Dreams and reality: the Kurdish issue

Résumé du document

The current Turkish incursion into Northern Iraq, within the framework of the struggle against the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK and its activities, is reflective of the strength of the tensions at the border between Iraq and Turkey, as well as the stakes underlying the Kurdish issue. The Kurds are a people without a state of their own: they are mostly divided between Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey where half of them live, especially in the South, next to the Iraqi border. The Kurds have always been claiming the recognition of their cultural specificities and a status of autonomy, to underscore the difference with the people of the countries they live in. The Kurdish issue is controversial, especially in Turkey: the PKK, the Kurdish party, as well as its activities, is considered illegal by Turkish authorities, and its leaders like PKK were imprisoned. The PKK members are actually viewed as terrorists by the international community, and there is a consensus over the qualification of this party.

Extraits

[...] The Kurds represent 20% of the Turkish population. They claimed their independence after the First World War, and an autonomous Kurdistan was mentioned in the Sèvres Treaty in 1920, but then cancelled when it was revised by the Lausanne Treaty in 1923. Indeed, the autonomy of the Kurds is in contradiction with the assertion of Turkish nationalism by Ataturk against French imperialism after the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire. The dissatisfaction of the Kurdish claims is at the root of the issue because the denial of the recognition of their cultural and ethnical specificities is likely to aggravate their discontent in the future. [...]

[...] Restrictions are still enforced and so is the discontent of the Kurds. The repression against the Kurds is revealed by the prohibition of the PKK and the imprisonment of its leaders, and also by the violent confrontations between the PKK activists and the Turkish army in Southern Turkey, leading to the depopulation of the Kurdish areas. This issue is actually a bag of bones. As Hasim Hasimi, a Kurdish deputy in Turkey, said, “drawing boundaries have become impossible”. The relation between Turks and Kurds, however complex and conflicting it may be, cannot be broken, because of centuries of coexistence and integration, despite confrontations. [...]

[...] Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) implemented in Northern Iraq after the first Gulf War, says the KRG supports the struggle of Turkey against the PKK, which members are considered as terrorists, and the Iraqi Kurdistan even accepts Turkish incursion inside its territory (though with no enthusiasm). Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president, a Kurd, made a state visit in Turkey in March 2008. This reveals the opposition between extremists and moderates, in both sides. The Iraqi Kurds do not support the PKK because of its violent and illegal activities, but they are in favour of more rights for Turkish Kurds. The confrontation between Turkish authorities and the PKK rebels is a factor of division between the Kurds. [...]

[...] The PKK members are actually viewed as terrorists by the international community, so there is a consensus over the qualification of this party. However, Turkish authorities keep denying the Kurds the autonomy and the recognition they have been claiming since the foundation of the modern Turkey by Ataturk in the twenties. The repression against the Kurdish identity in Turkey therefore cannot be denied, even though no one has ever stood for the creation of an independent Kurdish state. Indeed, how to reconcile the need for Turkey to ensure its sovereignty and its unity, and the need for the Kurdish people to have their identity recognized within Turkish territory? [...]

[...] Fighting since 1984 for self-rule, the Kurdish people and the PKK, are not likely to give up, and their nationalism has not been weakened by the repression. [...]