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Kurdish politics in the West Asia have taken on a renewed momentum. Kurdish dynamics have evolved largely against the backdrop of the US invasion of Iraq and the creation of the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, the deadlock in Syria and the possibility of a de facto Syrian Kurdistan, as well as the deepening Shia-Sunni divide. Coupled with the domestic situation in Turkey, the Kurdish issue is now poised to wield a significant impact on the security, stability and politics of the West Asia region. This paper seeks to document the status of the Kurds, Kurdish nationalist movements and the consequent regional situation from a Turkish lens, to be followed by a Syrian and Iraqi perspective in subsequent papers.
The status of Kurds has been in question since the fall of the Ottoman Empire wherein they constituted a major ethnic group. Subsequently, the Allied Powers proposed the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 which incorporated the possibility of an independent Kurdistan but the treaty was never ratified. The Kurds were then divided between Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran and their quest for pan-Kurdish unification has been ongoing and unresolved ever since. The denial of any form of Kurdish identity and entity by Turkish governments and the military threat of Kurdish separatist organisation PKK, are some significant outliers that define Kurdish nationalism in Turkey.
Kurds constitute one of the largest ethnic groups in the West Asian region, particularly in Turkey. According to 2007-2008 estimates, the total Kurdish population is approximately 30 million of which the large proportions are distributed in Iraq (4.5 mil), Turkey (14 mil)1 , Syria (1.7 mil) and Iran (5mil)2 . The Kurds in Turkey are predominantly Sunni Muslims although largely believed to belong to the Shafi branch of Sunni Islam3 , and are ethnically distinct from Turks and Arabs. There are also about 3 million Kurdish Alevis in Turkey4 . The Kurdish language, in Turkey, is spoken mainly in the Kurmanji and Zaza dialects5 . They largely inhabit the south-eastern parts of Turkey. However, historically the Kurds have lived in largely rugged mountainous regions and this separates the different Kurdish communities from each other. Thus, the construction of the larger Kurdish identity is fissured along religious, linguistic, tribal and regional affiliations6.
The declaration of the Turkish Republic in 1924 laid the ground for alienating Turkey's Kurdish population by 'redefining national identity' in terms of ethnicity and language. While under the Caliphate, the Muslim population identified with the common theme of Islam, the new 1924 Constitution emphasized on 'Turkish' identity, particularly Turkish language and culture as a base for nationhood and national integrity7 . Even though the Constitution stated that 'without religious and ethnic differences, every person of the people of Turkey who is a citizen is regarded as a Turk8' , in practice the Kemalist State suppressed any form of Kurdish expression and used media, education and other forums to override what they called a 'reactionary, backward and dangerous'9 Kurdish identity. The Kemalist State constituted modernism, nationalism and secularism as their core ideologies which were eventually inimical to a multi-ethnic polity.
In opposition to these policies, 16 Kurdish rebellions broke out against the Ataturk ruled Turkish State between 1924 and 1938, including the infamous Shaikh Said rebellion in 1925 and the Dersim rebellion that lasted from 1936 to 193810 . These uprisings were brutally crushed by the State and thereafter, it appeared that a large proportion of the Kurdish population had assimilated itself into Turkish identity.
Until the 1990s, Kurds were generally referred to as 'mountain Turks'11 and were forbidden to use Kurdish language for education and broadcasting. Therefore, with their own identities suppressed, Kurds were largely excluded from Turkish polity on account of not being 'Turks'. A process of 'Turkification' included persecution and deportation of Kurdish elites, moving Turkish people into Kurdish areas, and a severe economic neglect of the Kurdish dominated south-eastern belt12 . This economic underdevelopment of the Eastern provinces was also possibly borne out of the fear that education and economic progress might facilitate the spread of Kurdish sentiments and threaten the country's integrity.
The revival of the Kurdish movement in the late 60s and 70s was, however, mobilised under the rule of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes (1950-1960) through the spread of education, integration of the region into Turkish economy and a Kurdish interaction with socialist ideology. Leftist movements (The Revolutionary Cultural Society of the East, Worker's Party of Turkey etc.) fuelled Kurdish sentiments by referring to their deprived economic status. The movement was further politicised after the 1980 military coup that brutally oppressed Kurdish activism and installed a draconian constitution in 198213 . The coup was largely in response to the perceived Kurdish threat. While the 1961 Constitution was also installed by the military, it incorporated greater civil liberties and sensitivity to the Kurdish issue.
