Kurds
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Kurds are an ethnic group comprising (according to some sources) of about 25 million people, primarily in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. For over a century, many Kurds have been campaigning for the right to their own state, which they would call Kurdistan -- by some accounts the Kurds are the largest ethnic group without their own state. However, despite promises of the creation of such a state made in the early 20th century, all the region's governments are opposed to it.
The Kurds constitute the only sizable minority in Turkey. The exact number of Kurdish people living in Southwest Asia is unknown due to both absence of a recent study on this issue and the fact that some of Kurdish people have mixed with other local ethnic groups. The estimated numbers for the percentage of Kurdish people living in Turkey vary from 3% (Encyclopedia Americana [1]) to 20% (CIA Factbook [2]). They are concentrated in the east and southeast regions of Turkey. There are also Kurdish enclaves in central Turkey.
Kurdish guerillas launched attacks on Turkish targets in 1984, and since then they have fought against the Turkish government for independence and the right to be educated in Kurdish schools, with little success. In 1999, the Turkish government had a major victory when it abducted Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), one of the groups fighting for Kurdish rights and independence. Turkey then placed him on trial for treason and sentenced him to life imprisonment. After that the Kurdish rebel movement in Turkey declared that it would end its military attacks to create a Kurdish homeland but continue its activites on political platform.
The Kurdish guerillas have been and continue to be persecuted by both Iraq and Turkey. In Turkey, publication (both printed and audio-visual media) and teaching (although very restricted) in Kurdish language is allowed, and recent reforms promised limited broadcasting in Kurdish language. However, it refuses to recognize them as an ethnic group but Kurds may take their place in any part of Turkish life including the National Assembly.
The status of Kurds is now surrounded in mystery. Under the former Iraqi Ba'athist regime, which ruled Iraq from 1968 until 2003, they were granted limited autonomy and given some high-level political representation in Baghdad. However, for various reasons including the siding of some Kurds with Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the regime became opposed to the Kurds and an effective civil war broke out. Iraq was widely condemned, but not seriously punished, by the international community for using chemical weapons against the Kurds. Kurdish regions during the 1990s had de-facto independence, with fully functioning civil administrations, and were protected by the US-enforced Iraqi 'No Fly Zones' which stopped Iraqi air attacks. During the period of self-governance there were armed clashes between the two main poltical groups in the area, each claiming the title of Kurdistan's government, which undermined the effectiveness of the Kurds in their fighting with the Iraqis. Following the unseating of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003, little is known as to how 'Kurdistan' will be dealt with in the future. The American-sponsored idea of a Federal Republic, with a relatively high level of autonomy for the Kurds, currently appears to be the most popular.
Some improvements in Kurdish rights have however been made under pressure from the European Union. The European Union has made membership for Turkey conditional on, among other things, better treatment of its Kurdish minority. In August 2002, Turkey accepted the EU's conditions, and amended certain of its restrictions on the Kurds.
