The Future of Kurdistan

7/31/2019 The Future of Kurdistan

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THE FUTURE OF KURDISTAN : Between Turkey, the

Aftermath of the Iraq War and the Syrian Revolt

Jacques Neriah

The Kurds are an Indo-European people who immigrated to the MiddleEast, who like the Iranians, mostly inhabit a region known as Kurdistan thatincludes adjacent parts ofIran,Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Kurds constitute 7

percent of the population in Iran, 15-20 percent in Iraq, perhaps 9 percent inSyria, and 20 percent in Turkey. In all of these countries except Iran, Kurdsform the second largest ethnic group.

From 1986 to 1989, the Iraqi government waged a systematic campaignof genocide against the Kurdish population, including through the use ofchemical weapons. Today Iraqi Kurdistan is a parliamentary democracy with a111-seat regional assembly. Thanks to the relative peace that prevails there, ithas a more developed economy than other parts of Iraq.

Turkeys Kurds have posed the most serious and persistent challenge tothe official image of a homogeneous society. Since the beginning of the ArabSpring, Turkey has been held up as a blueprint for emergent Middle Easterndemocracies to copy. But many observers question whether its treatment of itsKurdish minority gives Turkey the right to be regarded as a role model.

In Iran, the Kurds protests have been violently suppressed bygovernment forces. Despite the fact that more than one million Sunnis live inTehran, many of them Kurds, no Sunni mosque exists to serve their religious

needs. Kurdish political prisoners have been executed without a fair trial,prompting international protests.

Most of the Kurds in Syria originally came from Turkey in the 1920s.Yet, a large number of Syrias Kurds have been arbitrarily categorized asaliens and denied citizenship. Although Kurds have been prominently involvedin the current insurrection, they are highly suspicious of the Syrian NationalCouncil, which has denied them proper representation.

According to reports, Israelis in Iraqi Kurdistan are providing militarytraining and developmental assistance part of an ongoing relationship that hasexisted for decades. Both the United States and Israel, however, have beenreluctant to support Kurdish independence for fear of upsetting the Turkish

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Today, the Kurds are the largest national grouping of people in theworld without a state of their own! The Kurdish question places many Westernstates in a hypocritical position, especially given the efforts they invest in thePalestinian issue. There are twenty-two Arab states, and the thirty-five millionKurds deserve at least one sovereign state of their own.

General

The Kurdish people, or Kurds, are an Indo-European people who immigrated to

the Middle East, like the Iranians, and mostly inhabit a region known as Kurdistan

that includes adjacent parts ofIran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurds as an ethnicgroup emerged in the medieval period. They are believed to be of heterogeneous origincombining a number of earlier tribal or ethnic groups including MedianSemitic, Turkic,and Armenian elements. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, belonging to the Shafii

school. Mysticalpractices and participation in Sufi orders are also widespread amongKurds. There is also a minority of Kurds who are Shia Muslims, primarily living in theIlam and Kermanshah provinces ofIran, central and southeastern Iraq (Fayli Kurds),who are Alawites, mostly living in Turkey.

The Kurdish language collectively refers to the related dialects spoken by the Kurds. Itis mainly spoken in those parts ofIran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey that constituteKurdistan. The Kurdish language holds official status in Iraq as a national languagealongside Arabic; is recognized in Iran as a regional language, and in Armenia as aminority language.

The number of Kurds living in Southwest Asia is estimated at 26-34 million, withanother one or two million living in the diaspora. Kurds are the fourth largest ethnicityin the Middle East afterArabs, Persians, and Turks.

According to statistics, Kurds constitute 20 percent of the population in Turkey,

15-20 percent in Iraq, perhaps 9 percent in Syria, 7 percent in Iran, and 1.3

percent in Armenia. In all these countries apart from Iran, Kurds form the second

largest ethnic group. Roughly 55 percent of the worlds Kurds live in Turkey,

about 18 percent each in Iran and Iraq, and slightly more than 5 percent in Syria.

The Kurdistan Region in Iraq is largely mountainous, with the highest point being a

3,611-meter (11,847-foot) summit known locally as Cheekah Dar(Black Tent). Themountains are part of the largerZagros range, which is also part of Iran. Many rivers

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flow through the regions mountains, and the area is notable for its fertile land, plentifulwater, and picturesque landscapes. The Great Zab and the Little Zab flow from east towest in the region. The Tigris River enters Iraq via the Kurdistan Region after flowingfrom Turkey.

The mountainous nature of Iraqi Kurdistan, the difference of temperatures in its variousparts, and its wealth of water make it a land of agriculture and tourism. It is also rich inminerals, oil in particular, which for a long time was extracted via pipeline only in theKurdistan Region through Iraq. [unclear] The largest lake in the region is Lake Dukan,and there are several smaller ones such as the Duhok Lake.

The western and southern sections of the Kurdistan Region are not as mountainous asthe east. They are characterized by rolling hills and sometimes plains, and are greenerthan the rest of Iraq.

Historical Background

After defeating Shah Ismail I in 1514, Ottoman Sultan Selim I annexed Armenia andKurdistan and entrusted organization of the conquered territories to Idris, a historianwho was a Kurd ofBitlis in Turkey. Idris divided the territory intosanjaks or districts,and, making no attempt to interfere with the principle of heredity, installed the localchiefs as governors. He also resettled the rich pastoral country between Erzerum andErivan, which had lain in waste since thepassage[unclear] ofTimur(Tamerlane), withKurds from the Hakkari and Bohtan districts. [it seems the author should give some

sense of these locations in modern terms]

Ottoman centralist policies at the beginning of the 19th century aimed to remove powerfrom the principalities and localities, whichdirectly affected[needs to be clearer

thereby weakening?] the Kurdish emirs. The first modern Kurdish nationalistmovement emerged in 1880 with an uprising led by a Kurdish landowner and head ofthe powerful Shemdinan family, Sheikh Ubeydullah. He demanded political autonomyor outright independence for Kurds and the recognition of a Kurdistan state withoutinterference from Turkish or Persian authorities. The uprising against Qajar Persia andthe Ottoman Empire was ultimately suppressed by the Ottomans and Ubeydullah, alongwith other notables, was exiled to Istanbul.

