kurds through long association with Christian Kurds, or
very possibly it stems from the time that many Kurds themselves
were Christians.

10th century Armenian Church in

Eastern Kurdistan on Lake Urumia
Contemporary Kurdish Islam

But...
 Iranian Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. It was

founded by the Prophet Zoroaster in ancient Iran approximately 3500
years ago. Worldwide there are less than 200,000 Zoroastrians. They
are roughly split into two groups: the Iranian Gabars and the Indian
Parsis.

The religion has deep Kurdish

roots. Zoroaster was born in
the Kurdish part of Iran and
the religion's sacred book, the
Avesta, was written in an
ancient language from which
the Kurdish language derives.
Zoroastrians opened their first
contemporary temple in the
region in the Kurdish city of
Sulaymaniyah in 2016.
Iranian Zoroastrianism

Some issues of modernization are emerging around which there is some

internal dissension. The most divisive topic seems to be that of conversion.
Many traditionalists desire to maintain the status quo which disallows
conversion entirely, and even disallows membership in Zoroastrianism to
children of mixed marriages if the father is not a Zoroastrian.
Some reform-minded Zoroastrians fear the strict guidelines will doom their
people to extinction, and they wish to make the faith less exclusive,
perhaps even allowing unrelated converts. Although there are
organizations set up to promote both points of view, such issues are
unlikely to cause a complete "schism" in the faith.
Although once the primary religion of Iran, since that time Zoroastrians
have gone through periods of extreme persecution. There are few
Zoroastrians left in Iran today but, along with Christians and Jews,
Zoroastrians are recognized as People of the Book and are protected.

the Prophet Zoroaster

Iranian Zoroastrianism

Faced with the barbaric actions of Islamic State on their doorstep, a

growing number of Kurds, particularly the youth, are becoming increasingly
disillusioned with the various interpretations of Islam on offer in the region.
There is an age-old Zoroastrian mantra: “Good words, good thoughts and
good actions.” It still holds for the small but growing number of Zoroastrians
living in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. According to local media reports, around
10,000 have converted to Zoroastrianism in the last year alone. Some
purport this figure to be as high as 100,000.
While some look to secular, Western cultural ideals, others are looking to
the past and exploring ancient Kurdish beliefs. Up until the 7th century
Islamic conquests, Kurds across the region were followers of various pre-
Abrahamic faiths, such as Zoroastrianism and Yazidism. In August this year,
the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officially recognized
Zoroastrianism as a religion.
Turkish President Erdoğan has spoken virulently about the conflict in the
region, targeting Kurds demanding autonomy and recognition, calling
them "Atheists and Zoroastrians“ in an attempt to appeal to religious
sentiment and rouse Islamist fervor.
Politics in a Stateless Nation
Kurds dream of a state, but aren't as united as you might think. Most
Kurds want some form of democratic, secular state, whatever the
machinations of their egotistical and often corrupt leaders. The
political culture in Iraqi Kurdistan, for example, serves primarily to
concentrate power in the hands of specific individuals rather than
promoting and enabling the values of freedom, democracy and
diversity. And the Kurds are growing tired of being patient about it.
Without their own nation state, independence is part of the Kurds’
cultural identity and many Kurdish political groups are separatist by
nature. Historically this has led to tensions with their host countries’
governments and military groups. The PKK (Kurdistan Workers
Party) in Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in
Northern Iraq are the two most well-known Kurdish political groups,
though many other groups exist.
Politics in a Stateless Nation
With a fragile peace holding in the long war of the Turkish Kurds
against Turkey, with the Kurdish regional government in Iraq now
everyone’s favorite ally in the war against Islamic State, and with the
Syrian Kurds being helped to do what was once unthinkable - carve
out their own autonomous region from the Assad regime - the
Kurds, denied self-rule after WWI, can now dare to dream of their
own state.
Kurdish politics is going through critical times. It is too early to predict
which rival group will better respond to the growing public
discontent with Kurdish political actors and turn shifting regional
dynamics to their greater advantage.
 Major Kurdish Political
Movements You can use this chart as a reference for
the remainder of the presentation.

a user's guide to Kurdish politics

Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK): umbrella

group of Kurdish political and insurgent
groups in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq
Kurdish Political Alliances
You can use this chart as a reference for
the remainder of the presentation.
Kurds’ Common Conditions
In the modern era, the Kurdish nation, with its distinctive society and
culture, has had to confront in all of the host states centralizing, ethnically-
based nationalist regimes - Turkish, Arab and Persian - with little or no
tolerance for expressions of national autonomy within their borders. While
the modes and scale of oppression have varied in time and by place, the
conditions of the Kurds share some important features.
1. The Kurdish areas overlap state borders and thus acquire significance
for national security, and are vulnerable to interference and
manipulation by regional and international powers.
2. The Kurdish regions of these countries are usually the poorest, least
developed areas, systematically marginalized by the centers of
economic power.
3. The dynamics of assimilation, repression and Kurdish resistance in
each country have affected the direction and outcome of the
Kurdish struggles in the neighboring countries.
4. These Kurdish societies are themselves internally complex, and fraught
with differences in politics and ideology, social class, dialect and (in a
few places) clan.
The Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Syria
and Iraq
The Kurds in Turkey
1970s: Start of the PKK/Turkish Conflict
1974–1984: Rise of PKK
• 1977: Haki Karer, a leader of the Revolutionaries of Kurdistan
group was assassinated in Gaziantep.
• 1978: Halil Çavgun, another Revolutionaries of Kurdistan
leader was assassinated by wealthy Kurdish landowners.
• 1978: The founding congress of the Kurdistan Workers' Party
was held in the village of Fis near Lice in Diyarbakır Province.
The Turkish state, Turkish rightist groups, and some Kurdish
landowners continued their attacks on the group.
• 1978: Grey Wolves (ultra-nationalist youth organization)
committed the Maraş Massacre, killing 109 and injuring 176
Alevi Turks/Kurds in Kahramanmaraş.
• 1980: General Kenan Evren seized power, deposing an
elected government led by Süleyman Demirel and his Justice
Party in the 1980 Turkish coup d'état. Most of the PKK's
leadership moved to Syria.
The Kurds in Turkey
1970s: Start of the PKK/Turkish Conflict
1974–1984: Rise of PKK
• 1980: The Turkish Consulate in Strasbourg, France was bombed
causing significant material damage but no injuries. In a
telephone call to the Agence France-Presse office, a
spokesman said the blast was a joint operation and marked
the start of a "fruitful collaboration" between the Armenian
Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and the
Kurdistan Workers Party.
• 1981: The Turkish consulate in Paris was attacked by ASALA.
Their demands included the release of five Kurdish
revolutionary fighters.
• 1982: Imprisoned PKK leader Mazlum Doğan burned himself to
death in protest of the treatment of inmates at the Diyarbakır
Prison.
Language Map of Turkey
sometimes considered Kurdish

