Editing Kurds (section)

===Kurdish nationalism of the 20th century===
{{further|Kurdish nationalism|Rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire|Deportations of Kurds (1916–1934)|Iraqi Kurdistan}}
[[File:Kurdistan1920.png|thumb|Provisions of the [[Treaty of Sèvres]] for an independent [[Kurdistan]] (in 1920)]]
Kurdish nationalism emerged after [[World War I]] with the dissolution of the [[Ottoman Empire]], which had historically successfully integrated (but not assimilated) the Kurds, through use of forced repression of Kurdish independence movements. Revolts did occur sporadically but only in 1880 with the uprising led by [[Sheik Ubeydullah]] did the Kurds as an ethnic group or nation make demands. Ottoman sultan [[Abdul Hamid II]] ({{reign | 1876 | 1909}}) responded with a campaign of integration by co-opting prominent Kurdish opponents to strengthen Ottoman power with offers of prestigious positions in his government. This strategy appears to have been successful, given the loyalty displayed by the Kurdish [[Hamidiye (cavalry)|Hamidiye]] regiments during World War I.<ref name="laciner">{{Cite journal|title=The Ideological and Historical Roots of Kurdist Movements in Turkey: Ethnicity Demography, Politics|journal=Nationalism and Ethnic Politics|first=Bal|last=Laçiner|author2=Bal, Ihsan|volume=10|issue=3|pages=473–504|doi=10.1080/13537110490518282|url=http://www.turkishweekly.net/articles.php?id=15|access-date=19 October 2007|year=2004|s2cid=144607707|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011225529/http://www.turkishweekly.net/articles.php?id=15|archive-date=11 October 2007}}</ref>

The Kurdish ethno-nationalist movement that emerged following [[World War I]] and the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922 largely represented a reaction to the changes taking place in mainstream Turkey, primarily to the radical [[secularization]], the centralization of authority, and to the rampant [[Turkish nationalism]] in the new Turkish Republic.<ref name="natali">{{Cite journal|title=Ottoman Kurds and emergent Kurdish nationalism|journal=Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies|first=Denise|last=Natali|author-link=Denise Natali|volume=13|issue=3|pages=383–387|doi=10.1080/1066992042000300701|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1066992042000300701|date=2004|s2cid=220375529|access-date=19 October 2007}}</ref>

[[Jakob Künzler]], head of a missionary hospital in [[Urfa]], documented the large-scale [[ethnic cleansing]] of both [[Armenian people|Armenians]] and Kurds by the [[Young Turks]].<ref>Fisk, R. ''The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East'', p.322. Vintage. {{ISBN|978-1-4000-7517-1}}</ref> He has given a detailed account of the deportation of Kurds from [[Erzurum]] and [[Bitlis]] in the winter of 1916. The Kurds were perceived to be subversive elements who would take the [[Russian Empire|Russian]] side in the war. In order to eliminate this threat, Young Turks embarked on a large-scale deportation of Kurds from the regions of ''Djabachdjur'', ''Palu'', ''Musch'', ''Erzurum'' and ''Bitlis''. Around 300,000 Kurds were forced to move southwards to Urfa and then westwards to [[Gaziantep|Aintab]] and [[Kahramanmaraş|Marasch]]. In the summer of 1917 Kurds were moved to [[Konya]] in [[central Anatolia]]. Through these measures, the Young Turk [[leader]]s aimed at weakening the political influence of the Kurds by deporting them from their ancestral lands and by dispersing them in small pockets of exiled communities. By the end of World War I, up to 700,000 Kurds had been forcibly deported and almost half of the displaced perished.<ref>Dominik J. Schaller, Jürgen Zimmerer, ''Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies—introduction'', Journal of Genocide Research, Vol.10, No.1, p.8, March 2008.</ref>

Some of the Kurdish groups sought self-determination and the confirmation of Kurdish autonomy in the 1920 [[Treaty of Sèvres]], but in the [[aftermath of World War I]], [[Kemal Atatürk]] prevented such a result. Kurds backed by the United Kingdom declared independence in 1927 and established the [[Republic of Ararat]]. [[Turkey]] suppressed Kurdist revolts in 1925, 1930, and 1937–1938, while Iran in the 1920s suppressed [[Simko Shikak]] at [[Lake Urmia]] and Jaafar Sultan of the Hewraman region, who controlled the region between [[Marivan]] and north of [[Halabja]]. A short-lived [[Soviet]]-sponsored Kurdish [[Republic of Mahabad]] (January to December 1946) existed in an area of present-day Iran.

[[File:Kurdish-inhabited areas of the Middle East and the Soviet Union in 1986.jpg|thumb|right|Kurdish-inhabited areas of the Middle East and the Soviet Union in 1986, according to the U.S. [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA)]]
From 1922 to 1924 in Iraq a [[Kingdom of Kurdistan]] existed. When [[Ba'ath]]ist administrators thwarted Kurdish nationalist ambitions in [[Iraq]], war broke out in the 1960s. In 1970 the Kurds rejected limited territorial self-rule within Iraq, demanding larger areas, including the oil-rich [[Kirkuk]] region.

