The Kurds are the biggest of all national minorities without own state. The term Kurdistan means ‘the land of the Kurds’. The area which is about 500 000 km2 (the size of France) is divided between Iran, Iraq Syria, Turkey and Armenia. There is too much about the Kurds that we do not know for sure. No body knows the exact number of Kurds living inside or outside Kurdistan. Kurdish sources say that there are about 25-30 millions of Kurds living inside Kurdistan. But those countries with Kurdish minorities state the number to be lower, this is to show that they do not have not large Kurdish population. The Kurds own a very rich culture, which is different from the neighbours. Their language (which is divided into the four main dialects: kurmanji, sorani, gorani/hewrami and zazaki) is of Indo-European origin similar to Farsi, Norwegian, English and German but totally different from Arabic and Turkish. Kurds in Turkey use Latin alphabet, meanwhile in Iran and Iraq, the Kurds use the Arabic alphabet. The Kurds in Armenia use Cyrillic alphabet. The history of the Kurds is full of pain, defeats, and disappointments. The land of the Kurds has always been a very fertile and oil-rich area. Therefore since the fall of The Medya Empire in the early years B.Ch. many kingdoms have controlled Kurdistan. 10% of worlds oil production comes from Kurdistan. 75% of Iraq’s oil export comes from Kurdish areas. Besides oil Kurdistan is rich in minerals like Cobber, chrome and iron. In North-Kurdistan the rivers Tigris and Euphrates are good water resources. The principal industry of the Kurds is agriculture. The Agha`s (landowners) own whole villages. Every Kurd belongs to a generation, and a tripe is consisted of many generations. The tripe system has obviously stayed in the way of the Kurds to unite, which in turn has made it difficult for them to reach their goal, a free and independent Kurdistan. The Medes, the Kurds forefathers and the Persians wandered from Caspian Sea to South-East-Asia about year 1600 B.Ch. The Persians settled in South-Iran. The Medes settled in West-Iran and North-Iraq and built the Medya Empire after defeating the Assyrians in year 612 B.Ch. In year 550 B.Ch. they lost to the Persians. In the years B.Ch. and A.Ch. the Medes came under Macedonian, Greek, Armenian and Roman supremacy. In the year 632 B.Ch. came the Arabic-Islam invasion. The Kurds (unlike the Persians) resisted for about 200 years before they gave up Zoroastrianism and Christianity in year 800. Today 65-75% of the Kurds practice Sunni-Islam. How ever there are still about 200 000 followers of Zoroastrianism, which was state religion in the old Medya. The prophet Zoroaster who was born in the town of Urumiye in Iranian Kurdistan, set the good (Ormus) against the bad (Ahriman) as universal conflicting powers. After the Arabic invasion, the Kurds were conquered by the Mongols in year 1200. Later and until 1501 The Turcoman were governing in the land of the Kurds. In the year 1639 the Ottoman Empire and the Safawidian-Persian Empire divided Kurdistan between them selves. For the first time Kurdistan was officially divided. After the First World War, the Kurds had according to the Sevres treaty the same rights as the Armenian and the Arabs to establish an independent Kurdistan. But Mustafa Kemal with European support succeeded to secure a strong Turkey. The treaty was never ratified, and the national rights of the Kurds were not even mentioned in the final peace agreement in Lausanne in 1923. In stead Iraq, Iran and Armenia were declared independent and Kurdistan divided in five. The Western alliance had decided to go with Turkey as a buffer against communism. In 1924 the autonomy law for the Kurds in Turkey was cancelled. Later the same year Kurdish language and literature was forbidden according to Turkish constitution paragraphs 26 and 28, and Kurdish schools were closed down. This caused a bloody epoch of Kurdish rebellions and defeats in the years 1925 (the Sheik Said rebel), 1930-1932 (the Ararat rebel) and 1937-1938 (the Dershim rebel). In the Ararat rebel the Kurds established a government, which did not survive the hard bombing that they faced. Bushes and trees, that women and children were hiding inside, were set on fire. Kurdish refuges were buried alive inside caves. After this no one in Turkey was allowed to call him self