Kurdistan ("Land of the Kurds"; also formerly spelled ''Curdistan''; ancient name: ''Corduene'') is a roughly defined geo-cultural region wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population, and Kurdish culture, language, and national identity have historically been based.

Contemporary use of Kurdistan refers to parts of eastern Turkey (Turkish Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan), northwestern Iran (Iranian Kurdistan) and northern Syria inhabited mainly by Kurds. Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges, and covers small portions of Armenia.

Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government and its status was re-confirmed as an autonomous entity within the federal Iraqi republic in 2005. There is also a province by the name ''Kurdistan'' in Iran, although it does not enjoy self-rule.

Some Kurdish nationalist organizations seek to create an independent nation state of Kurdistan, consisting of some or all of the areas with Kurdish majority, while others campaign for greater Kurdish autonomy within the existing national boundaries.

History

Ancient period

Various groups, among them the Guti, Hurrian , Mannai (Mannaeans), and Armenians had lived in this region in antiquity The original Mannaean homeland was situated east and south of the Lake Urmia, roughly centered around modern-day Mahabad. The Medes came under Persian rule during the reign of Cyrus the Great and Darius.

The Kingdom of Corduene, which emerged from the declining Seleucid Empire, was located to the south and south-east of Lake Van between Persia and Mesopotamia and ruled northern Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia from 189 BC to AD 384. At its zenith, the Roman Empire ruled large Kurdish-inhabited areas, particularly the western and northern Kurdish areas in the Middle East. Corduene became a vassal state of the Roman Republic in 66 BC and remained allied with the Romans until AD 384. Corduene was situated to the east of Tigranocerta, that is, to the east and south of present-day Diyarbakır in south-eastern Turkey.

Some historians have correlated a connection between Corduene‎ with the modern names of Kurds and Kurdistan; ''T. A. Sinclair'' dismissed this identification as false, while a common association is asserted in the Columbia Encyclopedia.

Some of the ancient districts of Kurdistan and their corresponding modern names:

#Corduene or Gordyene (Siirt, Bitlis and Şırnak) #Sophene (Diyarbakır) #Zabdicene or Bezabde (''Gozarto d'Qardu'' or ''Jazirat Ibn'' or Cizre) #Basenia (Bayazid) #Moxoene (Muş) #Nephercerta (''Miyafarkin'') #Artemita (Van)

One of the earliest records of the phrase ''land of the Kurds'' is found in a Syriac Christian document of late antiquity, describing the stories of Christian saints of the Middle East, such as the Abdisho. When the Sassanid Marzban asked Mar Abdisho about his place of origin, he replied that according to his parents, they were originally from ''Hazza'', a village in Assyria. However they were later driven out of Hazza by pagans, and settled in ''Tamanon'', which according to Abdisho was in the ''land of the Kurds''. Tamanon lies just north of the modern Iraq-Turkey border, while Hazza is 12 km southwest of modern Irbil. In another passage in the same document, the region of the Khabur River is also identified as ''land of the Kurds''.

Medieval period

In tenth and eleventh centuries, several Kurdish principalities emerged in the region: in the North the Shaddadid (951–1174) (in east Transcaucasia between the Kur and Araxes rivers) and the Rawadid (955–1221) (centered in Tabriz and ruled all of Azarbaijan), in the East the Hasanwayhid (959–1015) (in Zagros between Shahrizor and Khuzistan) and the Annazid (990–1116) (centered in Hulwan) and in the West the Marwanid (990–1096) in south of Diyarbakır and north of Jazira.

Kurdistan in the Middle Ages was a collection of semi-independent and independent states called "emirates". It was nominally under indirect political or religious influence of Khalifs or Shahs. A comprehensive history of these states and their relationship with their neighbors is given in the text of "Sharafnama", written by Prince Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi in 1597. The emirates included Baban, Soran, Badinan and Garmiyan in present-day Iraq; Bakran, Bohtan (or Botan) and Badlis in Turkey, and Mukriyan and Ardalan in Iran.

The earliest medieval attestation of the toponym ''Kurdistan'' is found in a 12th century Armenian historical text by Matteos Urhayeci. He described a battle near Amid and Siverek in 1062 as to have taken place in ''Kurdistan''. The second record occurs in the prayer from the colophon of an Armenian manuscript of the Gospels, written in 1200.

A later use of the term Kurdistan is found in Nuzhat-al-Qulub, written by Hamdollah Mostowfi in 1340.