The Kurdish ethnonationalist movement that emerged following World War I and theend of the Ottoman Empire was largely a reaction to the changes taking place inmainstream Turkey. These included radical secularization, which the strongly MuslimKurds abhorred; centralization of authority that threatened the power of local chieftainsand Kurdish autonomy; and rampant Turkish nationalism in the new Turkish Republic,which threatened to marginalize them.

However, the Kurds were in internal conflict over the destiny of their country. Some,very open to the pan-Islamist ideology of the sultan-caliph, had seen the salvation ofthe Kurdish people in a status of cultural and administrative autonomy within theOttoman Empire. Others, claiming to take inspiration from the principle of nationalities,

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the ideas of the French Revolution, and American President Woodrow Wilson, foughtfor Kurdistans total independence.

The split was accentuated following the Ottoman defeat by the Allied Powers in 1918.Those fighting for independence hurriedly put together a delegation at the Versailles

Conference to present the claims of the Kurdish nation. This helped place the Kurdishnational question on the international agenda. The Treaty of Svres, concluded on 10August 1920 between the Allies France, Great Britain, and the United States and theOttoman Empire, actually recommended, in section 111 (art. 64), the creation of aKurdish state in part of Kurdistan:

If within one year from the coming into force of the present Treaty the Kurdishpeoples within the areas defined in Article 2 [i.e.Turkey] shall address themselves to theCouncil of the League of Nations in such a manner as to show that a majority of the

population of these areas desires independence from Turkey, and if the Council thenconsiders that these peoples are capable of such independence and recommends that it

shall be granted to them.

This treaty, however, was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne, signed on 24 July1923, which was concluded with Modern Turkey after the dissolution of the OttomanEmpire.

The Treaty of Lausanne invalidated the Treaty of Svres and, without giving anyguarantee about the Kurds rights, handed the major part of Kurdistan over to the newTurkish state. Beforehand, in accordance with the Franco-Turkish Agreement of 20October 1921, France had annexed the Kurdish provinces of Jazira and Kurd-Dagh toSyria, placing them under Frances mandate. Iranian Kurdistan, of which a large partwas controlled by the Kurdish leader Simko, lived in a state of near-dissidence vis--visthe Persian central government.

The fate of the petroleum-rich Kurdish province of Mosul, which is today part of Iraq,remained undecided. Both Turks and the British claimed it. The Treaty of Sevres alsorelated to the question of Iraqi Kurdistan stating that no objection will be raised by thePrincipal Allied Powers to the voluntary adhesion to such an independent Kurdish State[in Turkey] of the Kurds inhabiting that part of Kurdistan which has hitherto beenincluded in the Mosul Valiyet. After the Treaty of Sevres unraveled, Britains imperial

planners in the Colonial Office insisted on including Kurdistan in their mandate for

Iraq, in order to add to its Sunni population and offset the plurality of the Iraqi Shiites.The League of Nations recognized the annexation of Kurdistan to Iraq in 1925. TheBritish promised to make Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous when Iraq would obtain itsindependence. That commitment was not fulfilled either by the British nor the Iraqiregime that succeeded their administration in 1932, when Iraq became independent.

Thus, at the end of 1925, the country of the Kurds, known since the 12th century as

Kurdistan, found itself divided between four states: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

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Kurdish Communities in West Asia

IRAQ

After the military coup by Abdul Karim Qasim in 1958, Mustafa Barzani, head of theBarzani clan, who had become the vocal advocate of Kurdish rights in Iraq, was invited

by Qasim to return from his exile in the Soviet Union where he had been since 1945.Barzani was greeted with a heros welcome in Iraq.

As part of the deal between Qasim and Barzani, the former promised to give the Kurds

regional autonomy in return for Barzanis support for his policies. Meanwhile, during1959-1960, Barzani became the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), whichwas granted legal status in 1960.

By early 1960, though, it was clear that Qasim would not follow through with hispromise of regional autonomy. Hence, the KDP began to agitate for it. In the face ofgrowing Kurdish dissent, as well as Barzanis personal power, Qasim began to incitethe Barzanis historical enemies, the Baradost and Zebari tribes, which led to inter-tribal warfare throughout 1960 and early 1961. By February 1961, Barzani had defeatedthe pro-government forces and consolidated his position as leader of the Kurds. At this

point he ordered his forces to occupy all government offices in Kurdish territory and

expel the officials. This was not received well in Baghdad, and Qasim began preparingfor a military offensive to regain government control of the north.

Meanwhile, in June 1961, the KDP issued a detailed ultimatum to Qasim outliningKurdish grievances and demanding rectification. Qasim ignored it and continued

planning for war. It was not until 10 September, when an Iraqi army column wasambushed by a group of Kurds, that the Kurdish revolt truly began. Qasim reacted byordering the Iraqi air force to indiscriminately bomb Kurdish villages, which ultimatelyserved to rally the entire Kurdish population toward Barzani.

Qasim, however, profoundly distrusted the Iraqi army and purposely failed to

adequately arm it, using ammunition rationing. Hence, his government was not able tosubdue the insurrection. This stalemate irritated powerful factions in the military and issaid to be one of the main reasons the Baathists overthrew Qasim in February 1963.

In November 1963, after considerable infighting among the civilian and military wingsof the Baathists, they were ousted by Abdul Salam Arifin another coup. Then, afteranother failed offensive, Arif declared a ceasefire in February 1964. It provoked a split

between Kurdish urban radicals on the one hand and Peshmerga (freedom-fighter)forces led by Barzani on the other. Barzani agreed to the ceasefire and deposed theradicals from the KPD.

Following the unexpected death of Arif, who was replaced by his brotherAbdulRahman Arif, the Iraqi government launched a last-ditch effort to overcome the Kurds.

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This campaign failed in May 1966 when Barzanis forces thoroughly defeated the Iraqiarmy at the Battle of Mount Handrin, nearRawanduz. It was said that the Kurdsslaughtered an entire brigade. Recognizing the futility of continuing this campaign,Rahman Arif announced a twelve-point peace program in June 1966. It was notimplemented, however, because of his overthrow in still another coup in 1968 by the

Baath Party.