Kurdish

Ethnic
Groups
The Kurds in Turkey
In 1978, Abdullah Öcalan established the PKK, which called for an
independent state. Six years later, the group began an armed struggle, in
which more than 40,000 people have been killed and hundreds of
thousands displaced.
After his capture and imprisonment in 1999, Öcalan had led the party to
adopt his new political platform of Democratic Confederalism (influenced
strongly by the libertarian socialist philosophy of communalism) and to
cease its official calls for the establishment of a fully independent country.
The PKK rolled back on its demand for independence, calling instead for
greater cultural and political autonomy, but continued to fight.

Turkish Kurdistan
The Kurds in Turkey

In 2005, Öcalan described the need for a

democratic confederalism and went on to say: The
democratic confederalism of Kurdistan is not a state
system, it is the democratic system of a people
without a state... It takes its power from the people
and adapts to reach self-sufficiency in every field
including the economy.
In May 2007, former members of the PKK helped
form the KCK, an umbrella organization of Kurds
from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
In 2012 , the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan, said the government was conducting
negotiations with jailed rebel leader Öcalan.
 The Kurds in Turkey
2012 Peace Initiative
After months of negotiations with the Turkish government, Abdullah Öcalan wrote
a letter to his people that was read in both Turkish and Kurdish during the Nowruz
celebrations in Diyarbakır. The letter called for a cease-fire that included
disarmament and withdrawal from Turkish soil and for an end to armed struggle.
The PKK announced that it would obey, stating that the year of 2013 would be
the year of solution ... either through war or through peace. The PKK announced
that it would withdraw all of its forces in Turkey to Northern Iraq but warned that
the peace deal would fail if implementation of reforms were not begun within a
month.
Kurd Turk

Voter

Erdoğan
The Kurds in Turkey
Throughout 2014, the PKK fought to
protect Kurdish towns and areas
threatened by Islamic State in both Iraq
and Syria, often with US air support.
Despite PKK’s engagement with Islamic
State, Turkey refused to allow border
crossings or resupply and eventually
commenced bombing PKK positions in
Iraq and Syria.
In 2015, the PKK finally cancelled their
2013 ceasefire with the Turkish state.
The Kurds in Turkey
Complicating matters, the Syrian conflict became intertwined
with Turkey’s domestic turmoil.
Turkey now sees itself as fighting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party on
three fronts: in Turkey, in northern Syria and in northern Iraq, where
its members hide out in the mountains.
As a result, analysts now say that there can be no final settlement
of the Syrian civil war without the resumption of peace talks
between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, of which the
Democratic Union Party is its Syrian affiliate.
The Kurds in Turkey
The Kurds in Turkey
2015 Renewed Hostilities
The 2015 conflict between Turkey and the PKK broke out following two
years of peace negotiations, which began in late 2012, but failed to
progress in light of growing tensions on the border with Syria in late 2014,
when the Siege of Kobane created an unprecedented wave of Kurdish
refugees into Turkey. Some Kurds accused Turkey of assisting Islamic State
during the crisis, resulting in widespread Kurdish riots in Turkey involving
dozens of fatalities.
The Kurds in Turkey
In July 2015, a suicide bomb killed 33 young activists in the mainly Kurdish
town of Suruc, near the Syrian border. The PKK responded by attacking
Turkish soldiers and police, and the Turkish government launched what it
called a "synchronized war on terror" against the PKK and Islamic State.
Since then, hundreds of people have been killed in clashes in south-
eastern Turkey and in air strikes on PKK camps in northern Iraq.
The Turkish authorities also blamed the YPG (Syrian Kurds fighting Islamic
State) for a suicide bomb attack in Turkey in February 2016 that left dozens
of people dead, and Turkish troops shelled YPG positions in north-western
Syria to prevent it capturing the rebel-held town of Azaz.
Turkey's government says the YPG and the PYD (Syrian Kurds fighting
Islamic State) are affiliates of the PKK, share its goal of secession through
armed struggle, and are all terrorist organizations.