Modern period

In the 16th century, after prolonged wars, Kurdish-inhabited areas were split between the Safavid and Ottoman empires. A major division of Kurdistan occurred in the aftermath of the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, and was formalized in the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab. Prior to World War I, most Kurds lived within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire in the province of Kurdistan.. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies contrived to create several countries within its former boundaries – according to the never-ratified Treaty of Sèvres, Kurdistan, along with Armenia, were to be among them. However, the reconquest of these areas by the forces of Kemal Atatürk (and other pressing issues) caused the Allies to accept the renegotiated Treaty of Lausanne and the borders of the modern Republic of Turkey – leaving the Kurds without a self-ruled region. Other Kurdish areas were assigned to the new British and French mandated states of Iraq and Syria.

At the San Francisco Peace Conference of 1945, the Kurdish delegation proposed consideration of territory claimed by the Kurds, which encompassed an area extending from the Mediterranean shores near Adana to the shores of the Persian Gulf near Bushehr, and included the Lur inhabited areas of southern Zagros.

At the end of the First Gulf War, the Allies established a safe haven in northern Iraq. Amid the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from three northern provinces, Iraqi Kurdistan emerged in 1992 as an autonomous entity inside Iraq with its own local government and parliament.

People

The Kurds are a people of Indo-European origin. They speak an Iranic language known as Kurdish, and comprise the majority of the population of the region – however, included therein are Arab, Armenian, Assyrian, Azeri, Jewish, Ossetian, Persian, and Turkic communities. Most inhabitants are Muslim, but adherents to other religions are present as well- including Yazidis, the Yarsan, Alevis, Christians, and Jews.

Geography

According to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', Kurdistan covers about 190,000 km², and its chief towns are Diyarbakır (Amed), Bitlis (Bedlîs) and Van (Wan) in Turkey, Arbil (Hewlêr) and Slemani in Iraq, and Kermanshah (Kirmanşan), Sanandaj (Sine) and Mahabad (Mehabad) in Iran. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Kurdistan covers around 190,000 km² in Turkey, 125,000 km² in Iran, 65,000 km² in Iraq, and 12,000 km² in Syria, with a total area of approximately 392,000 km².

Iraqi Kurdistan is divided into six governorates, three of which (and parts of others) are under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Iranian Kurdistan encompasses Kurdistan Province and the greater parts of West Azerbaijan, Kermanshah, and Īlām provinces. Syrian Kurdistan (Kurdish: ''Kurdistana Binxetê'') is located primarily in northeastern Syria, and covers the greater part of the province of Al Hasakah. The major cities in this region are Al-Qamishli (Kurdish: ''Qamişlû'') and Al Hasakah (Kurdish: ''Hesaka'').

Turkish Kurdistan encompasses a large area of south eastern Turkey and it is home to an estimated 15 to 20 million Kurds.

Subdivisions (Upper and Lower Kurdistan)

In ''A Dictionary of Scripture Geography'' (published 1846), John Miles describes Upper and Lower Kurdistan as following:

The northern, northwestern and northeastern parts of Kurdistan are referred to as upper Kurdistan, and includes the areas from west of Amed to lake Urmia.

The lowlands of southern Kurdistan are called lower Kurdistan. The main cities in this area are Kirkuk and Arbil.

Climate

Much of the region is typified by an extreme continental climate – hot in the summer, bitterly cold in the winter. Despite this, much of the region is fertile and has historically exported grain and livestock. Precipitation varies between 200 and 400 mm a year in the plains, and between 700 and 3,000 mm a year on the high plateaux between mountain chains.

Forests

Kurdistan is a mountainous region with a cold climate receiving annual precipitation adequate to sustain temperate forests and shrubs. Mountain chains harbor pastures and forested valleys, totaling approximately 16 million hectares (160,000 km²), including firs and other conifers, oaks, platanus, willow, and poplar.

Mountains

Mountains are important geographical and symbolic features of Kurdish life, as evidenced by the saying "Kurds have no friends but the mountains". Included in the region are Mount Judi and Ararat (both prominent in Kurdish folklore), Zagros, Shingar, Qendil, Shaho, Gabar, Hamrin, and Nisir.