The Baath government started a new campaign to end the Kurdish insurrection, but itstalled in 1969. This can be attributed to the internal power struggle in Baghdad andalso to tensions with Iran. Moreover, the Soviet Union pressured the Iraqis to come toterms with Barzani. A peace plan announced in March 1970 provided for broaderKurdish autonomy. The plan also gave Kurds representation in government bodies, to

be implemented within four years.Nevertheless, in the same period, the Iraqigovernment embarked on an Arabization program in the oil-rich regions of Kirkuk andKhanaqin. In the following years the Baghdad government overcame its internaldivisions. It concluded a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union in April 1972 and

ended its isolation in the Arab world. The Kurds, for their part, remained dependent onIranian military support and could do little to strengthen their forces.

In 1973, the United States made a secret agreement with the Shah of Iran to begincovertly funding Kurdish rebels against Baghdad through the CIA and in collaborationwith Israel. Both are believed to be active in the country through the launch ofthe 2003U.S. invasion and into the present. In 1974, the Iraqi government retaliated with a newoffensive against the Kurds and pushed them close to the border with Iran. Iraq toldTehran it was willing to satisfy other Iranian demands if it would end its aid to theKurds.

With mediation by Algerian President Houari Boumdinne, Iran and Iraq reached acomprehensive settlement in March 1975 known as the Algiers Pact. It left the Kurdshelpless and Tehran cut off supplies to them. Barzani fled toIran with many of hissupporters. Others surrendered en masse and the rebellion ended after a few days. As aresult, the Iraqi government extended its control over the northern region. To secure itsinfluence, Iraq launched an Arabization program, moving Arabs to the vicinity ofKurdistan oil fields, particularly those around Kirkuk. The governments repressivemeasures against the Kurds after the Algiers Pact led to renewed clashes between theIraqi army and Kurdish guerrillas in 1977. In 1978 and 1979, six hundred Kurdishvillages were burned down and approximately two hundred thousand Kurds were

deported to the other parts of the country.

During the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqi government again implemented anti-Kurdishpolicies and a de-facto civil war broke out. Iraq was widely condemned by theinternational community but never seriously punished for its actions, including thekilling of thousands of Kurds with chemical weapons.

The Iraqi governments campaign of systematic genocide against the Kurdish

population, waged from 1986 to 1989 and peaking in 1988 was called Anfal(Spoilsof War). It involved the destruction of over two thousand villages and the murder

of 182,000 Kurdish civilians. The campaign, under the command ofAli Hassan al-

Majid,included ground offensives, aerial bombing, systematic destruction ofcommunities, mass deportations, firing squads, and chemical attacks, including the

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most infamous attack on the Kurdish town ofHalabja in 1988 that killed five

thousand civilians instantly. The large town ofQala Dizeh (population seventy

thousand) was completely destroyed by the Iraqi army. The campaign also

included the Arabization of Kirkuk; Kurds and other ethnic groups were driven

out of the oil-rich city and replaced with Arab settlers from central and southern

Iraq.

The first wave of the plan[unclear, esp. the plan, and the previous paragraph datesthe Anfal campaign as 1986-1989] was carried out in 1982 when eight thousandBarzanis were arrested; their remains were returned to Kurdistan in 2008. The secondand more extensive wave lasted from 29 March 1987 to 23 April 1989, [again, the

previous paragraph says 1986-1989] when the Iraqi army carried out a genocidalcampaign against the Kurds involving the following human rights violations: thewidespread use of chemical weapons, the wholesale destruction of some two thousandvillages, and the slaughter ofaround fifty thousand rural Kurds[all this is in the

previous paragraph except it gives the number of 182,000 killed]by the most

conservative estimates.

After the collapse of the Kurdish uprising in March 1991, [does not explain how anuprising was occurring in 1991, with the genocidal Anfal campaign having ended in1989] Iraqi troops recaptured most of the Kurdish areas and 1.5 million Kurdsabandoned their homes and fled to the Turkish and Iranian borders. It is estimatedthat close to twenty thousand Kurds died from exhaustion, hunger, cold and disease. On5 April 1991, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 688, which demanded thatIraq end its measures against the Kurds and allow immediate access to internationalhumanitarian organizations. This was the first international document to mention theKurds by name since the League of Nations arbitration of Mosul in 1925.

In mid-April, the U.S.-led coalition established safe havens within Iraqi borders andprohibited Iraqi planes from flying north of the 36th parallel. In October 1991, Kurdishguerrillas captured the cities ofArbil and Sulaimaniyah after a series of clashes withIraqi troops. Late that month, the Iraqi government retaliated by slapping a food andfuel embargo on the Kurds and ceasing to pay civil servants in the Kurdish region. Theembargo, however, backfired and in May 1992 the Kurds held parliamentary electionsand established the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

The Kurdish population welcomed the American troops in 2003 with celebrations

and dancing in the streets. The area controlled by Peshmerga was expanded, andKurds now have effective control in Kirkukand parts ofMosul. The authority of theKRG and legality of its laws and regulations were recognized in articles 113 and 137 ofthe new Iraqi constitution ratified in 2005. By the beginning of 2006, the two Kurdishadministrations of Arbil and Sulaimaniya were unified.

Iraqi Kurds constitute approximately 17 percentof Iraqs population. They are themajority in at least three provinces of northern Iraq, together known as Iraqi Kurdistan.Kurds also have a presence in Kirkuk, Mosul,Khanaqin, and Baghdad. Around threehundred thousand Kurds live in Baghdad, fifty thousand in Mosul, and around onehundred in southern Iraq. [also unclear why figures are given for Baghdad, Mosul, and

southern Iraq but not for Kirkuk or Khanaqinunless those figures are small and nottoo significant]

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Iraqi Kurdistan is a parliamentary democracy with a 111-seat regional assembly.

Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party, was

elected president of the new Iraqi administration, while KDP leader Massoud

Barzani is president of the abovementioned Kurdistan Regional Government

(KRG). The three governorates ofDahuk, Arbil, and Sulaymaniyah comprise around

40,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) and have a population of around fourmillion.

