From the BBC:
“Who are the Kurds?”
Between 25 and 35 million Kurds
inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria,
Iran and Armenia. They make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle
East, but they have never obtained a permanent nation state.
Where do they come from?
The Kurds are one of the
indigenous peoples of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands in what are now
south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Syria, northern Iraq, north-western Iran
and south-western Armenia. Today, they
form a distinctive community, united through race, culture and language, even
though they have no standard dialect. They also adhere to a number of different
religions and creeds, although the majority are Sunni Muslims.
Why don't they have a state?
Despite their long history, the
Kurds have never achieved a permanent nation state In the early 20th Century, many Kurds began to
consider the creation of a homeland - generally referred to as
"Kurdistan". After World War One and the defeat of the Ottoman
Empire, the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the
1920 Treaty of Sevres. Such hopes were
dashed three years later, however, when the Treaty of Lausanne, which set the
boundaries of modern Turkey, made no provision for a Kurdish state and left
Kurds with minority status in their respective countries. Over the next 80
years, any move by Kurds to set up an independent state was brutally quashed.
Why were Kurds at the forefront
of the fight against IS?
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters
have been fighting IS militants in northern Iraq In mid-2013, the jihadist group Islamic State (IS)
turned its sights on three Kurdish enclaves that bordered territory under its
control in northern Syria. It launched repeated attacks that until mid-2014
were repelled by the People's Protection Units (YPG) - the armed wing of the
Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). An IS advance in northern Iraq in June 2014
also drew that country's Kurds into the conflict. The government of Iraq's
autonomous Kurdistan Region sent its Peshmerga forces to areas abandoned by the
Iraqi army. In August 2014, the
jihadists launched a surprise offensive and the Peshmerga withdrew from several
areas. A number of towns inhabited by religious minorities fell, notably
Sinjar, where IS militants killed or captured thousands of Yazidis. Turkish
military personnel did not intervene in the battle for Kobane In response, a US-led multinational coalition
launched air strikes in northern Iraq and sent military advisers to help the
Peshmerga. The YPG and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought for
Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for three decades and has bases in Iraq, also came
to their aid. In September 2014, IS launched an assault on the enclave around
the northern Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane, forcing tens of thousands of people
to flee across the nearby Turkish border. Despite the proximity of the
fighting, Turkey refused to attack IS positions or allow Turkish Kurds to cross
to defend it. Kurds accused Turkish authorities of complicity after a 2015
suicide bombing in Suruc. In January 2015, after a battle that left at least
1,600 people dead, Kurdish forces regained control of Kobane. The Kurds - fighting alongside several local
Arab militias under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance,
and helped by US-led coalition air strikes, weapons and advisers - then
steadily drove IS out of tens of thousands of square kilometres of territory in
north-eastern Syria and established control over a large stretch of the border
with Turkey. In October 2017, SDF fighters captured the de facto IS capital of
Raqqa and then advanced south-eastwards into the neighbouring province of Deir
al-Zour - the jihadists' last major foothold in Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance captured the IS stronghold of Raqqa The last pocket of territory held by IS in
Syria - around the village of Baghouz - fell to the SDF in March 2019. The SDF
hailed the "total elimination" of the IS "caliphate", but
it warned that jihadist sleeper cells remained "a great threat" to
the world. The SDF was also left to deal with the thousands of suspected IS
militants captured during the last two years of the battle, as well as tens of
thousands of displaced women and children associated with IS fighters. The US
called for the repatriation of foreign nationals among them, but most of their
home countries refused to do so. Now,
the Kurds face a military offensive by Turkey, which wants to set up a 32km
(20-mile) deep "safe zone" inside north-eastern Syria to protect its
border and resettle up to 2 million Syrian refugees. The SDF says it will
defend its territory "at all costs" and that hard-won gains in the
battle against IS are being put at risk. The Syrian government, which is backed
by Russia, also continues to promise to take back control of all of Syria.
Why does Turkey see Kurds as a
threat?
PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan has been imprisoned
by Turkey since 1999 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 people designated "Mountain
Turks". In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan
established the PKK, which called for an independent state within Turkey. Six
years later, the group began an armed struggle. Since then, more than 40,000
people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. More than 40,000 people have been killed since
the PKK launched an armed struggle in 1984 In the 1990s the PKK rolled back on its demand
for independence, calling instead for greater cultural and political autonomy,
but continued to fight. In 2013, a ceasefire was agreed after secret talks were
held. The ceasefire collapsed in July 2015, after a suicide bombing blamed on
IS killed 33 young activists in the mainly Kurdish town of Suruc, near the
Syrian border. The PKK accused the authorities of complicity and attacked
Turkish soldiers and police. The Turkish government subsequently launched what
it called a "synchronised war on terror" against the PKK and IS. Since then, several thousand people -
including hundreds of civilians - have been killed in clashes in south-eastern
Turkey. The city of Cizre was devastated
by fighting between Turkish forces and the PKK Turkey has maintained a military presence in
northern Syria since August 2016, when it sent troops and tanks over the border
to support a Syrian rebel offensive against IS. Those forces captured the key
border town of Jarablus, preventing the YPG-led SDF from seizing the territory
itself and linking up with the Kurdish enclave of Afrin to the west. In 2018, Turkish troops and allied Syrian
rebels launched an operation to expel YPG fighters from Afrin. Dozens of
civilians were killed and tens of thousands displaced. Turkey's government says
the YPG and the PYD are extensions of the PKK, share its goal of secession
through armed struggle, and are terrorist organisations that must be
eliminated.