During the 1920s and 1930s, several large-scale Kurdish revolts took place in Kurdistan. Following these rebellions, the area of Turkish Kurdistan was put under [[martial law]] and many of the Kurds were displaced. The Turkish government also encouraged resettlement of [[Albanians in Kosovo|Albanians from Kosovo]] and [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]] in the region to change the make-up of the population. These events and measures led to long-lasting mutual distrust between Ankara and the Kurds.<ref>C. Dahlman, "The Political Geography of Kurdistan," ''Eurasian Geography and Economics'', Vol. 43, No. 4, 2002, p. 279.</ref>

Kurdish officers from the Iraqi army [...] were said to have approached Soviet army authorities soon after their arrival in Iran in 1941 and offered to form a Kurdish volunteer force to fight alongside the Red Army. This offer was declined.<ref>
{{cite book|last1=Jwaideh|first1=Wadie|author-link1=Wadie Jwaideh|title=The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FCbspX-dGPYC|series=Contemporary Issues in the Middle East|edition=reprint|location=Syracuse, New York|publisher=Syracuse University Press|date=2006|page=267|isbn=9780815630937|quote=Kurdish officers from the Iraqi army [...] were said to have approached Soviet army authorities soon after their arrival in Iran in 1941 and offered to form a Kurdish volunteer force to fight alongside the Red Army. This offer was declined.}}
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During the relatively open government of the 1950s in Turkey, Kurds gained political office and started working within the framework of the Turkish Republic to further their interests, but this move towards integration was halted with the [[1960 Turkish coup d'état]].<ref name="laciner"/> The 1970s saw an evolution in Kurdish nationalism as [[Marxist]] political thought influenced some in the new generation of Kurdish nationalists opposed to the local [[feudal]] authorities who had been a traditional source of opposition to authority; in 1978 Kurdish students would form the militant separatist organization [[Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan|PKK]], also known as the [[Kurdistan Workers' Party]] in English. The [[Kurdistan Workers' Party]] later abandoned [[Marxism-Leninism]].<ref name="Abdullah Öcalan 2007, pp. 243-277">Abdullah Öcalan, ''Prison Writings: The Roots of Civilisation'', 2007, Pluto Press, pp. 243–277.</ref>

Kurds are often regarded as "the largest [[Stateless nation|ethnic group without a state]]".<ref>{{cite news|last=Kennedy|first=J. Michael|title=Kurds Remain on the Sideline of Syria's Uprising|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/world/middleeast/kurds-remain-on-sideline-in-syrias-uprising.html|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220103/https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/world/middleeast/kurds-remain-on-sideline-in-syrias-uprising.html|archive-date=2022-01-03|url-access=subscription|url-status=live|access-date=24 July 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=17 April 2012}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Minahan|first=James|title=Encyclopedia of the stateless nations. 2. D – K|year=2002|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, Conn.|isbn=978-0-313-32110-8|page=1056|edition=1. publ.|quote=The fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, the Kurds make up the world's most numerous ethnic group that has, with the exception of northern Iraq, no legal form of self-government.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Handbook of Ethnic Conflict: International Perspectives|year=2012|publisher=Springer|location=New York|isbn=978-1-4614-0447-7|page=243|author=Dan Landis, Rosita D. Albert|quote=Many scholars and organizations refer to the Kurds as being one of the largest ethnic groups without a nation-state (Council of Europe, 2006; MacDonald, 1993; McKeirnan, 1999).}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Aziz|first=Mahir|title=The Kurds of Iraq: Ethnonationalism and National Identity in Iraqi Kurdistan|year=2010|publisher=Tauris Academic Studies|location=London|isbn=978-1-84885-546-5|page=4|quote=The Kurds appear to be the largest ethnic group in the world without a state of their own.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Davis|first=Ben|title=Let's Go 2003: Turkey|year=2002|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-0-312-30597-0|page=24|quote=The 1999 capture and conviction of Kurdish guerilla leader Abdullah Ocalan brought increasing international attention to the Kurds, the largest ethnic group in the world without its own nation.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Karolides|first=Nicholas J.|title=Literature Suppressed on Political Grounds|year=2006|publisher=Infobase Pub.|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8160-7151-7|page=8|edition=Rev.|quote=They are a recognizable ethnic community, the 'world's largest ethnic group without a state of their own.'}}</ref> Some researchers, such as [[Martin van Bruinessen]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Bruinessen|first=Martin|author-link=Martin van Bruinessen|title=Kurdish Ethno-Nationalism Versus Nation-Building States: Collected Articles|publisher=Isis Press|location=Istanbul|page=43|year=2000|isbn=978-975-428-177-4|oclc=46851965}}</ref> argue that while some level of Kurdish cultural, social, political and ideological heterogeneity may exist, the Kurdish community has long thrived over the centuries as a generally peaceful and well-integrated part of Turkish society, with hostilities erupting only in recent years.<ref name="radu">{{cite book|last=Radu|first=Michael|author-link=Michael Radu|title=Dangerous Neighborhood: Contemporary Issues in Turkey's Foreign Relations|publisher=[[Transaction Publishers]]|location=New Brunswick, N.J|page=17|year=2003|isbn=978-0-7658-0166-1|oclc=50269670}}</ref><ref name="elling"/><ref>{{cite book|last1=Crane|first1=Keith|last2=Lal|first2=Rollie|last3=Martini|first3=Jeffrey|title=Iran's Political, Demographic, and Economic Vulnerabilities|publisher=[[RAND Corporation]]|location=Santa Monica|page=53|year=2008|isbn=978-0-8330-4527-0|oclc=259715774}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=March 2025}} [[Michael Radu]], who worked for the United States' Pennsylvania Foreign Policy Research Institute, writes that demands for a Kurdish state come primarily from [[Kurdish nationalism|Kurdish nationalists]], Western human-rights activists, and European leftists.<ref name="radu"/>