Since 1992, the KRG has been based in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The KRGhas a parliament, elected by popular vote, called the Iraqi Kurdistan National Assembly,and a cabinet composed of the KDP, the PUK, and their allies (the Iraqi CommunistParty, the Socialist Party of Kurdistan, etc.). Structurally and officially, the two main

parties exhibit few differences from each other. Their international organizations andstructures of authority are similar.Nechirvan Idris Barzani, Massouds nephew, was

prime minister of the KRG from 1999 to 2009, including presiding over the first KDP-PUK unified cabinet from 2006 to 2009. Masrour, Massouds son, is now a member of

the Political Bureau. Nechirvan, as prime minister, spearheaded unprecedented socialand economic reforms, including attention to violence against women, improvements ininfrastructure, and a focus on the private sector and foreign investment. He has also

been at the forefront of the rapprochement with Turkey and the development of oil andgas fields in the Region.

According to Bruinessen, the traditional structure of Kurdish social and politicalorganization was inherently tribal. Each tribe was a sociopolitical unit with distinctterritorial boundaries and membership based on kinship. Tribes maintain much powerin the Arbil and Dahukgovernorates. And the cultural differences between Arbil andSulaymaniyah are key to understanding the political nature of the region.[47]

[Apparently, since the cultural differences and their effects arent explained here, thefootnote callout number should instead appear as a hyperlink]

Elections for the Kurdistan National Assembly are held every four years; the mostrecent were on 25 July 2009. The leading political alliance was the Kurdistani List. Itconsisted of the two main political parties, PUKand PDK, and won 59 seats. The newerand less popular competing movement, the Gorran (Change) List headed by

Nawshirwan Mustafa won 25 of the 111 seats. It had a strong showing in the city ofSulaymaniyah and the Sulaymaniyah governorate, which was previously considered thePUKs stronghold. The Reform List, consisting of four parties, won 13 seats. In

addition, the Islamic movement won 2, and 11 were reserved for the Turkmen (5 seats),Assyrian (5), and Armenian (1) minority parties.

Elections for the governorate councils are held every four years. Each council has forty-one members. The last governorate- council elections for Kurdistan were held in 2009.

Iraqi Kurdistan houses numerous consulates, embassy offices, trade offices, andhonorary consulates of countries that want to increase their influence and cultivate

better ties with the KRG. As of October 2010 there were twenty diplomaticrepresentations in the Region, including Turkey.

The KRGs representative to the United States, Qubad Talabani, is the youngest son ofIraqi President Jalal Talabani. The KRGs high representative to the United Kingdom is

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Bayan Sami Abdul-Rahman, daughter of Kurdish leader Sami Abdul-Rahman, who waskilled in a terrorist attack on Kurdish political party headquarters in Arbil in February2004.

The Kurdistan Regions economy is dominated by the oil industry, agriculture,

and tourism. Thanks to relative peace in the region, it has a more developedeconomy than other parts of Iraq.

Before the removal of Saddam Hussein, the KRG received approximately 13 percent ofthe revenues from Iraqs Oil-for-Food Program. By the time of the U.S. invasion in2003, the program had disbursed $8.35 billion to the KRG. Iraqi Kurdistans foodsecurity allowed for substantially more of the funds to be spent on development projectsthan in the rest of Iraq. By the programs end in 2003, $4 billion of the KRGs Oil-for-Food funds remained unspent.

Following the overthrow of Saddam Husseins administration and the subsequent

violence, the three provinces fully under KRG control were the only three in Iraq to beranked secure by the U.S. military. This relative stability has allowed the KRG tosign a number of investment contracts with foreign companies. In 2006, the first newoil well since the invasion of Iraq was drilled in the Kurdistan Region by the

Norwegian energy company DNO. Initial indications are that the oil field contains atleast 100 million barrels (16,000,000 cubic meters) of oil and will be pumping5,000 barrels (790 cubic meters) per dayby early 2007. [at least some of the sentenceneeds updating] The KRG has also signed exploration agreements with several other oilcompanies, including Canadas Western Oil Sands and the UKs Sterling Energy andGulf Keystone Petroleum.

In 2004, per capita income in the KRG was 25 percent higher than in the rest of Iraq.The government continues to receive a portion of the revenue from Iraqs oil exports,and it will soon implement a unified foreign investment law. The KRG also has plans to

build a media city in Arbil and free trade zones near the borders of Turkey and Iran.

Since 2003, the stronger economy of Iraqi Kurdistan has attracted around twentythousand workers from other parts of Iraq. According to President Talabani, since 2003the number of millionaires in Sulaymaniyah has increased from twelve to two thousand,reflecting the regions financial and economic growth.

Iraqi Kurdistan currently has the lowest poverty rates in Iraq. According to theKRG website, not a single coalition soldier has died nor a single foreigner been

kidnapped since 2003 in KRG-administered areas.

Because of the devastation of the Iraqi armys campaigns under Saddam Hussein andprevious regimes, the Kurdistan Regions infrastructure was never able to modernize.After the 1991 safe haven was established, the KRG launched projects to reconstructthe Region. Since then, of all the 4,500 [earlier the figure of two thousand is given]villages destroyed by Saddam Husseins regime, the KRG has succeeded inreconstructing 65 percent of them. Furthermore, since his regime was deposed in 2003,the KRG has been able to scale up its service delivery and infrastructure, which has

been changing the Regions economic landscape and facilitating investment projects.

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Iraqi Kurdistan is accessible by land and air. By land it may be reached most easilyfrom Turkey through the Habur Border Gate, the only border crossing betweenKurdistan and Turkey. This gate can be reached by bus or taxi from airports in Turkeyas close as the Mardin orDiyarbakirairports, as well as from Istanbul orAnkara. IraqiKurdistan has two border gates with Iran, the Haji Omaran gate and the Bashmeg gate

nearSulaymaniyah. The Region also has a border gate with Syria known as FayshKhabur.[68][change to hyperlink?] From within Iraq, the Kurdistan Region can bereached by land from multiple roads.

Iraqi Kurdistan has opened its doors to the world with international airports in Arbil andSulaimaniyah. Both operate flights to Middle Eastern and European destinations. TheKRG has spent millions of dollars on these airports to attract international carriers, andcurrently Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa, Etihad, Royal Jordanian, Gulf Air, Middle EastAirlines, Atlas Jet, and Fly Dubai all service the Region. There are also at least twomilitary airfields in Iraqi Kurdistan.[69][hyperlink?]