The Turks, the Kurds and the Complicated Mix in Syria

Kurds in Turkey celebrate

their holiday of Nowruz
The Kurds in Turkey
Fighting raged on between Turkish security forces and Kurdish
militants in southeast Turkey as the cabinet held an
unprecedented meeting on the edge of the restive region to
discuss ways of rebuilding its shattered economy.
The Turkish army said 39 members of the outlawed PKK had been
killed in clashes in four towns across the region, adding to a death
toll that had risen sharply since the collapse of the ceasefire.
Thousands of militants and hundreds of civilians and soldiers were
killed after the PKK resumed its armed fight against the Turkish
state. The government refused to return to the negotiating table
and vowed to "liquidate" the PKK.
 The Kurds in Turkey

Turkish/Kurdish Clashes
In Europe
Riot police had to use
pepper spray and batons
to end skirmishes that
erupted as pro-Kurdish
activists confronted
participants in a rally
supporting Turkish
President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan in Frankfurt.
The Kurds in Turkey
Feb 22, 2017: Eyewitnesses in Erbil Province revealed that Turkish warplanes
attacked the headquarters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in the Kandil
Mountains, Iraq (on the border between Iraq, Turkey and Iran, and
considered a main stronghold of the PKK).
One of the eyewitnesses said, “The attack lasted for more than an hour,
but did not inflicted any losses among civilians.”
One PKK member said that the border with Turkey was 8-10 days walk
across the mountains. PKK fighters have their own way of measuring
distance. They do not talk about how many hours drive away a place may
be ... they refer to how many days it takes to walk there.
They live their lives in such a different way that some appear to rule out a
return to normal life. "Once you go up to the mountains, you don't go back
down again," one fighter said. "This is the Middle East - we will always need
self defense," said another.
The Kurds in Turkey
Turkey, a key member of NATO, has so far chosen to sit out the
war against Islamic State. Instead, Turkey is at war with the Kurdish
militias in Syria, the only ground forces so far that have managed
to take on Islamic State and win. The civil war in Syria has allowed
the Kurds there to carve out a space of their own, which is what
worries the Turks.
The Turkish establishment has been alarmed by the existence of
an autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq since the day it was
founded and has repeatedly threatened to invade if it declares
independence from Iraq. And it’s doubly alarmed now that the
Kurds of Syria have cobbled together their own autonomous
region, which they call Rojava.
 The Kurds in Turkey

There is deep-seated hostility between the Turkish state and the country's Kurds, who
constitute 15% to 20% of the population. Kurds received harsh treatment at the
hands of the Turkish authorities for generations. 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 Kurds designated "Mountain Turks.”
Despite the fervor of this repression, Turkey’s problem with its Kurdish minority is more
political than ethnic. It is less an inherent dislike for Kurds that drives state repression
than the fear of institutional consequences and loss of centralized power.
Exacerbating the situation are four recent events in Turkey:
1. riots and protest movements in Istanbul Turkey
2. President Recep Erdoğan’s usurpation of power from the prime minister
3. the EU’s reinforced position that ‘Turks Need Not Apply’ for membership
4. the re-emergence of the Black Sea as a pivot point for power and politics,
including the strategic re-armament of the Black Sea (The Montreux Convention
gives Turkey full control over the Bosporus Straits and the Dardanelles, the straits
between the Black and Mediterranean Seas.)
 The Kurds in Turkey

Turkish
government’s
demographic
concerns

average number of children by province:

western provinces have an average of 2 children
eastern provinces (Kurds) have an average of 7 children
The Kurds in Turkey
 The Kurds in Iran
Iran's Kurds have received less international attention than their Iraqi, Syrian and
Turkish brethren. Experts attribute this partly to internal disunity, but mostly to the
Iranian regime's political repression and limits on international media coverage. In
2011, the government carried out a massive military campaign against the Kurdish
guerrilla group Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), which left hundreds dead,
including civilians. Iran has routinely executed Kurdish activists.
The United Nations has expressed concern at the "deeply troubling" number of
executions in Iran and accused authorities of not honoring a promise to protect
ethnic and religious minorities. Individuals seeking greater recognition for their
cultural and linguistic rights risk facing harsh penalties, including capital punishment.
Iran’s estimated six million Kurds live in some of the country’s most deprived regions.
“Every day the regime is killing our people for nothing other than seeking their rights,
and the world remains silent.” (Rezan Javid, co-chair of the political arm of PJAK in
Iran)

Howraman-e Takht, Kordestan Province, Iran

The Kurds in Iran
The Kurds in Iran are less unified than those in other states. Among the
Iranian Kurdish groups are:
Komalah - left-wing Kurdish nationalist political party and its peshmerga
guerrilla force
Komala (CPI) - Kurdish branch of the Communist Party of Iran and its
peshmerga guerrilla force
Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) - militant socialist ethnic party,
exiled in northern Iraq, seeking either separatism or autonomy within
a federal system, has denounced use of violence against civilians
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) - one of the main parties in Iraqi
Kurdistan, founded in 1946 in Iranian Kurdistan and still active there
Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) - political party in Iranian and Iraqi
Kurdistan, seeks the attainment of Kurdish national rights within
a democratic federal republic of Iran, and PAK’s military Kurdistan
Freedom Eagles for East Kurdistan (HAK-R)
The Kurds in Iran
Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) - political and militant organization, waged
intermittent armed struggle since 2004 against government to seek self-
determination for Kurds in Iranian Kurdistan, some describe PJAK as an
offshoot of the PKK, and PJAK’s armed wing, the Eastern Kurdistan Units
(YRK)
Khabat - Revolutionary Khabat (“struggle”) Organization of the Iranian
Kurdistan, nationalist opposition group seeking autonomy for Iranian
Kurdistan
Kurdish United Front (KUP) - ethnic political organization, works within the
framework of the constitution of Iran, eschews violence and separatism,
while demanding democracy and minority rights
The Kurds in Iran

