Kurdistan

Kurdistan A state for the Kurdish nation which has not yet been established. The Kurds inhabit the border region of Turkey (around eleven million people, or 20 per cent of the population), Iran (around four million people, or 8 per cent of the population), and Iraq (2.5 million people, 15 per cent). In addition, there are smaller Kurdish minorities in Syria (800,000 people, 8 per cent of the population) and Georgia (400,000 people, 8 per cent of the population). As elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, nationalism and a (vague) sense of common identity emerged in the late nineteenth century. The establishment of an independent Kurdistan was determined by the Treaty of Sèvres. However, this never materialized, as Mustafa Kemal's (Atatürk) victorious military campaigns forced the abrogation of the treaty by the Treaty of Lausanne. In addition, Britain was interested in the Kurdish oilfields of Mosul, which it incorporated into its League of Nations Mandate in Iraq.

On account of the rich oilfields of Iraqi Kurdistan, it is here that Kurdish demands for independence have been most forceful and, for that same reason, it is here that these have been most brutally repressed. The first intermittent revolt (1924–32) was triggered by the incorporation of the northern areas around Mosul and Kirkuk into the administrative structure of Iraq. A further prolonged, armed struggle (1958–74), which peaked with the 1962 rebellion, was caused by the 1958 revolution in Iraq and the challenge by the new government to Kurdish rights. It was ended by promises for a limited autonomy, but fighting broke out in 1975, after the deportation of the Kurdish leader Mustafa Bazarni. The Kurds in Iraq sought to profit from the Iran–Iraq War, when, supplied by Iran, they made considerable territorial gains against the Iraqi army. Ultimately, they were defeated, mainly through extensive use of gas warfare by the forces of Saddam Hussein. Lacking any protection after the end of the war, Kurdish leaders were brutally imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Renewed Kurdish resistance during the Gulf War was again brutally repressed.

After its defeat in the war, however, Iraq had to accept the UN's declaration of northern Iraq as a Kurdish ‘safe haven’, so that any Iraqi troops north of the 36th Parallel would be attacked by Nato aircraft stationed in Turkey. For the first time, the area thus gained effective autonomy (challenged by Iraq) that was outside the purview of Iraqi troops. Elections could thus be held in 1992 for a Parliament, in which the Kurdish Patriotic Union (KPU) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) each gained fifty out of 115 seats. The presidential elections of that year were narrowly won by Dzalal Tabani of the KPU, though neither of the elections were recognized by Iraq. The economy of the area continued to be badly affected by the international trade embargo against Iraq, as a result of which Iraq was unwilling to share its scarce resources with the breakaway region. Constant friction between the KPU and the KDP weakened autonomous Kurdistan still further, so that in August 1996 Saddam Hussein was able to reimpose some of his authority in alliance with the KDP, against the Iran-backed KPU. The Kurdish areas in Northern Iraq were subject to occasional attacks by the Turkish army, which in 1999 and 2000 pursued Kurdish separatists on Iraqi territory.

In Turkey resentment against economic underdevelopment and Turkish unwillingness to recognize Kurdish distinctiveness led to the formation in 1984 of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Declared illegal by the state, it committed numerous terrorist attacks, which claimed around 6,000 lives in the first ten years. The Turkish government was thus forced to recognize Kurdish cultural distinctiveness, but this did not lead to any political autonomy. The brutality of the PKK found its equal in that of the Turkish authorities. Hundreds of Kurdish activists were tortured and maltreated in Turkish prisons each year. Even after 1999, when the PKK's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was imprisoned and sentenced to death, the brutality against Kurds continued. Despite the PKK's effective disbandment, civilian Kurdish leaders continued to be subject to official harassment and even imprisonment. In 2002 much of this pressure eased as Kurds were the main beneficiaries from sweeping new laws introduced under pressure from the EU. These established the right to the maintenance of Kurdish culture, and gave Kurds some protection against arbitrary imprisonment.