Rivers

The plateaus and mountains of Kurdistan, which are characterized by heavy rain and snow fall, act as a water reservoir for the Near and Middle East, forming the source of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as well as other numerous smaller rivers, such as the Khabur, Tharthar, Ceyhan, Araxes, Kura, Sefidrud, Karkha, and Hezil. Among rivers of historical importance to Kurds are the Murat (Arasān) and Buhtān rivers in in Turkey; the Peshkhābur, the Little Zab, the Great Zab, and the Diyala in Iraq; and the Jaghatu (Zarrinarud), the Tātā'u (Siminarud), the Zohāb (Zahāb), and the Gāmāsiyāb in Iran.

These rivers, which flow from heights of three to four thousand meters above sea level, are significant both as water sources and for the production of energy. Iraq and Syria dammed many of these rivers and their tributaries, and Turkey has an extensive dam system under construction as part of the GAP (Southeast Anatolia Project); though incomplete, the GAP already supplies a significant proportion of Turkey's electrical energy needs. Due to the extraordinary archaeological richness of the region, almost any dam impacts historic sites.

Lakes

Kurdistan extends to Lake Urmia in Iran on the east and to semi-contiguous Kurdish-inhabited regions to the west on the Mediterranean. The region includes Lake Van, the largest body of water in Turkey; the only lake in the Middle East with a larger surface is Lake Urmia – though not nearly as deep as Lake Van, which has a much larger volume. Urmia, Van, as well as Zarivar Lake west of Marivan, and Lake Dukan near the city of Sulaymaniyah, are frequented by tourists.

Petroleum and mineral resources

KRG-controlled parts of Iraqi Kurdistan are estimated to contain around of oil, making it the sixth largest reserve in the world. Extraction of these reserves began in 2007. Iraq's former Baath regime controls the resources of Kirkuk and Mosul, cities claimed by the KRG to be included in its territory.

As of July 2007, the Kurdish government solicited foreign companies to invest in 40 new oil sites, with the hope of increasing regional oil production over the following 5 years by a factor of five, to about . Gas and associated gas reserves are in excess of 100 TCF.

Other mineral resources that exist in significant quantities in the region include coal, copper, gold, iron, limestone (which is used to produce cement), marble, and zinc. The world's largest deposit of rock sulfur is located just southwest of Arbil (Hewlêr).

Conflict and controversy

The incorporation into Turkey of the Kurdish-inhabited regions of eastern Anatolia was opposed by many Kurds, and has resulted in a long-running separatist conflict in which thousands of lives have been lost. The region saw several major Kurdish rebellions, including the Koçkiri Rebellion of 1920 under the Ottomans, then successive insurrection under the Turkish state – including the 1924 Sheikh Said Rebellion, the Republic of Ararat in 1927, and the 1937 Dersim Rebellion. All were forcefully put down by the authorities. The region was declared a closed military area from which foreigners were banned between 1925 and 1965.

In 1983, the Kurdish provinces were placed under martial law in response to the activities of the militant separatist and terrorist organization, Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). A guerrilla war took place through the 1980s and 1990s in which much of the countryside was evacuated, thousands of Kurdish-populated villages were destroyed, and numerous extrajudicial summary executions were carried out by both sides. More than 37,000 people were killed in the violence and hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave their homes. Volatility in the region eased following the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, and, with the encouragement of European Union, the adoption of tolerance policies toward Kurdish cultural activities by the Turkish state. After 2004, political violence increased, and the Turkish-Iraqi border region remains tense.

Education

See also

Kurdistan Okrug

Kurdistan Regional Government

Turkish Kurdistan

Iranian Kurdistan

Iraqi Kurdistan

Kurds in Syria

List of Kurdish dynasties and countries

References

Category:Middle East Category:Divided regions Category:Fertile Crescent

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Ethnic Kurds compose a significant portion of the population in Turkey (Turkish: ''Türkiye'deki Kürtler'', Kurdish: ''Kurdên li Tirkiye''). Unlike the Turks, the Kurds speak an Indo-European language. There are Kurds living all over Turkey, but most live to the east and southeast of the country, from where they originate.

In the 1930s, Turkish government policy aimed to forcibly assimilate and Turkify local Kurds. Today's presence of Kurds is a testimony that many have resisted these measures. Since 1984, Kurdish resistance movements included both peaceful political activities for basic civil rights for Kurds within Turkey, and violent armed rebellion for a separate Kurdish state. But, according to a Turkish opinion poll, 59% of self-identified Kurds in Turkey think that Kurds in Turkey do not seek a separate state (while 71.3% of self-identified Turks think they do).