Iranian ayatollahs have perfectly good relations with Iraq’s Kurds,

warmed by discreet diplomacy and brisk cross-border trade. At the
same time the ayatollahs still suppress the PKK’s currently quiescent
sister-movement, known by its Kurdish initials, PJAK, which has a
haven in the mountain borderland of north-eastern Iraq.
PJAK is a Kurdish organization which fights against Iran and has
similar aims to the PKK. Like its Syrian counterpart, PJAK tends to
echo whatever the PKK says, so it too now demands only autonomy.
"I don't think the PKK will lay down its arms," said Shamal Bishir, the
PJAK's foreign affairs chief. "It will be a long peace process. To lay
down arms will be the last step in this process. The Kurds need a
guarantee for the democratic rights we are fighting for. Until we get
the guarantee, talk about laying down arms will just be useless
discussion.”
The Kurds in Iran
Iran knows that if they don’t fight Islamic State in Iraq today, they will have
to fight them in Iran tomorrow. The expansionist Sunni militants have
clawed their way across Syria and Iraq, coming within 20 miles of the
Iranian border.
To fight Islamic State, Iran has provided new weapons to Iraqi Kurdish
forces. Indeed, Tehran claims to have had a direct hand in training Kurdish
peshmerga. But some Kurds are skeptical about Iranian support.
Some worry Iran is sending arms simply to boost its influence in Iraq and in
the region, even at the cost of exacerbating Iraq’s sectarian divisions.
Meanwhile the Iranian Revolutionary Guard continues to plant blast mines
in Iranian Kurdish areas. The Iranian authorities have also carried out waves
of executions of Kurdish political prisoners and prisoners of conscience,
besides killing Kurdish civilians on a daily basis.
Iran frequently puts pressure on political parties in the Kurdistan Region of
northern Iraq, asking them to put pressure on the Iranian Kurdish parties to
bring an end to their political activities inside Iran.
The Kurds in Iran
Iran’s Language and
Ethnic Groups

(Farsi)

desert
(Farsi) sparsely inhabited

(Farsi) Persian/
Farsi

Kurdish
10%
The Kurds in Iran
In line with the Turkish PKK's goals,
PJAK leaders say their long-term
goals are to establish an
autonomous Kurdish region
within the Iranian state. It is
mainly focused on replacing
Iran's theocracy with a
democratic and federal
government, where self-rule is
granted to all ethnic minorities of
Iran, including Sunni Arabs, Azeris
and Kurds. Many, however, refer
to PJAK as a strictly separatist
organization, pursuing a
complete disengagement of the
Kurdish regions from Iran and
alliance with neighboring Kurdish
regions in Iraq, Turkey and Syria.
PJAK is considered a banned terrorist organization by Iran,
Turkey and the US but not by the EU, UN or Russia. In 2015,
PJAK claimed killing 33 Iranian soldiers. Iran killed 4 YRK
members (Eastern Kurdistan Units, PJAK’s armed wing) and
arrested one.
The Kurds in Iran
In 2016, a number of citizens were
arrested in Sanandaj, after a large
public Norooz celebration, for
wearing Kurdish outfits and dancing
folk dances during the festivities. The
Iran Human Rights website reports that
they have not been released despite
posting bail. The report adds that
three members of the Vakili family
who had gone to the police to inquire
about their kin were also arrested.
At least 15 people were arrested in
Boukan following Norooz celebrations
and their fate remains unknown so far.
In the past year, 735 activists (an
average of two activists a day) have
been arrested in Kurdistan. 63 of those
cases led to prison sentences.
 The Kurds in Syria
Kurds make up between 7% and 10% of Syria's population.
Before the general uprising against President Bashar al-Assad
began in 2011 most Kurds lived in the cities of Damascus and
Aleppo, and in three, non-contiguous areas around Kobane,
the north-western town of 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. The state has also sought to limit Kurdish demands for
greater autonomy by cracking down on protests and
arresting political leaders.
The main Kurdish parties publicly avoided taking sides during
the first two years of the Syrian civil war and Kurdish enclaves
were relatively unscathed. In mid-2012, government forces
Western Kurdistan - Syria 1945 withdrew from Kurdish areas to concentrate on fighting rebels
elsewhere, after which Kurdish groups took control.
The Kurds in Syria
The Rojava Revolution is a
political upheaval, social
revolution and military conflict
taking place in Rojava in
Northern Syria. During the Syrian
Civil War, a coalition of Arab,
Kurdish, Syriac and some
Turkmen groups have sought to
establish the Constitution of
Rojava inside the de facto
autonomous region, while
military wings and allied militias
have fought to maintain control
of the region. The revolution has
been characterized by the
prominent role played by
women both on the battlefield
and within the newly formed
political system, as well as the
implementation of democratic
confederalism, a form of
grassroots democracy based on
local assemblies.
The Kurds in Syria
Rojava

Female Kurdish fighters in Syria

Syria
The Kurds in Syria
The Democratic Unity Party (PYD) quickly established itself as the dominant
force, straining relations with smaller parties who formed the Kurdistan
National Council (KNC). In January 2014, they united to declare the
creation of a democratic autonomous government, with branches based
in the three Kurdish enclaves. The parties stressed that they were not
seeking independence from Syria but "local democratic administration"
within a federal framework.
PYD leader Salih Muslim has insisted that any political settlement to end the
conflict in Syria will have to include legal guarantees for Kurdish rights and
recognition of Kurdish autonomy. Muslim has also denied that his party is
allied to the Syrian government, even though the YPG has fought against
some rebel groups and avoided conflict with the army, stressing that
President Assad cannot remain in power after any transitional period.