Turkey

In 2008, Turkeys Kurds numbered about fourteen million people or about 18

percent of the population. This estimate, however, does not include the Zaza

people, who are often considered to be Kurds. Kurdish sources claim there are as

many as twenty-five million Kurds in Turkey. In any case, Kurds are the countrys

largest minority group, and they have posed the most serious and persistent

challenge to the official image of a homogeneous society. During the 1930s and

1940s the government disguised the presence of the Kurds statistically bycategorizing them as Mountain Turks. This was changed to the new euphemism

of Eastern Turks in 1980.

The Republic of Turkey, founded in 1923, put an end to the Turkish caliphates andsultanate. Since then there have been several Kurdish rebellions: theKokiri, SheikhSaid, Dersim, andArarat rebellions.

In 1937-1938, approximately 50,000-70,000 Alevi Kurdswere killed[why?this wasone of the rebellions?] and thousands went into exile. A key component of theTurkification process was massive population resettlement. The main policy documentin this context was the 1934 law on resettlement. This policy targeted the region ofDersim as one of its first test cases, with disastrous consequences for the local

population.[8] The Dersim massacre[5]is often confused with the Dersim Rebellion thattook place during these events. [hyperlinks?]

After the 1960 military coup, the State Planning Organization (DPT) was establishedunder the Prime Ministry to solve the problem of Kurdish separatism andunderdevelopment. In 1961, the DPT prepared a report titled The Principles of theStates Development Plan for the East and Southeast, shortened to Eastern Report. It

proposed to defuse separatism by encouraging ethnic mixing through migration (to and

from the southeast). This was not unlike the policies pursued by the Committee of

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Union and Progress under the Ottoman Empire. The labor minister at the time, BlentEcevit, was of Kurdish ancestry and criticized the report.

During the 1970s, the separatist movement coalesced into the Marxist-LeninistKurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Many states and organizations, including the United

States, United Nations, NATO, and the European Union, define it as a terroristorganization. From 1984 to 1999, the Turkish military was embroiled in a conflict withthe PKK. During the guerrilla war much of the countryside in the southeast wasdepopulated, with Kurdish civilians moving to local defensible centers such asDiyarbakr, Van, and rnak, as well as cities of western Turkey and even to WesternEurope. Reasons for the depopulation included PKK atrocities against Kurdish clansthey could not control as well as Turkish civilians and soldiers, the poverty of thesoutheast, and the Turkish states military operations. Human Rights Watch hasdocumented many instances where the Turkish army forcibly evacuated villages,destroying houses and equipment to prevent the inhabitants return because of alleged

but unlikely PKK membership. An estimated three hundred Kurdish villages in

Turkey were virtually wiped off the map, displacing over 378,000 people.

This conflict reached its epitome during the 1990s, when theNational Security Councilsanctioned a covert war using special forces, village guards, mafia, and contract killerswhile the PKK increasingly attacked the Turkish civilian population using, among otherthings, suicide bombings. The conflict tapered off after the capture of PKK leaderAbdullah Ocalan.

Officially protected death squads are accused in the disappearance of 3,200 Kurds andAssyrians in 1993 and 1994 in the so-called mystery killings. The victims includedKurdish politicians, human rights activists, journalists, teachers, and other members ofthe intelligentsia. Virtually none of the perpetrators were investigated or punished. TheTurkish government also encouraged the Islamic extremist group Hezbollah toassassinate suspected PKK members and often ordinary Kurds. Azimet Kylolu, thestate minister for human rights, revealed the extent of the security forces excesses inthe fall of 1994: While acts of terrorism in other regions are done by the PKK;[unlessthis is a direct quotation from an English source, this semicolon should be a comma] inTunceli [province] it is state terrorism. In Tunceli, it is the state that is evacuating and

burning villages. In the southeast there are two million people left homeless. [a citation(hyperlink) for the quote?]

Since the 2009 municipal elections, which gave the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP)the majority in the Kurdish region, nine thousand people including elected officials,

political militants, academics, and NGO workers have been arrested for allegedlyhaving links to the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK). The KCK, asemiclandestine organization, is alleged to be the PKKs extension into civil society and

politics. Turkey has declared war on this embryonic independent administration.

The KCK forms the militant base and controls the mayors and deputies of the legalparty, the BDP. It also collects a revolutionary tax both in Turkey and abroad.According to a Finance Ministry audit, Kurdish municipalities have paid at least 12million to the guerrillas.

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Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, Turkey has been held up as a blueprint

for emergent Middle Eastern democracies. But many observers question whether

its treatment of its Kurdish minority gives Turkey the right to be regarded as a

role model.

In general, life has improved for Turkeys Kurds, particularly under Prime MinisterRecep Tayyip Erdogans conservative Justice and Development (AK) Party, which has

ruled the country since 2002. Erdogan is the first Turkish leader to acknowledge the

states mistakes in its handling of the Kurds. In a slew of groundbreaking reforms,

AK has eased restrictions on the Kurds long-banned mother tongue, poured money into

their impoverished region, and launched secret talks with the imprisoned Ocalan.

In 2009, a deal to disarm the rebels seemed within reach. It collapsed, however, after a

string of deadly PKK attacks. Yet the government continued to talk with Ocalan who,

despite having spent the last twelve years behind bars, has largely retained his grip on

the PKK. But everything changed last month[needs clarification, including about thetime] when the rebels escalated the violence, killing more than forty Turkish soldiers

and policemen.

Erdogan has often acknowledged that the Kurdish problem cannot be solved by

military means alone, and he has vowed to continue his reforms. Yet officials close

to him say he is fed up with the Kurds unrelenting demands.

IranThe Kurdish area ofIran has been part of this country from historical times.

Today the Kurds constitute about 7 percent of the overall population. The Persians,Kurds, and speakers of otherIndo-European languages in Iran are descendants of theAryan tribes that began migrating in the second millennium BCE from Central Asiainto what is now Iran.