Kurd. Mountain-Turks was the name the Turkish government gave the Kurds. The Mosoul province in Iraq was also promised autonomy in the Sevres treaty. In 1925 Mosoul was incorporated into Iraq with the condition that Britain would have mandate in the area in 25 years, so that they could secure Kurdish rights. But after seven years the British mandate was cancelled, without the Kurdish warranties being fulfilled. British military power crushed the upcoming Kurdish rebels in 1920- and 1930th. In Iran the tripe leader Simko used the local conflicts between the Persians, the Turks and the Russians to liberate parts of Kurdistan. I 1930 Simko was killed by Reza Khan, who was the leader in Iran after 1925. Kurdish leaders were deported and Persians took over their jobs. During the Second World War in 1941 Iran was attacked by USA and Britain in south and by Soviet Union in north. January 22nd 1946 Kurdistan Democratic Party’s leader Ghazi Muhammad with help from Soviet Union proclaimed det first Kurdish republic, Republic of Mehabad. The new Kurdish republic gave refuge to the legendary Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani and his 10 000 soldiers, who had to escape from Iraq. Unfortunately the Mehabad republic was ruined by Iranian military power, right after Soviet Union forces abandoned Iran. Ghazi Muhammad was hanged in the same tower in Mehabad city where he the year before had proclaimed the fri republic. Mustafa Barzani sought refuge in Soviet Union, and returned to Iraqi Kurdistan in 1958. Iraq had become a republic after a military coup. Kurds and Arabs were suppose to live together as brothers. Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraqi Kurdistan was found, and the peace last in three years. After this the pan-Arabic flank within the regime came to power and forbad the Kurdish movements. In the beginning of the 1970th the civil war between the Kurds and the Arabs started in Iraq. Iran supported the Iraqi Kurds with ammunition and weapon and the military actions continued in four years. In the end Iraq and Iran signed the Algerian agreements, where Iranian promised to stop supporting the Kurds in exchange for expanding their border to the Persian Gulf. In Syria, the Kurds were relatively free until 1963, when the government started to move Kurdish farmers near the Iraqi border, by force. The main purpose of this actions was to isolate the Syrian-Kurds from the more influx Iraqi-Kurds, and to gain control of the oil that was found in the Kurdish territories. Kurds got kicked out of their homes and Arabs moved in. During the 1970th, 120000 Kurds had their Syrian passports deprived and lived in Syria as refugees. Kurdistan Democratic Party in Syria was found I 1956. Although the party has a none-violence strategy, it is forbidden to represent the Kurds. In 1990 some young people were arrested in Syria for hoisting the Kurdish flag. In Iran the Kurds contributed to the Islamic revolution that overthrew the regime of Shah. But they never got what they were promised, namely autonomy. The new Iranian leader Khomeini started to hang arrest and move Kurdish protesters by force. The leader of Iranian-Kurdistan Democratic Party Abdulrehman Qasimlu together with his to colleagues were assassinated in a meeting with Iranian commando soldiers (whom they thought were representatives of the Iranian government) in Vienna in June 1988. Six weeks later a senior Komala (the Communist party in Iranian-Kurdistan) member was assassinated in Larnaca. Dr. Sharafkindi, Qasimlus successor was also killed in the same way as Qasimlu in Berlin in September 1992. Even today the Kurds in Iran are exposed to persecution and imprisonment. The same methods were also used in Iraq and lately in Syria to punish the Kurds. How ever the regime of Saddam Hussein started in the beginning of the 1980th the Anfal campaign: a decade of constant and systematic bombardment of Kurdish cities and villages. The purpose of the bombardment was to totally destroy the Kurds. Saddam had a dream to become the leader of the Arab nations one day and to achieve this goal he had to remove all obstacles. The attack on Iran in September 1980 and the occupation of Kuwait in August 1990 was just the beginning of what Saddam had in mind. During the Iran-Iraq war (which was mainly a war on oil- Gulf war) both Iran and Iran used the