The three years that intervened between the Treaty of Sevres (1920) and (1923) were not only fatal for the Hellenism of Asia Minor. At the same time, the plan to create a state of Kurdistan out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire was deleted.
The victors of World War I seized territories and spheres of influence (carved out by the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Pact in 1916), divided it into protectorates from which most Arab states emerged, but among the concessions they eventually made to regime of Kemal Atatürk was the abandonment of the Kurds who had believed the promises for self-determination.
The division of the Kurdish people into four countries (Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran) is still valid today. But the Kurdish vision for independence remains strong, it is the permanent Turkish nightmare, while it comes into direct conflict with its revisionism and neo-Ottomanism.
The Kurds are considered the largest stateless people, although it is extremely difficult to accurately determine their population, which is estimated to total between 35 and 45 million, after decades of wars, refugees, repression.
Over 15 million Kurds are estimated in Turkey (almost 20% of the population), more than 8 million in Iran, 6 million in Iraq, 2 million in Syria. The occasional Kurdish uprisings in these countries were drowned in blood. Fragmented and torn by internal conflicts, the Kurds were treated harshly by their respective regimes that attempted to eradicate their national identity and sometimes used them to undermine each other.
The PKK rebellion
The armed insurgency launched in Southeastern Turkey in the late 1970s by the Marxist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) under him was a bombshell to the foundations of the Turkish state. The insurgency spread to the region of historic Kurdistan and within a few years the PKK gained bases in Iraq, Syria and even Lebanon with the support of father Assad’s regime.
The PKK acted in competition with the rest of the Kurdish forces in Northern Iraq, while developing relations with other national liberation movements. Tens of thousands are the victims of the war between the Turkish army and the PKK in Turkey, and hundreds of villages were razed by the Turkish army in an attempt to uproot the “separatist terrorists”.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union and American military interventions in it (with the two Persian Gulf wars that led to the fall of the Iraqi regime) overturned decades of balance. A pivotal point for the PKK was also the Syrian regime’s decision to sacrifice Ocalan to improve its relationship with Turkey in 1998.
Chased out of Syria and after four months of wandering in Russia and Europe, the PKK leader ended up (with Greek involvement) in Kenya, from where he was kidnapped by the Turkish secret services on February 15, 1999. Ocalan was sentenced to life imprisonment, which was commuted to life (after the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey) and remains incarcerated in prison island of Imrali, in the Sea of Marmara. The PKK continued the armed struggle in the mountains and bomb attacks in urban centers, while the Kurdish solution was increasingly linked to the need to democratize Turkey.
Meanwhile the Kurds of oil-rich northern Iraq won autonomy under the federal state that emerged after the US-British invasion toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.
They were previously even attacked with chemical weapons by the regime, and were abandoned by the Americans in 1991 when they rebelled at the same time as Operation Desert Storm. In 2003, the Erdogan government did not allow the Americans to open a northern front against the Saddam regime from Turkish soil, foreseeing that the partition of Iraq would result in the creation of the first autonomous Kurdish entity in the Middle East – something that it failed to achieve. prevent Ankara.
Rojava
The scenario of the unification of individual Kurdish entities, which is shaking the Turkish political and military establishment, began to take shape with the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. The Kurdish entity of Rojava was formed in the north and east of the country, while it consolidated itself fighting for survival against in . The armed forces of the de facto autonomous entity (Syrian Democratic Forces – SDF) bore the brunt of the fight against the Islamic State, allying with the Americans as jihadists from around the world swelled the ranks of ISIS through Turkey.
For years, Erdogan has demanded that the US cut off military aid to the SDF, accusing its allies of “they arm terrorists.” The Turkish army has carried out three invasions in North-Eastern Syria, where it has created “security zones”, i.e. occupation of Syrian territory, where it “repatriates” Syrian refugees (Turkmen and Arabs) altering the demographic characteristics of the region.
The “green light” in Ankara for operations that amounted to treason of the Kurds was given in his first term by Donald Trump withdrawing from Syria most of the American forces that functioned as a bulwark to ISIS, but mainly prevented Turkish aggression. Trump has promised to complete the withdrawal of US troops from Syria in his second term.
Playing a key role in Bashar al-Assad after 13 years of war and the predominance of the “reformed” jihadists of the former al-Qaeda warlord, Abu Muhammad al-JolaniAnkara primarily aims at the dissolution of Rojava. Now wearing a suit, dropping his war moniker and using his real name, he called for the disarmament or incorporation of Kurdish fighters into Syria’s future army.
The Kurds refused, but began negotiations with Syria’s new strongman. Al-Sara’a postponed the holding of elections to four years, also leaving the question of the new Constitution, along with the question of the degree of autonomy of the Kurds, in the open. Since last fall, even before the offensive launched by the Assad regime in December, Ankara has launched Kurdish developments inside Turkey, rekindling the peace process that was attempted in 2013 together with Ocalan.
At the time, the imprisoned Kurdish leader had sent a message to the PKK to cease fire and withdraw its forces from Turkish territory, but the process collapsed in less than two years amid a wave of repression and bombings. At the end of 2024 the process was unexpectedly started by Erdogan’s nationalist partner, Mr Devlet Bakhceliwho first extended a conciliatory hand to the leftist pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) and then called on Ocalan to declare an end to the armed struggle through the Turkish Parliament.
The Ocalan statement
For the first time in ten years, DEM leaders visited Öcalan in prison on December 28, and developments snowballed. Ocalan said he was determined to contribute “positively in the new example supported by Mr. Bakhtseli and Mr. Erdogan”to do “the necessary positive steps and the intended appeal”at the same time pointing in the direction of changing the Constitution by referendum that Erdogan is planning, so that democratization can proceed and the persecution of the Kurds will stop. On January 2, the DEM MPs conveyed the Ocalan message to the Speaker of the Parliament Nouman Kurtoulmos and immediately afterwards meetings with the party leaders began.
The “new paradigm” and the resulting bargain involve opportunities and risks for all sides. It remains to be seen whether the PKK leadership in the mountain agrees with these moves, as well as thousands of imprisoned Kurdish officials, among them the Selahattin Demirtaswho had received almost 10% in the 2014 presidential election against Erdogan, but was prosecuted for “terrorist propaganda” and sentenced to many years in prison.
A field of action for the PKK and a frequent target of the Turkish air force are the Qandil mountains, which geographically separate the Kurds of Iraq from the Kurds of Syria, but at the same time bridge their common vision of independence. It seems that the Erdogan government is in a hurry to present a Kurdish solution within Turkey and to consolidate gains beyond the borders established in Lausanne a century ago. Besides, Israel’s overt and covert support for the Kurds may soon bring other upheavals in the region, from Syria to Iran.