In the 17th century, a large number of Kurds were settled by Shah Abbas I to Khorasanin eastern Iran and resettled in the cities ofnorthern Khorasan province (Quchan,Bojnurd, Shirvan, DareGaz, and Esfaraeen) to defend Irans frontier against Uzbeks.

Others migrated to Afghanistan where they took refuge. The Kurds of Khorasan,numbering around seven hundred thousand, still use the Kurmanji Kurdish dialect.During the 19th and 20th centuries, successive Iranian governments crushed Kurdishrevolts led by Kurdish notables such as Shaikh Ubaidullah (against the Qajars in 1880)and Simko (against the Pahlavis in the 1920s).

In January 1946, during the Soviet occupation of northwestern Iran, the Soviet-

backed Kurdish Republic of Mahabad declared independence in parts of Iranian

Kurdistan. But Soviet forces left Iran in May 1946, and the self-declared republic

fell to the Iranian army after only a few months; its president, Qazi Muhammad,

was hanged publicly in Mahabad. After the 1953 Iranian coup dtat,Mohammad

Reza Shah Pahlavi was increasingly autocraticand suppressed most opposition

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including Kurdish political groups seeking greater rights for Iranian Kurds. He alsoprohibited any teaching of the Kurdish language.[100][hyperlink?]

Kurdish political organizations were enthusiastic supporters of the revolution

against the Shah, which brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power in February 1979.

The Shah had shown himself to be no friend of Kurdish aspirations for greaterautonomy and a loosening of Tehrans control over their affairs. Yet, since the earlydays of the revolution, relations between the central government and Kurdishorganizations have been fraught with difficulties.

The Kurds, with their different language and traditions and their cross-border alliances,were seen as vulnerable to exploitation by foreign powers who sought to destabilize theyoung republic. Sunni Kurds, unlike the overwhelming majority of their countrymen,abstained from voting to endorse the creation of an Islamic Republic in April 1979.That referendum institutionalized Shia primacy and made no provision for regionalautonomy.

The crisis deepened after Kurds were denied seats in the Assembly of Experts gatheringin 1979, which was responsible for writing the new constitution. Khomeini barredAbdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the elected representative of the region, from participatingin the Assembly of Experts first meeting. Hence the new Iranian constitution deprivedthe mostly-Sunni Kurds of their political rights.

In early 1979, hostilities broke out between armed Kurdish factions and the

Iranian revolutionary governments security forces. The Kurdish forces mainlyincluded the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and the leftist Komala(Revolutionary Organization of Kurdish Toilers).

The new leadership had little patience for Kurdish demands and opted to crush unrestmilitarily. In a December 1979 speech, Khomeini said the concept of an ethnic minorityran counter to Islamic doctrines. He also accused those who do not wish Muslimcountries to be unitedof creating the issue of nationalism among minorities. His viewswere shared by many in the clerical leadership.

In the spring of 1980, government forces under the command of President

Abolhassan Banisadr took back most of the Kurdish cities through a huge military

campaign, sending in mechanized military divisions to Mahabad, Sanandaj, Pawe,

and Marivan, and others. Entire villages and towns were destroyed to force Kurdsinto submission. Ayatollah Khalkhali sentenced thousands of men to execution

after summary trials. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps fought to

reestablish government control in the Kurdish regions. More than ten thousand

Kurds were killed in the process.

In 1997, Sunni Kurds like many other Iranians took part in the presidential election.Both civilian and military Kurdish opposition groups asked Kurds not to be indifferenttoward it. The winner, President Khatami, praised the glory of Kurdish culture andhistory. From the Kurdish side, the demands mainly concerned the Kurdish languageand top-level officials. [unclear] In his first term, Khatami appointed Abdollah

Ramezanzadeh to be the first Kurdish governor of the Iranian province of Kurdistan. He

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also appointed several Sunni and Shia Kurds as his own or cabinet members advisers.In his second term Khatami had two Kurdish cabinet members, both of them Shia.

In February 1999, Kurdish nationalists staged massive protests in several cities

such as Mahabad, Sanandaj, and Urmia opposing the government and supporting

Abdullah Ocalan. This was viewed as trans-nationalization of the Kurdishmovement. These protests were violently suppressed by government forces.

The increased presence of Kurdish representatives in the sixth parliament (elected in2000) led to expectations that some of their constituents demands would be met. Afterthe first round, in which eighteen Kurds were elected, one candidate said he expectedthat there would be more Kurdish instruction at the university in Sanandaj, and hecalled on the Khatami government to appoint more Kurdish officials. Subsequently, aforty-member parliamentary faction was formed that represented the predominantlyKurdish provinces of Kurdistan and Kermanshah. However, many other civilianKurdish activists did not join the reform movement. Among the latter was Mohammad

Sadiq Kaboudvand, who started an independent human rights association to defendKurds rights.

In present-day Iran, while Shia religious institutions are encouraged, Sunni institutionsareblocked. [unclearprohibited? suppressed?] In 1993, a newly constructed Sunnimosque in Sanandaj was destroyed by a mob of Shia zealots. Despite the fact thatmore than one million Sunnis live in Tehran, many of them Kurds, no Sunni

mosque exists to serve their religious needs. In a rare public protest, eighteen Sunniparliamentarians wrote to the authorities in July 2003 to criticize the treatment of theSunni Muslim community and the refusal to allow construction of a mosque in Tehran.

On 9 July 2005, the Kurdish opposition activist Shivan Qaderi (also known as ShwaneQadri or Sayed Kamal Asfaram) and two other Kurdish men were shot by Iraniansecurity forces in Mahabad. According to witnesses, the security forces then tiedQaderis body to a Toyotajeep and dragged it through the streets. Iranian authoritiesconfirmed that Qaderi, who was on the run and wanted by the judiciary, was shot andkilled while allegedly evading arrest.

For the next six weeks riots and protests erupted in Kurdish towns and villagesthroughout eastern Kurdistan such as Mahabad, Sinne (Sanandaj), Sardasht, Piranshahr(Xan), Oshnavieh (ino), Baneh,Bokan, and Saqiz (and even inspiring protests in

southwestern Iran and in Baluchistan in eastern Iran). Scores were killed and injured,and an untold number arrested without charge. The authorities also shut down severalmajor Kurdish newspapers, arresting reporters and editors.