Kurds outside their borders against one another. For example Iran together with Jalal Taliban’s PUK (patriotic Union of kurdistan-Iraq) managed to take control over many cities in Iraqi-Kurdistan. But the West backed Iraq, and on march 16th 1988 came the climax of the Iraqi bombardment of Kurdish cities, Chemical Ali, the right hand of Saddam ordered the chemical and biological bombardment of the town of Halabja, were over 5000 died and 10000 injured. The poisonous gasses that were used were mustard gas and nerve gas, which are produced in Europe. The nerve gas causes paralysis while the mustard gas attacks the eyes, the skin and the nervous system, and can maximize the risk of cancer. This day is afterwards called Death Day, and Halabja is referred to as Hiroshima of Kurdistan. During the Gulf War in 1991, George Bush, the American president encouraged the Kurds in north and the Shiite population in south to rise up against the regime of Saddam. And they did. The Kurds got back control over many of their own cities. But when Saddam stroke back with the rest of his army, the United States and the international society stayed back and let the Iraqi forces bomb to death millions of their own people. The world witnessed what hunger disaster Kurdish refugees faced. The situation got so intensified that UN forbad Iraqi aircraft near the 36 parallel, a safe heaven called Buhistan that included 2/3 of Iraqi-Kurdistan. But Saddam remained control of the to oil rich cities of Kerkuk and Khaneqin. The autonomous UN-protected Kurdish part of Iraq was later in 1996 divide equally between the two parties Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), after years of civil war between these two parties. September 17th 1997, both parties signed the Washington peace agreement. Kurdistan parliament (with representatives from KDP, PUK and other minorities in Iraqi-Kurdistan like the Assyrians and the Turcoman) in Hewler was a reality and a huge step towards democracy in Iraqi-Kurdistan. This encouraged Kurdistan Workers party (PKK-found in 1984) to push Turkey for the same rights for the Turkish-Kurds. This war between Turkey and the Kurds has over the past years cost about 30000 human lives, mostly Kurds. Otherwise the main goal of PKK has been to achieve a united and independent Kurdistan which included all parts. PKK has over 20000 well trained Peshmergas (Kurdish soldier-one who goes before death), and Kurds from all part of Kurdistan are well represented here. Usually this peshmergas must go through a series of tests and exams before becoming Peshmerga. With help from KDP, Turkish military forces have many times bombed training camps belonging to PKK inside Iraqi-Kurdistan. This conflict between KDP and PKK has yet not been solved. February 1999, the capture of the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in the Greece embassy in Nairobi by Turkish secret service (with help from CIA) put the Kurdish question on top agenda. Ocalan was suddenly the leader of all Kurds, and he was charged for treason, but yet not convicted. September 1999-August 2003 PKK (changed name to KADEK after USA put PKK on the top of the list of terrorist organizations in the world) stated one-sided ceasefire, without Turkey showing any interest in negotiations.
By the end of 2002 Iraqi-Kurdistan had become a fine example of democracy in the Middle-East. On mars 17th 2003 the British and American forces led a coalition to bring down the regime of Saddam Hussein, whom they meant was supporting terror and sustaining weapons of mass destruction. And since Turkey, the all time allies and NATO partner with USA did not let the USA to use bases inside Turkey, the American had to rely upon the Kurds. In fact the democratic processes that were down in Iraqi-Kurdistan within the last ten years were used as a roll model for the rest of Iraq. After the war an Iraqi government consisted of 13 Shiite representatives, 5 Kurds, 5 Sunni, 1 Turcoman and 1 Christian was established. The minister of foreign affairs went to the KDP spokesman Zebari. Minister of Oil and industry went to the Shiites. There was no prime minister elected, but the leadership of the government is to go in turn. Still the Kurds are concerned about the roll of Kurdistan Regional Government in a future Iraq and Kurdistan.
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