The Democratic Unity Party (PYD) is the

dominant force in Syria's Kurdish regions.
 The Kurds in Syria
subsidiary force

main Rojava military force allied force

The Kurds in Syria

Although Islamic State’s advances on Kurdish territory in Iraq were

halted by the peshmerga and their allies, Islamic State did not
stop trying to capture Kurdish enclaves in Syria. In mid-September
2014, Islamic State launched an assault on the enclave around
the northern town of Kobane, forcing tens of thousands of people
to flee across the nearby Turkish border.
Despite the proximity of the fighting and the threat posed by
Islamic State, Turkey refused to attack the jihadist group's positions
near the border or allow Turkish Kurds to cross to defend it,
triggering Kurdish protests. In October, Turkey partially relented
and agreed to allow peshmerga fighters to join the battle for
Kobane, after US-led air strikes helped halt the Islamic State
advance.
The Kurds in Syria
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.
After Kobane, the Kurds inflicted a series of defeats on Islamic
State in northern Syria with the help of US-led coalition airpower.
They established control over a 250-mile stretch of contiguous
territory along the Turkish border and advanced to within 30 miles
of the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa.
Fighting under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),
the People’s Protection Units (YPG) emerged as a key ally of the
US-led coalition, which considers it one of the few effective
partners on the ground in Syria.
 The Kurds in Syria
Though it has driven back supposedly superior armies in Mosul and Sinjar,
Islamic State's image has been tarnished in Kobane, which it has been unable
to capture despite heavily outgunning the defenders.
In contrast to the Iraqi army and the Kurdish peshmerga in Iraq, Syrian Kurdish
fighters, both men and women, seem to have been unaffected by the
fearsome reputation of the jihadist fighters.
Syrian Kurdish fighters also turned the tide in favor of the Yazidi Kurds in Sinjar,
when Islamic State took over the town and massacred hundreds of civilians.

Some of their battle-hardened commanders

have had experience with guerrilla warfare
against the Turkish army, before their PKK allies
declared a ceasefire against Turkey in 2013.
The PYD and its affiliates announced the
establishment of "democratic self-
administration" in the three Kurdish-dominated
cantons: al-Jazira in the north-east, Ain al-
Arab (Kobanî in Kurdish) in the central sector,
and around Ifrin in the far north-west.
The Kurds in Syria

Kurdish fighters in Syria

Emergence of Second Kurdish “Stateoid”
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian Kurdish parties are working on a plan to declare a
federal region across much of northern Syria, several of their representatives
have said. Their aim is to formalize the semiautonomous zone they have
established during five years of war and to create a model for decentralized
government throughout the country.
If they move ahead with the plan, they will be dipping a toe into the roiling
waters of debate over two proposals to redraw Southwest Asia, each with
major implications for Syria and its neighbors.
One is the longstanding aspiration of Kurds across the region to a state of
their own or, failing that, greater autonomy in the countries where they are
concentrated: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, all of which view such prospects
with varying degrees of horror.
The Kurds in Syria
The Kurds in Syria
The Kurdish YPG has said that researchers at Amnesty relied on images taken
from websites associated with some Syrian Arab forces who have been
hostile to the Kurds. In addition, the areas where the investigations were
conducted have been experiencing constant fighting in the past by various
militants groups and the central government army loyal to Bashar al-Assad.
“[We] assure the public that an organization similar to the YPG and its
affiliates, whose members firmly believe in ethnic and religious diversity and
fight against global terrorism to achieve peace and security, would never
tolerate or condone violations or abuses [that] might be carried out by its
fighters regardless of their position or rank.”
 The Kurds in Syria

2017: Top Turkish officials increased pressure on the US to dissolve the American
military partnership with Syrian Kurds in the battle against Islamic State, urging the
US to drop its support of the Kurds and exclude the Kurdish People’s Protection
Units (YPG) from the assault to capture Raqqa.
Instead, they want the US to train and arm Syrian militias who have been fighting
alongside the Turks in northern Syria in Operation Euphrates Shield, a months-long
Turkish intervention in northern Syria west of Raqqa aimed at clearing both
Islamic State and the YPG from territory close to the Turkish border.
Turkey sees the YPG as a terror group and an offshoot of its own outlawed
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency in Turkey
for more than three decades.
The Turks have publicly indicated their next target is the Kurdish-controlled town
of Manbij - part of their bid to ensure Syrian Kurds are blocked from linking
Kurdish cantons along the border with Turkey.

The YPG has emerged as a key ally of the

US-led coalition battle against Islamic State.
The Kurds in Syria

Rojava aspirational maps

The Kurds in Iraq
Kurds make up an estimated 15% to 20% of Iraq's population. They have
historically enjoyed more national rights than Kurds living in neighboring
states, but have also faced brutal repression.
Kurds in the north of Iraq revolted against British rule during the mandate
era, but were crushed. In 1946, Mustafa Barzani formed the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) to fight for autonomy in Iraq. After the 1958
revolution, a new constitution recognized Kurdish nationality. But Barzani's
plan for self-rule was rejected by the Arab-led central government and the
KDP launched an armed struggle in 1961.
In 1970, the government offered a deal to end the fighting that gave the
Kurds a de facto autonomous region. But it ultimately collapsed and
fighting resumed in 1974. A year later, divisions within the KDP caused Jalal
Talabani to leave and form the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Early 1970s, Saddam Hussein negotiating with Kurdish

Democratic Party leader, Mulla Mustafa Barzani
The Kurds in Iraq

The Al-Anfal Campaign, a genocidal

campaign against the Kurdish people (and
other non-Arab populations) in northern Iraq,
was led by Ali Hassan al-Majid in the final
stages of the Iran-Iraq War. The campaign
took its name from Surat al-Anfal in the
Quran, and was used as a code name by
the former Iraqi Ba’athist government for a
series of systematic attacks against the
Kurdish population of northern Iraq,
conducted between 1986 and 1989. The
campaign also targeted other minorities in
Iraq including Assyrians, Shabaks, Iraqi
Turkmens, Yazidis and Mandeans. Many
villages belonging to these ethnic groups
were destroyed.
Sweden, Norway and the UK officially
recognized the Anfal campaign as
genocide.
The Kurds in Iraq
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 poison-gas attack on Halabja.
When Iraq was defeated in the 1991 Gulf War, Barzani's son,
Massoud, 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 internal conflict erupted
in 1994.