On 13 March 2006, Saleh Nikbakht, a well-known Iranian human rights lawyer whowas Qaderis attorney, announced that Qaderis killer was a member of the police whoshot the victim illegally. He added that the murderer and the one who ordered the actwere under investigation and the judiciary system had so far been cooperative.Previously government authorities had accused Qaderi of moral and financialviolations; Saleh Nikbakht rejected all these allegations.

Kurds have suffered a long history of discrimination in Iran. At the beginning of the21st century,[needs to be more exact] a number of Kurdish activists, writers, and

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teachers were arrested for their work and sentenced to death. This appears to have beenpart of the governments suppression of the nationwide protests overIrans presidentialelections. [which elections?what year?] Even before the elections, Kurdish rebelgroups specifically the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) had taken up armsagainst the state.

In November 2009, Iran executed Kurdish activist Ehsan Fattahian the first of over adozen political prisoners on death row despite an international campaign calling forhis release. The authorities had accused him of carrying arms for an illegalorganization and given him a prison term. Fattahian never confessed to carrying arms.He was neither given a fair trial nor access to his lawyer, and the Komala the illegalorganization he was accused of associating with claimed he had left the group a longtime ago. When Fattahian attempted to appeal, he was sentenced to death for enmityagainst God. His execution was condemned by international human rights groups andactivists.

In January 2010, Iran executed a second Kurdish political prisoner, Fasih Yasamani, forenmity against God. Like Fattahian, Yasamani was tortured and authorities tried toforce him to confess but he refused. He was also denied a fair trial.

Without notifying their families or lawyers, Iranian authorities ordered the execution offive more Kurdish political prisoners: Ali Heydarian, Farhad Vakili, Mehdi Eslamian,Shirin Alam Hooli, and Farzad Kamangar, a teacher who received much internationalattention following his arrest on 9 May 2010. These five suffered severe torture andwere also demanded to confess their membership in the illegal PJAK. None were givenfair trials or access to their lawyers. Amnesty International described the executions asa blatant attempt to intimidate members of the Kurdish minority. All the activistsdenied any links to the PJAK, and its leader denied any links to them.

Despite repeated international calls for the release or retrial of these five politicalprisoners, all were executed without prior notice. The Iranian authorities refused toreturn their bodies to their families.

As of May 2010, there were at least sixteen other Kurdish political prisoners on

death row. Not one case has been reported as receiving a fair trial. [update thisparagraph?]

Syria

Kurds account for roughly 9 percent ofSyrias population, a total of perhaps 1.6

million people. This makes them the largest ethnic minority in the country. They

are mostly concentrated in the northeast and the north, but there are also

significant Kurdish populations in Aleppo, Damascus, and other urban centers.

Kurds often speak Kurdish in public, unless all those present do not. According toAmnesty International, Kurdish human rights activists suffer persecution. No political

parties are allowed for any group, Kurdish or otherwise.

Most of the Kurds in Syria originally came from Turkey in the 1920s. Thecommunity in Syria is quite small compared to their compatriots in Iran, Iraq, and

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Turkey. However, beginning in 1980, Kurds in Syria changed their tactics. Violentclashes with authorities resulted in mass arrests and deaths in 1986 and 1992.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. State Department and CIA did not acknowledgethe existence of the Kurds in Syria. To this day the Syrian government does not

officially acknowledge their existence. Given the lack of any transparent census inSyria, it is difficult to assess their actual percentage of the population.

Kurds mostly live in a geocultural region in northeastern Syria. This area covers mostof the governorate ofAl-Hasakah, also inhabited by many Assyrians. The main cities inthis region are Al-Qamishli and Al-Hasakah. Another region with a significant Kurdish

population is Kobany (Ain al-Arab) in northern Syria near the town ofJarabluss. InKurdish, the Kurdish-inhabited northern and northeastern parts of Syria are calledKurdistana Binxet. An area of Kurdish concentration is Kurd-Dagh in the northwest,around the town ofAfrin in the Aleppo Governorate, a region that extends to theTurkish districts ofIslahiye and Krkhan. As noted, many Kurds also live in

metropolitan areas.

In 1957, the activists Osman Sabri and Daham Miro, along with some Kurdishpoliticians, founded the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria (KDPS). Its objectiveswere to promote Kurdish cultural rights, economic progress, and democratic change.KDPS was never legally recognized by the Syrian state and remains an undergroundorganization, especially since a crackdown in 1960 during which several of its leaderswere arrested, charged with separatism, and imprisoned.

After the failure of the Syrian political union with Egypt in 1961, Syria was

declared an Arab Republic in the interim constitution. On 23 August 1962, the

government conducted a special population census only for the province of Jazira,

which was predominantly Kurdish. As a result, around 120,000 Kurds there were

arbitrarily categorized as aliens. In fact, the inhabitants had Syrian identity cards

and were told to hand them over for renewal. However, those Kurds who

submitted their cards received nothing in return.

Indeed, a media campaign was launched against the Kurds with slogans such as SaveArabism in Jazira! and Fight the Kurdish threat! These policies coincided with the

beginning ofBarzanis uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan and the discovery of oilfields in theKurdish-inhabited areas of Syria. In June 1963, Syria took part in the Iraqi military

campaign against the Kurds by providing aircraft, armored vehicles, and sixthousand troops. Syrian soldiers crossed the Iraqi border and moved into the

Kurdish town ofZakho in pursuit ofBarzanis fighters.

In 1962, 20 percent of Syrias Kurdish population was stripped of its citizenship

following a controversial census that raised the concern of human rights groups.

The Syrian government claimed this was necessary because groups of Kurds hadillegally infiltrated the Al-Hasakah Governorate in 1945 from neighboring countries,especially Turkey. The government said these Kurds had gradually settled in cities ofthe region, such as Amuda and Al-Qamishli, until they made up the majority in some ofthem. The government also claimed that many Kurds were able to enter themselves

illegally onto the Syrian civil registers. The government further conjectured that Kurdsaimed to acquire property, especially after the agricultural reform law was enacted, so

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as to benefit from land redistribution. Human Rights Watch, however, asserted that thegovernment had lied in claiming that many of the Kurds who were original inhabitantswere foreigners, and had violated their human rights by revoking their Syriancitizenship.