History

Under the Ottoman Empire

According to Shaller and Zimmerer in the Journal of Genocide Research, the leadership of Young Turks planned to eliminate Kurdish identity by deporting Kurds from their ancestral land and displacing them in small groups. In this era, the Kurds suffered from deportations and death marches and forced Turkification. The Young Turks partially implemented these plans in WWI and 700,000 Kurds were forcibly removed where approximately 350,000 of these displaces Kurds perished. These Kurds were forced by the Young Turks to go on death march resembling the Armenian marches which was part of a plan to eliminate Kurdish identity.

Under the Republic of Turkey

After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, which ended the caliphates and sultanate in Turkey, there have been several Kurdish rebellions since the 1920s: Koçkiri Rebellion, Sheikh Said Rebellion, Dersim Rebellion, Ararat rebellion.

In 1937–1938, approximately 50,000–70,000 Alevi Kurds were killed and thousands were taken into exile. A key component of the turkification process was the policy of massive population resettlement. Referring to the main policy document in this context, the 1934 law on resettlement, a policy targeting the region of Dersim as one of its first test cases, with disastrous consequences for the local population. The Dersim ethnocide is often confused with the Dersim Rebellion that took place during these events. Today, not much is left of Derim's distinctive culture and the majority of its people live in the diaspora.

After the 1960 coup, the State Planning Organization (, DPT) was established under the Prime Ministry to solve the problem of Kurdish separatism and underdevelopment. In 1961, the DPT prepared a report titled "The principles of the state's 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 Union and Progress under the Ottoman Empire. The Minister of Labor of the time, a 35-year-old Bülent Ecevit, was critical of the report.

During the 1970s, the separatist movement coalesced into the Marxist-Leninist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the United States, United Nations, NATO and the European Union. From 1984 to 1999, the Turkish military was embroiled in a conflict with the PKK. The village guard system was set up and armed by the Turkish state around 1984 to combat the PKK. The militia comprises local Kurds and it has around 58,000 members. Some of the village guards are fiercely loyal to the Turkish state, leading to infighting among Kurdish militants.

Much of the countryside in the southeast was depopulated, with Kurdish civilians moving to local defensible centers such as Diyarbakır, Van, and Şırnak, as well as to the cities of western Turkey and even to western Europe. The causes of the depopulation included PKK atrocities against Kurdish clans they could not control, the poverty of the southeast, and the Turkish state's military operations. Human Rights Watch has documented many instances where the Turkish military forcibly evacuated villages, destroying houses and equipment to prevent the return of the inhabitants. An estimated 3,000 Kurdish villages in Turkey were virtually wiped from the map, representing the displacement of more than 378,000 people.

The epitome of this conflict was during the 1990s, when the National Security Council sanctioned a covert war using the special forces, village guards, mafia, and contract killers. The conflict soon wheeled out of control, resulting in the Susurluk scandal. The conflict tapered off after the capturing of the PKK's leader, Abdullah Öcalan.

In 2010, after PKK rebels killed five Turkish soldiers in a series of incidents in eastern and southeastern Turkey, several locations in Northern Iraq were attacked by the Turkish Air Force . The tense condition has continued on the border since 2007, by both sides responding to each others every offensive move, mostly initiated by attacks from the PKK to the Turkish military bases on the border, reported by witnesses in the border villages.

Following Turkey's electoral board decision to bar prominent Kurdish candidates from standing in upcoming elections, violent Kurdish protests erupted in April 19, 2011, resulting in at least one mortal casualty.

Culture

Music

Between 1982 and 1991 the performance or recording of songs in the Kurdish language was banned in Turkey, affecting singers such as Şivan Perwer and İbrahim Tatlıses. However a black market has long existed in Turkey, and pirate radio stations and underground recordings have always been available. Although there is no ban on performing Kurdish language music, it is effectively prevented from being broadcast on radio or television through censorship.

Some of the foremost figures in Kurdish classical music of the past century from Anatolia include Mihemed 'Arif Cizrawî (1912–1986), Hesen Cizrawî, Şeroyê Biro, 'Evdalê Zeynikê, Si'îd Axayê Cizîrî and the female singers Miryem Xanê and Eyşe Şan.

Şivan Perwer is a composer, vocalist and tembûr player. He concentrates mainly on political and nationalistic music - of which he is considered the founder in Kurdish music - as well as classical and folk music.

