Why don’t the Kurds have their own country, and who are they?
The Kurds are known as the world’s largest ethnic group without a homeland of their own, and their fight for independence and autonomy has been ongoing for over a century. With a population totaling around 30 to 40 million people worldwide, they are of Indo-European descent and are one of the indigenous peoples of the Mesopotamian Plains and Highlands.
The majority of Kurds live in Turkey, followed by Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Germany. They share cultural ties of language dialects, with the majority being Sunni Muslims but some also adhering to other faiths.
In the early 20th century, many Kurds began calling for the creation of a homeland which is often dubbed Kurdistan. After World War I, Western states had originally promised the Kurds their own country but this promise never materialized. When the Ottoman Empire was defeated and modern borders were set in 1923, there was no provision for an independent Kurdish state. Since then, Kurds have had an unprotected minority status in the countries they live in and their attempts to set up an independent state have repeatedly been quashed.
Kurds have seen a long history of violent oppression in Iraq but waged insurgency throughout the 20th century. Baghdad retaliated often; in 1988 Saddam Hussein’s government gassed thousands of Kurds to death in Halabja. Later on, the government slaughtered tens of thousands more Kurds at the end of the first Gulf War when they tried to organize an independent state. Eventually, Kurds established fragile semi-autonomy in Iraq’s north where they have military and administrative control; however, disputed areas remain unresolved.
Turkey’s Kurds have faced severe government repression for decades partly in response to the Kurdish separatist movement. Until 1991 Turkey referred to Kurds as mountain Turks and words like “Kurdistan” or “Kurdish” were officially banned by the government. Many people who spoke published or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. Turkey justified its tough stance against Kurdish identity as necessary due to armed uprisings from Kurds seeking independence.
The Syrian war highlighted once again how important independence is for Kurdisanis when protests broke out in Syria in 2011 turned into a civil war; the country’s Kurdish groups started getting involved as well which eventually led them controlling about a quarter of Syrian landmass including most of its border region with Turkey.
However with Washington announcing that it was withdrawing two Kurd allies — US troops from Syria — it paved way for Turkey to launch an assault against Kurdish forces in Northern Syria; The Kurd’s best hope for surviving turkey’s assault was to let President Assad’s troops back into the region effectively fulfilling their semi-autonomy whilst Turkey has always feared that Kurdish autonomy could fuel separatist movements within its own territory where most Kurdisanis live.