Turkey's fear of a reignited
Kurdish flame
The Democratic Union Party (PYD)
is the dominant force in Syria's Kurdish regions Kurds make up between 7% and 10% of Syria's
population. Before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011
most lived in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo, and in three, non-contiguous
areas around Kobane, Afrin, and the north-eastern city of Qamishli. Syria's
Kurds have long been suppressed and denied basic rights. Some 300,000 have been
denied citizenship since the 1960s, and Kurdish land has been confiscated and
redistributed to Arabs in an attempt to "Arabize" Kurdish regions. When the uprising evolved into a civil war,
the main Kurdish parties publicly avoided taking sides. In mid-2012, government
forces withdrew to concentrate on fighting the rebels elsewhere, and Kurdish
groups took control in their wake. The YPG
has emerged as a key ally of the US-led coalition battle against IS In January 2014, Kurdish parties - including
the dominant Democratic Union Party (PYD) - declared the creation of
"autonomous administrations" in the three "cantons" of
Afrin, Kobane and Jazira. In March 2016,
they announced the establishment of a "federal system" that included
mainly Arab and Turkmen areas captured from IS. The declaration was rejected by the Syrian
government, the Syrian opposition, Turkey and the US. The creation of a federal system in
Kurdish-controlled northern Syria was announced in 2016 The PYD says it is not seeking independence,
but insists that any political settlement to end the conflict in Syria must
include legal guarantees for Kurdish rights and recognition of Kurdish
autonomy. President Assad has vowed to
retake "every inch" of Syrian territory, whether by negotiations or
military force. His government has also rejected Kurdish demands for autonomy,
saying that "nobody in Syria accepts talk about independent entities or
federalism".
Will Iraq's Kurds gain
independence?
A peace deal agreed by the KDP
and Iraq's government in 1970 collapsed four years later Kurds make up an estimated 15% to 20% of
Iraq's population. They have historically enjoyed more national rights than
Kurds living in neighbouring states, but also faced brutal repression. In 1946,
Mustafa Barzani formed the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to fight for autonomy
in Iraq. But it was not until 1961 that he launched a full armed struggle. Some
1.5 million Iraqi Kurds fled into Iran and Turkey after the 1991 rebellion was
crushed In the late 1970s, the
government began settling Arabs in areas with Kurdish majorities, particularly
around the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and forcibly relocating Kurds. The policy was accelerated in the 1980s during
the Iran-Iraq War, in which the Kurds backed the Islamic republic. In 1988,
Saddam Hussein unleashed a campaign of vengeance on the Kurds that included the
chemical attack on Halabja. When Iraq
was defeated in the 1991 Gulf War, Barzani's son Massoud and Jalal Talabani of
the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led a Kurdish rebellion. Its
violent suppression prompted the US and its allies to impose a no-fly zone in
the north that allowed Kurds to enjoy self-rule. The KDP and PUK agreed to
share power, but tensions rose and a four-year war erupted between them in
1994. Massoud Barzani's KDP and Jalal Talabani's PUK shared power after the
fall of Saddam The parties co-operated
with the US-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam and governed in coalition
in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), created two years later to
administer Dohuk, Irbil and Sulaimaniya provinces. Massoud Barzani was
appointed the region's president, while Jalal Talabani became Iraq's first
non-Arab head of state. In September 2017, a referendum on independence was
held in both the Kurdistan Region and the disputed areas seized by the
Peshmerga in 2014, including Kirkuk. The vote was opposed by the Iraqi central
government, which insisted it was illegal. People in Kurdish-held areas
decisively backed independence in a September 2017 referendum More than 90% of the 3.3 million people who
voted supported secession. KRG officials said the result gave them a mandate to
start negotiations with Baghdad, but then Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi
demanded that it be annulled. The
following month Iraqi pro-government forces retook the disputed territory held
by the Kurds. The loss of Kirkuk and its oil revenue was a major blow to
Kurdish aspirations for their own state. After his gamble backfired, Mr Barzani
stepped down as the Kurdistan Region's president. But disagreements between the
main parties meant the post remained vacant until June 2019, when he was
succeeded by his nephew Nechirvan.
^ Since not many people around
the world understand who the Kurds are I thought this would help them. ^
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