The End of Kurdistan?

The 40 million Kurds have the misfortune of living in four different countries–Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.  After World War I, when Woodrow Wilson was pushing for self-determination for the world’s peoples the Kurds were promised a state of their own, but the powers that be never followed through.

The Kurdish Workers’ Party has been rebelling in Turkey for many years, and about 40,000 people have been killed in the fight.  The U.S. has called the Kurds’ organization in Turkey a terrorist organizational, although I prefer to think of them as freedom fighters.

In any case the Kurds have decided to end the fight, or at least their leader, who is in custody, has stated that.  They are hoping that the Turkish dictator (let’s call him what he is), will grant them more cultural rights and freedoms.  According to some analysts he may actually do that in order to convince the Turkish people that he has been successful in stopping the violence.

I have always thought the Kurds got a bad deal, including by the U.S. forces in Iraq, where we implied that the Kurds in that country would get a better deal from the Iraqi government.

Unfortunately if you are a minority group in an existing sovereign country (Indians in the U.S., many tribal groups in African countries, Basques in Spain, Sikhs in India) it is often difficult to gain any kind of real autonomy.  And, for some reason, I almost always identify with the minority group.

Some info for this post was taken from Erika Solomon and Ben Hubbard, “Kurdistan Workers’ Party Vows to End Its Four-Decade Insurgency Against Turkey,” New York Times, (May 13, 2025), p. A-9.