TURKEY & KURDS (PPK)

Who are the Kurds? The Kurds are the largest ethnic group without a specific homeland. They speak Kurdish. There are an estimated 32 million Kurds internationally, of whom the majority live in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Sizeable communities live in Western Europe. Although the majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims there are minorities of Shia Islam, Orthodox Christianity and Judaism as well as indigenous religions such as Yezidism and Zoroastrianism.

Current Events After a brief period of stability since 1990s where deadly fighting between the Kurds and Turkey ceased, ending with a ceasefire in 2012, violence has suddenly sprung back into the region as an aftermath of the Arab Spring. Currently, the Kurds, especially in Syria and Iraq are under attack from two fronts. As ISIS further increase control in Syria and Iraq as the civil war continues, many Kurdish settlements were attacked and are now under control by ISIS terrorists and the Syrian regime. As a result of this, a high proportion of refugees fleeing to Europe are Syrian Kurds However, Turkey, although opposed to ISIS, has been criticised for not helping the international effort against ISIS, especially when ISIS have launched attacks into Turkey and Turkey is used as a transit point for ISIS fighters entering Syria.

Lead up to Current Events The quest for Kurdish statehood had lasted since the fall of the Ottoman Empire straight after WW1. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the Western allies made plans for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. These plans were dismissed three years later, however, when the Treaty of Lausanne, which set the boundaries of modern Turkey, made no space for a Kurdish state and left Kurds with minority status in modern day Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. This lead to a series of uprisings against the new Turkish government. In response to this, in the 1920s and 1930s, many Kurds were resettled, Kurdish names and costumes were banned, the use of the Kurdish language was restricted and even the existence of a Kurdish ethnic identity was denied, with people designated "Mountain Turks".

Who are the PKK? The PPK stands for the Kurdistan’s workers party. In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan established the PKK, which called for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey. Six years later, the group began an armed struggle. Since then, more than 40,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced by the Turkish military. In the 1990s the PKK rolled back on its demand for independence, calling instead for greater cultural and political autonomy, but continued to fight. In 2012, the government and PKK began peace talks and the following year a ceasefire was agreed. PKK fighters were told to withdraw to northern Iraq but this never happened.

Kobani Kobani is a small town in Northern Syria. Kobani has become a symbol for the Kurdish uprising against ISIS. Kobani is a largely Kurdish town, between the border of North East Syria and Turkey. Having suffered long term neglect by President Assad’s government who were discriminatory towards the Kurdish minority, Kobani was ambushed by ISIS attackers in July 2015 killing at least 300 innocent civilians, and vast amounts of the town was destroyed. Although Turkey let the majority of citizens `(200,000) flee to Turkey, many criticized the late response of the Turkish government, who refused to fund the Peshmerga (Kurdish Army) who were the main group of fighters fighting on the ground.

Turkey Turkey is a Secular democracy with a population of 80 million, of whom 15 million are Kurds, who live in the Eastern Provinces of Turkey, however there are sizeable numbers in Istanbul and Ankara. Turkey is run currently by the AKP Party since 2003, with the current president being Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the prime minister is Ahmet Davutoğlu.

Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Kurdistan is an autonomous region that is largely ruled separately from the main government in Baghdad. Due to the autonomy of the region from the main government in Iraq, the region has become a safe haven for the wide range of minorities in Iraq (Yezidis/Kurds/Christians). However, with increasing de-stabilisation in the region, due to the imposing threat of ISIS, the region is becoming increasingly unstable.

Is the Kurds vs Turkey a Genocide? Genocide Kurds do not have independence Kurdish Culture is under attack and restricted eg. Publishing and learning of Kurdish is banned No Kurdish language is allowed at university These cultural attributes define ethnicity and race as resulting in a systematic though gradual restriction –which leads to long term extermination of race and culture individual to Kurds In recent fight against ISIS, Turkey didn’t help Kurds initally –therefore can be implied of Turkish indifference to Kurds Genocide: The systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group Not Genocide There is a grey area between struggle for independence and cultural suppression/extermination. Turkey claim that Kurds have all equal rights bur cannot divide the country because the Kurdish ethnic group have a different culture. Many Western countries denied the Kurdish killings happened to such an extent as the Kurds say they did. The PPK armed struggle for independence is viewed by Turkey as terrorist activity for trying to dividing the country