On 5 October 1962, the government decided to conduct a general census in thegovernorate. It claimed its sole purpose was to purify registers and eliminate the alieninfiltrators. As a result, the verified details of Syrian citizens were included in the newcivil registers, while a hundred thousand Kurds were listed as foreigners in specialregisters. Many others did not participate in the census through choice or othercircumstances; they are known as unrecorded. Since then the number of statelessKurds in Syria has grown; Refugees International puts it at about three hundredthousand, but Kurds say it is even higher at five hundred thousand. A recentindependent report has confirmed that there are at least three hundred thousand statelessKurds in the country.

In 1965, the Syrian government decided to create an Arab cordon in the Jaziraregion along the Turkish border. The cordon would be 300 kilometers (186 miles)

long and 10-15 kilometers (6 to 9 miles) wide, stretching from the Iraqi border in

the east to Ras al-Ain in the west. Implementation of the plan began in 1973 as

Bedouin Arabs were brought in and resettled in Kurdish areas. The toponomy ofthe area, such as village names, was Arabized.

According to the original plan, some 140,000 Kurds had to be deported to the southerndesert near Al-Raad. Although Kurdish farmers were dispossessed of their lands, theyrefused to move and give up their houses. Among these Kurdish villagers, those whowere designated as alien are not allowed to own property, repair a crumbling house, or

build a new one. In Syria, other than in the Al-Hasakah governorate, foreigners cannotbe employed in government agencies and state-owned enterprises; nor can they legallymarry Syrian citizens. Kurds with foreigner status cannot vote in elections or run for

public office, and when they attend universities they are often persecuted and denieddegrees. Stateless Kurds in Syria also are not awarded school certificates[how, then,can they attend universities at all, as mentioned in the previous sentence?] and often areunable to travel outside of their provinces.

Kurdish human rights organizations and others decry Syrian Arab racism and apartheid,especially against the Kurdish minority. Techniques used to suppress the Kurds ethnic

identity include various bans on the Kurdish language, refusing to register children withKurdish names, replacing Kurdish place names with new Arabic ones, and prohibitingbusinesses that do not have Arabic names, Kurdish private schools, and books and othermaterials written in Kurdish. Having been denied the right to Syrian nationality, aroundthree hundred thousand Kurds have been deprived of any social rights, in violation ofinternational law. These Kurds are, in effect, trapped within Syria.

In March 2011, in part to prevent further unrest from spreading across Syria, thegovernment promised to tackle the issue and grant Syrian citizenship to theseapproximately three hundred thousand Kurds. In April 2011, President Bashar al-Assadsigned Decree 49, which provides citizenship for Kurds who were registered as

foreigners in Al-Hasakah. However, a recent independent report indicates that theactual number of stateless Kurds who have obtained their national ID cards since the

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decree does not exceed six thousand, leaving the rest of the three hundred thousand inthe same limbo.

Following the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, activists used Facebook to declare 4February 2011 a Day of Rage in Syria. Few turned out to protest, but among them

were Kurds in the northeast of the country. On 7 October 2011, Kurdish leaderMashaalTammo was gunned down in his apartment by masked men widely believed to beregime agents. During Tammos funeral procession the next day in the town ofQamishli, security forces fired into a crowd of more than fifty thousand mourners,killing five. According to Tammos son, Fares Tammo, My fathers assassination isthe screw in the regimes coffin. They made a big mistake by killing my father.

Indeed, beyond the issues of military-civilian relations, the revolt against Assad willsucceed only if growing segments of the population join the fight. One such group isthe Kurds, who are already sizably involved in this insurrection. Some even assess thatthey hold the key to the fate of this struggle, in which Kurds have taken part since its

outbreak. Tammos assassination hardened many Kurds resolve against the regime.Nevertheless, the Kurds have been very suspicious of the anti-regime Syrian NationalCouncil (SNC). The Kurds were denied proper representation in the SNCs council andgeneral assembly, receiving only 4 of 29 seats in the former and 22 of 230 in the latter.

Nevertheless, Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish Regional Government innorthern Iraq, invited the Syrian Kurdish parties to a meeting in Irbil, Iraq, on January28, 2012. The purpose of the meeting was to call for the overthrow of the regime ofBashir Assad, against the advice of Iran and the PKK.

Armenia

From the 1930s to the 1980s, Armenia was part of the Soviet Union, within whichKurds, like other ethnic groups, had the status of a protected minority. Armenian Kurdswere permitted their own state-sponsored newspaper, radio broadcasts, and culturalevents. During the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, many non-Yazidi Kurds were forcedto leave their homes since both the Azeri and non-Yazidi Kurds were Muslim.

Azerbaijan

In 1920, two Kurdish-inhabited areas of Jewanshir (capital Kalbajar) and easternZangazur (capital Lachin) were combined to form the Kurdistan Okrug (or RedKurdistan). The Kurdish administrative unit, however, did not last beyond 1929. Kurdssubsequently faced many repressive measures, including deportations, imposed by theSoviet government. The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh has led to the destruction ofmany Kurdish areas, and since 1988 separatist Armenian forces have deported morethan 150,000 Kurds.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashaal_Tammohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashaal_Tammohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qamishlihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Unionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalbajarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lachinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Okrughttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSRhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh_Warhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashaal_Tammohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashaal_Tammohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qamishlihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Unionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalbajarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lachinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Okrughttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSRhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh_War


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Lebanon

The Kurds in Lebanon have not received public or official attention except at timeswhen young Kurds were needed to fight a certain battle for a certain area, or whenKurdish votes were needed by a local leader. Virtually nothing has been published onthe Kurds in Lebanon, with the Kurdish community failing to provide the necessaryinformation. Kurds in Lebanon are considered Sunni Muslims with no special ethnicstatus. Before 1985 they were estimated to number 60,000-90,000.

Georgia

In the early 20th century, most Kurds undergoing religious persecution in the OttomanEmpire fledto the Russian Empire. The Kurds in Georgia mainly live in Tbilisi, thecapital, and in Rustavi. Georgi

The Future of Kurdistan

Documents

Transcript of The Future of Kurdistan