Some 1.5 million Iraqi Kurds fled

into Iran and Turkey after the
1991 rebellion was crushed .
The Kurds in Iraq

1991Gulf War: US and Allies vs. Iraq

Kurdish Uprising: No-fly zone
allowed real Kurdish autonomy
The Iraqi no-fly zones were a set of
two separate no-fly zones (NFZs),
and were proclaimed by the US,
UK and France after the Gulf War
of 1991 to protect the Kurds in
northern Iraq and the Shiite Muslims
in the south. Iraqi aircraft were
forbidden from flying inside the
zones.
The Kurds in Iraq
But Kurdish Civil War Followed
The Iraqi Kurdish Civil War was a military conflict that
took place between rival Kurdish factions in Iraqi
Kurdistan during the mid-1990s, most notably
between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the
Kurdistan Democratic Party. Over the course of the
conflict, Kurdish factions from Iran and Turkey, as well
as Iranian, Iraqi and Turkish forces were drawn into
the fighting, with additional involvement from
American forces.
In September 1998, Barzani and Talabani signed the
US-mediated Washington Agreement establishing a
formal peace treaty. In the agreement, the parties
agreed to share revenue, share power, deny the use
of northern Iraq to the PKK, and not allow Iraqi troops
into the Kurdish regions. The US pledged to use
military force to protect the Kurds from possible
aggression by Saddam Hussein.
The Kurds in Iraq

The two parties co-operated with the US-led invasion of Iraq in

2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein and have participated in all
national governments formed since then. They have also
governed in coalition in the Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG), created in 2005 to administer the three provinces of Dohuk,
Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, and sought to maximize Kurdish autonomy
by building a pipeline to Turkey and exporting oil independently.

Massoud Barzani's KDP and Jalal Talabani's

PUK share power in Iraqi Kurdistan .
The Kurds in Iraq
In mid-2013, Islamic State turned its sights on three Kurdish enclaves that
bordered its territory in northern Syria. It launched repeated attacks that
until mid-2014 were repelled by the Popular Protection Units (YPG) - the
armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Unity Party (PYD). The turning
point was an offensive in Iraq in June 2014 during which Islamic State
overran the northern city of Mosul, routing the Iraqi army divisions and
seizing weaponry later moved to Syria.
The jihadists' advance in Iraq also drew that country's Kurds into the
conflict. The government of Kurdistan sent its peshmerga forces to areas
abandoned by the army.
For a time there were only minor clashes between Islamic State and the
peshmerga, but in August 2014 the jihadists launched a shock offensive.
The peshmerga withdrew in disarray, allowing several towns inhabited by
religious minorities to fall, notably Sinjar, where Islamic State militants killed
or captured thousands of Yazidis.
Alarmed by the Islamic State advance and the threat of genocide against
the Yazidis fleeing Sinjar, 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), previously active in Turkey,
also came to their aid.
The Kurds in Iraq
2014: Advance of Islamic State and collapse of Iraqi military
allows Kurdish advance
The speed of the jihadist advance shocked the Iraqi government
and its Western allies. The fall of Mosul, the country's second city,
to the Islamists sent shockwaves across Southwest Asia. But as the
Iraqi army fled, the Kurds took full control of Kirkuk. “The whole of
Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga," Kurdish spokesman
Jabbar Yawar said. "No Iraq army remains in Kirkuk now."
The Kurds in Iraq
Sinjar
Mosul

Lines of
Control
 The Kurds in Iraq
The peshmerga arsenal is limited and
confined by restrictions because the
Kurdish Region is not an independent state.
Due to disputes between the KRG and the
Iraqi government, the arms flow from
Baghdad to Iraqi Kurdistan has been
almost nonexistent, as Iraq fears Kurdish
aspirations for independence. Peshmerga
forces instead largely rely on old arms
captured from the old Iraqi Army during
the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, in which
peshmerga forces were active. Following
the retreat of the new Iraqi Army during the
June 2014 Islamic State offensive,
peshmerga forces reportedly again
managed to get hold of some weapons
left behind by the Army.
After August 2014, peshmerga forces captured some weapons from Islamic State
and multiple governments decided to arm the peshmerga with light weaponry
such as light arms, night goggles and ammunition. However, Kurdish officials
stressed that they were not receiving enough. They also stressed that Iraq was
blocking even small arms from reaching the KRG, emphasizing the need for
weapons to be sent directly to the KRG and not through Baghdad.
The Kurds in Iraq

https://youtu.be/tIV7hwnYWxU
The Kurds in Iraq

After Islamic State captured large parts of northern Iraq in 2014, the KRG
sent the peshmerga into disputed areas claimed by the Kurds and the
central government, and then asked the Kurdish parliament to plan a
referendum on independence.
In February 2016, Massoud Barzani - who became president of Kurdistan in
2005 - reiterated the call for a referendum. However, he stressed that it
would be non-binding and would simply allow Kurdish leaders to "execute
the will of the people at the appropriate time and conditions.“
It's beginning to look as though the Kurdish people of the region are quietly
working to build a new state here which would represent a challenge to
the borders created at the end of WWI. For all intents and purposes they
have their own state in northern Iraq.

The main square in Irbil

The Kurds in Iraq
The Kurds in Iraq

"Russia has decided to change its Middle East policy and state it openly,"
Fyodor Lukyanov, chief editor of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine, told
RBTH, commenting on the developments in Iraq.
"In terms of the content of cooperation, intelligence services in Europe and
Southwest Asia knew about our interaction with the Kurds long before the
official announcement. There is nothing wrong in cooperation with the forces
fighting against Islamic State.“ As Lukyanov noted, Russia is saying with this
move that it has extensive connections and interests in Southwest Asia.
He noted that transportation is carried out with the consent of the Iraqi
leadership. The weapons include not only anti-aircraft guns, but also
grenade launchers. "We do not supply the Kurds with portable anti-aircraft
missiles or heavy weapons, which requires additional training. It is entirely
possible that we will start to supply light armored vehicles. No more."
The Kurds in Iraq

Are The Kurds Engaged in Ethnic Cleansing?