Another important Kurdish musician from Turkey is Nizamettin Arıç (Feqiyê Teyra). He began with singing in Turkish, and made his directorial debut and also stars in Klamek ji bo Beko (A Song for Beko), one of the first films in Kurdish. Arıç rejected musical stardom at the cost of debasing his language and culture. As a result of singing in Kurdish, he was imprisoned, and then obliged to flee to Syria and eventually to Germany.

Literature

There is no existing evidence of Kurdish literature of pre-Islamic period. Some sources consider Ali Hariri (1425–1495) as the first well-known poet who wrote in Kurdish. He was from the Hakkari region.

Since the 1970s, there has been a massive effort on the part of Kurds in Turkey to write and to create literary works in Kurdish. The amount of printed material during the last three decades has increased enormously. Many of these activities were centered in Europe particularly Sweden and Germany which have large concentrations of Kurdish immigrants. There are several Kurdish publishers in Sweden, partly supported by the Swedish Government. More than two hundred Kurdish titles have appeared in the 1990s.

Well-known contemporary Kurdish writers from Turkey include Mehmed Uzun, Mehmed Emin Bozarslan, Mahmud Baksi, Hesenê Metê and Rojen Barnas.

Film

Yılmaz Güney was a famous film director, scenarist, novelist and actor. He directed and starred in the film Umut (1970) (Turkish for "Hope"), and his most famous movie is 1982 film Yol (Turkish for "The Road" or "The Way"), which won Palme d'Or in Cannes Film Festival in 1982.

Some other films by Kurdish people in Turkey are Hejar (aka ''Big Man, Little Love'') by Handan İpekçi and Klamek ji bo Beko by Nizamettin Arıç.

Yılmaz Erdoğan is another famous film director, screenwriter, poet and actor from Turkey of Kurdish ethnicity.

Demographics

Most Kurds live in Turkey, where their numbers are estimated somewhere between 11,400,000 and 14,000,000 people. Both figures include Zaza people as Kurds. However Kurdish nationalists claim there are as many as 20 million Kurds in Turkey. These figures are for the number of persons who identify as Kurds, not the number who speak a Kurdish language. Estimates based on native languages place the Kurdish population at 6% to 23%; Ibrahim Sirkeci claims the closest figure should be above 17.8%, taking into account political context and so the potential bias in responses recorded in surveys and censuses. Also the population growth rate of Kurds in 1970s was given as 3.27%.

Today, Kurdish populations remain highest in the traditionally Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey, corresponding with Turkish Kurdistan, as well as the more developed and industrialised northwestern provinces due to significant migration in the late 1980s. There are also Kurds in the Central Anatolia Region, concentrated to the west of Lake Tuz (Haymana, Cihanbeyli, Kulu, Yunak) and also scattered in districts like Alaca, Çiçekdağı, Yerköy, Emirdağ, and Zile, as well as in significant to high numbers of the northeast, most importantly the large presence in Kars and surrounding provinces of the South Caucasus wherein many Kurdish villages scatter across the borders into Armenia and Georgia. According to a March 2007 survey, Kurds and Zazas together comprise an estimated 13.4% of the adult population, and 15.68% of the whole population.

Racism and Intolerance

The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) reports that (as of April 2010): "The public use by officials of the Kurdish language lays them open to prosecution, and public defence by individuals of Kurdish or minority interests also frequently leads to prosecutions under the Criminal Code."

See also

Minorities in Turkey

List of Kurdish people

Syrian Kurds

References

External links

Human Rights Abuses Against the Kurdish Minority a report by Amnesty International

Turkey's "Kurdish Problem": Is the End in Sight?

US Journalist Deported from Turkey After Reporting on Plight of Kurds - video report by ''Democracy Now!''

Category:History of the Kurdish people Category:Ethnic groups in Turkey Category:Kurdish diaspora Category:Ethnic minorities

bg:Кюрди в Турция de:Kurden in der Türkei fr:Kurdistan turc ru:Курды в Турции tr:Türkiye Kürtleri

The Kurdistan Independence referendum of January 2005 that was conducted by the Kurdistan Referendum Movement alongside the Iraqi parliamentary elections and Iraqi Kurdistan elections of 2005, was an informal referendum asking the people of Iraqi Kurdistan whether they favor remaining a part of Iraq or in favor of an independent Kurdistan. The result was an overwhelming majority of 98.8% favoring an independent Kurdistan.

Results

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References

Category:Independence referendums Category:Referendums in Iraq Category:2005 in Iraq Category:2005 referendums Category:2005 elections in Iraq Category:2005 in international relations