IRBIL, Iraq - War is an ugly business, but in some northern villages scattered
near the front line between Kurdish fighters and the jihadis of the Islamic
State, there is growing evidence of a far uglier crime perpetrated by
America’s closest allies in Iraq. For months, humanitarians working in areas
wrested back from the Islamic State have quietly documented a pattern
of Sunni Arabs, who were displaced during the jihadis’ advance, being
denied the right to return home. Witnesses - including a half-dozen aid
workers, a European diplomat and a terrified resident of the affected area
- say the Kurdish peshmerga, the military force of Iraqi Kurdistan, has an
agenda that goes beyond fighting the Islamic State: establishing the
boundaries of a future Kurdish state and moving the Arabs out.
The Kurds in Iraq

IRBIL – Security forces of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq arrested

several Islamic State members in Kirkuk and Zakho, showing the
effectiveness of the Kurdish security forces.
“In Zakho, our forces arrested a network of 12 terrorists,” Hemin
Hawrami, head of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Foreign
Relations Office, told ARA News, adding that local people have
helped the security forces in finding and arresting members of the
Islamic State sleeper cell. “People are extremely helpful, they have
excellent experience and are dedicated.”
The suspects were Arabs and Kurds from Mosul, security sources
told ARA News. The Kurdistan Regional Security Council forces also
released the photos of three Islamic State members who were
recently captured in Kirkuk.
The Kurds in Iraq

belief that
heavenly
rewards not
available
for jihadis
killed by a
woman
The Kurds in Iraq
April 2016
KRG: Kurdish Regional Government
in Iraq: virtually independent
KRG “stateoid”
Even while asserting their
autonomy, Iraqi Kurds are still
ISIS considered by policymakers as the
glue that holds the country together
amid sectarian tensions between
Sunni and Shia Arabs.

Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters have been

fighting Islamic State in northern Iraq.
Government of Iraq
The Kurds in Iraq
 The Kurds in Iraq
Economic Collapse of Iraqi Kurdistan (April 2016)
The Kurds face a real economic crisis. If this situation does not improve soon,
Islamic State will be the least of its problems. As a result of the crisis, Iraqi Kurds
are now found among the deluge of refugees and economic migrants from
Southwest Asia to Europe.
Beginning in 2014, Kurds were hit with an economic crisis that came in four
waves. The first of these came in February 2014, when the Iraqi government in
Baghdad, which has been in dispute with the Kurds over a number of issues,
unilaterally cut the KRG’s share of the federal budget. This was followed by the
emergence of Islamic State and its foray into Iraq in June 2014, which led to
increased security and military spending and was followed by a massive influx
of two million refugees and internally displaced persons into Kurdistan. The final
hit was the global drop in oil prices that began in mid-2014, which the KRG
failed to plan for in 2006-2014 when the price of oil was around $100 a barrel.
Kurdistan’s two ruling parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), sustained a system of patronage that,
among other things, involved providing superfluous jobs in exchange for
political support. This form of artificial job creation – a small village school or
hospital, for example, may have up to 40 government-paid guards - has had a
devastating impact on the economy.
The Kurds in Iraq
The Kurds in Iraq
Kirkuk Field is an oilfield near Kirkuk, Iraq. It was discovered by the Turkish
Petroleum Company at Baba Gurgur ("St. Blaze" in Kurdish) in 1927. The
oilfield was brought into production by the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) in
1934 when 12-inch pipelines from Kirkuk to Haifa and Tripoli (Lebanon) were
completed. It has since remained the most important part of northern Iraqi
oil production with over 10 billion barrels of proven remaining oil reserves in
1998. After about seven decades of operation, Kirkuk still produces up to 1
million barrels per day, almost half of all Iraqi oil exports. Oil from the Kirkuk
oilfield is now exported through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline, which runs to
the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea.
The Kurds in Iraq

Sulaymaniyah — US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US and the

international community would support the Kurdistan Region with the
economic crisis the region is facing.
Kerry met the Kurdish delegation headed by Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in the US Embassy in
Baghdad on Friday to discuss the region’s economic crisis and the
liberation of Mosul.
Iraqi Minister of Culture Fryad Rawanduzi, who is Kurdish, told reporters in
Baghdad that Kerry reassured the Kurdish delegation there would be
American and international assistance to the region.
Rawanduzi said Kerry reassured the delegation that the region would have
a share of the assistance given to the Iraqi central government.
Following his meeting with the KRG delegation, Kerry tweeted, “With KRG
PM Barzani affirmed US support for the peshmerga and strengthening
cooperation with Baghdad.”
The Kurds in Iraq
South North
The Kurds in Iraq
Current Political Situation
Now in alliance:
The Kurdistan List
represented a
coalition of the two
main ruling parties in
Iraqi Kurdistan,
namely the Kurdistan
Democratic Party and
the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan.

Gorran: Official Opposition

}Islamist
Groups
The Kurds in Iraq

Despite corruption, nepotism and feudal habits, Iraqi Kurdistan

enjoys a level of democracy that should be envied in most of the
Arab world. The two main parties - the Barzanis’ Democratic Party
and the Talabanis’ Patriotic Union - currently rule in coalition, but
remain rivals for power and influence.
A third party, Gorran, meaning “change,” which recently
emerged from the Talabanis’ party, promises to increase choice,
though it has now joined the ruling coalition, somewhat blunting
its purpose. Two Islamist parties have been brought into the
government, too.
The Kurds in Iraq
Kurds and Turkmen have claimed Kirkuk as a cultural capital. It
was named the "capital of Iraqi culture" by the Iraqi ministry of
culture in 2010. The city currently consists mainly of people who
self-identify as Kurds, Arabs, Iraqi Turkmen and Assyrians. With
changes in population after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the US
invasion and the advent of Islamic State, most experts believe
that the Kurds make up the majority of the population.
The Kurds in Iraq

M. Izady on
ethnicity
in Kirkuk
Kurdish Diaspora
The Kurds who inhabit this land have suffered from persecution for
centuries and, although the majority of Kurds still live in Kurdistan,
many Kurds have left the region as a result of continued
persecution. While there is no recent, accurate census of the
Kurdish diaspora, widely accepted figures estimate around 1.2
million Kurds living outside Kurdistan, with around half of those
living in Germany.
Country Estimated Population Country Estimated Population
Germany 650,000 Greece 25,000
France 120,000 United States 20,000
Netherlands 80,000 Denmark 10,000
Switzerland 70,000 Canada 7,000
Belgium 60,000 Norway 5,000
Austria 60,000 Italy 4,000
Sweden 30,000 Finland 3,000
Great Britain 25,000 Totals 1,169,000
The Future of Kurdistan
The Kurdish movement, in contrast to many other national
liberation movements, has experienced a persistent
contradiction between its traditional leadership and the
relatively developed society it seeks to liberate. Today,
about half the population lives in urban centers, and feudal
relations of production in rural areas have almost
disappeared. Yet the politics and ideology of much of the
leadership can hardly be distinguished from the worldview
of landed nobles of the past. Only to the extent that this
may be changing does the future hold some promise for
Kurdish aspirations.
The Future of Kurdistan
Experts point to three unfolding developments that could significantly
affect the Kurds and the region.
1. Kurdish secession from Iraq to form an independent state would likely
trigger conflict with Baghdad and exacerbate sectarian conflict
between Iraq's Sunni and Shia Arabs.
• Neighboring Iran, Syria and Turkey are concerned that
independence for Iraq's Kurds could inspire Kurdish uprisings in
their own countries and that an independent Kurdistan might
harbor militant Kurdish groups.
• If Kurdish independence follows rather than precedes Iraq's
dissolution, it may be met with less resistance.
• International and regional support are seen as critical to the
viability of an independent Kurdistan since it would be
landlocked and reliant on its neighbors for the passage of goods
and people.
The Future of Kurdistan
2. Further gains for Islamic State could lead the US and other
international actors to expand their support for the Kurds in both Iraq
and Syria. Experts say the Kurds have proven to be the most effective
ground forces against Islamic State.
• risk of backlash by authorities in Iraq, who are wary of further
empowering their autonomous Kurdish region
• risk of backlash by authorities in Turkey, who are concerned that
support for PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurds may lead to international
legitimization of the Turkish terrorist organization
3. A resumption of fighting between the Turkish government and PKK
forces either resulting from or leading to a failure of the on-going
peace negotiations could hamper Turkey's economy and lead to a
reversal of moves toward Kurdish cultural recognition and political
autonomy.
Alternatively, a negotiated resolution of the Turkish-Kurdish civil war
could be transformative for Turkey, affording it greater stability, further
economic prosperity and increasing its ability to project power in the
region.
The Future of Kurdistan

Former Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru, to his surprise, wrote that
“a defensive nationalism turns into an aggressive nationalism and a
struggle for freedom becomes a struggle to dominate others,” often in the
name of progress, modernity, mission of civilization, even freedom. That is
what appears to have happened in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria in their
quests to dominate the Kurds. Drawing on history, Kurds see themselves as
the playthings of world powers, used in proxy fights when it serves
someone’s interest and then discarded.
Victim of their geography, history and of their own leaders'
lack of clear-sightedness, the Kurdish people have been the
ones who have paid the heaviest price and who have
suffered the most from the redrawing of the Southwest Asia
map. Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Regional
Government in Iraq, has said, “The time has come to decide
our fate, and we should not wait for other people to decide
it for us.” But if there is to be an independent Kurdistan, the
Kurds cannot achieve it alone.
The Future of Kurdistan
Kurdistan is a land-locked country dependent on governments that
oppose independence for access to markets for both imported supplies
and exported oil - Kurdistan’s main economic resource. Given the history
of the region and the geographic significance of Kurdistan as one of the
crossroads of Southwest Asia, the potential for continued conflict is
extremely high. If Kurdistan hopes to survive as an independent state, it
must prove to be strong enough to defend itself against inevitable threats
and must establish peaceful relationships with its neighbors despite a
history of conflict, distrust and grievances.
What may be the key that has been missing in Kurdistan’s quest
for autonomy, is the support of a superpower. Other minorities
who have established their own states in the region have done so
with that support: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan had the
former Soviet Union; Israel had Great Britain and the US.
What is now at stake in Southwest Asia is crucial to US interests – the survival
of the Kurdish region. The Kurds want to fight for their freedom, for their
independence. They have a strong, well-trained army. Their leaders are
popular and legitimate, they have been close allies of the US. Now they
urgently need America's help.
 Further Reading

Taylor & Francis; First Edition edition Author: Chaliand, Gerard (EDT)/ Pallis, Markus Wiener Publishers; 1st edition
(September 3, 1992) Michael (TRN)/ McDowall, David (FRW) (October 21, 2015)
Publisher: Interlink Pub Group Inc
Comprehensive, Publication Date: 1993/01/01 Recent, readable,
somewhat idiosyncratic, short, personal
Izady is probably the Translated from French,
world’s best cultural detailed
cartographer
 Further Reading

Walker Books; First Edition edition Edwin Mellen Pr; illustrated edition Syracuse University Journalistic Press
(April 1, 2008) (May 1992) (August 6, 2010)

Journalistic Scholarly Scholarly

The End