The creation of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) under the leadership of Abdullah Ocalan in 1978 gave a new dimension to the Kurdish struggle for political and cultural rights. The PKK is an armed insurgent movement that demanded secession and targeted the State as well as civilians from the mid-1980s. The confrontation between the armed forces and the PKK forces has claimed over 40,000 lives since 198414 . At first, the Turkish government chose to adopt a 'hard-line' approach towards the PKK by militarising Kurdish provinces 15 and launching extensive military operations which eventually drove the PKK forces to establish a safe haven in Qandil in northern Iraq16 . While the Turkish State introduced financial reforms for Kurdish dominated south-eastern Turkey, Ankara remained divided over the issue of language and cultural rights of the minorities. Some political parties, including the MHP, continued to assert that 'granting cultural rights to Kurds would threaten the unity and integrity of Turkey'17 .
Ankara's policies towards the Kurdish issue were defined by two main factors at the time - the arrest of PKK leader Ocalan in 1999 and the Copenhagen criteria for European Union membership18 . Ankara removed Ocalan's death sentence to meet the conditions of the European Court of Human Rights19 and the PKK initiated a cease-fire (forming the peaceful Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress20 ). In an effort to align with EU standards, the Turkish State introduced new laws, reform packages, the possibility of greater freedom of speech and expression for the Kurdish minorities and lifted emergency rule over Kurdish areas of Diyarbakir, Tunceli (Dersim) and Hakkari after eighteen years21 . Following these developments, there was an ideological break in the PKK's outlook, from independence to democratization and pluralism. The PKK no longer laid claim to a separate nation-state but instead demanded constitutional reforms, language rights, greater autonomy and political representation.
A resolution to the Kurdish issue seemed possible as the pan-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, sweeping the south-eastern belt on the promise of resolving Kurdish grievances. However, the AKP's failure to address these issues (for instance, failure to amend anti-terror laws or draft a new constitution) and the space created by the US invasion of Iraq22 led to an extremely violent phase in the PKK's armed struggle for Kurdish rights.
Renewed PKK violence in 2005 led the AKP to announce a 'Kurdish Opening' which was subsequently renamed the 'Democratic Opening'. The 'opening' however, was 'stillborn'. While the AKP made small inroads into the question of language rights, including the establishment of a state-run Kurdish language television channel, the larger issues of autonomy, political representation and the conditions for demobilisation of insurgents remain unaddressed. Even though the AKP made efforts to collaborate with the PKK-affiliated Peace and Democracy party (BDP)23 in parliament, the military campaign towards the PKK was ongoing and 'openly showing a deep distrust of the Kurdish movement'24 .
Analysing a report published by the International Crisis Group in 2012, it appears that certain factors contribute to the deadlock in dealing with the Kurdish question. Firstly, there is substantial ambiguity surrounding the Kurdish demand for 'democratic autonomy'. In his writings, Ocalan accepts 'the institutions and present borders of turkey as legitimate', but talks of an 'EU-type of Union...a flexible confederation...for Turkey, Syria and Iraq'. This leads the Turkish State and some Kurdish activists to fear that the PKK retains its original goal of creating an independent state.
Secondly, the report suggests that armed struggle is central to PKK's ideology because it is military confrontation that has compelled the government to review its policies with regard to Kurdish rights, and thus, given the Kurdish movement identity. This view also points to increasing factionalism between hard-liners and moderates within the PKK and other Kurdish movements. Many believe that Ocalan is losing control of hardliners within PKK and recent incidents of violence have undermined his ability to negotiate with Erdogan's government25 . However, the need to separate negotiations with the PKK from the larger reform steps for the Kurdish community is critical to improve peace and stability in the country26 .
This notwithstanding, the peace agreement between Erdogan and Ocalan's forces in March this year promised a break-through in the long-standing conflict. The PKK rebels agreed to withdraw to northern Iraq in exchange for constitutional changes and other reforms. However, as the rebels have halted the withdrawal and accused the Turkish government of not having upheld their end of the deal, the peace process appears to be collapsing. Even though the government has introduced some reforms Kurdish politicians and rebels have claimed that these are not enough in granting Kurds their rights and will wait for further reforms before breaking the cease-fire27 .
Prime Minister Erdogan announced the long awaited 'democracy package' on September 30, which is aimed towards strengthening democracy and addressing minorities' issues in the country. In keeping with Kurdish demands, the package includes allowing private schools to teach courses in the mother tongue, making permissible the use the Kurdish letters W, Q and X, and the possibility of lowering the electoral threshold for adequate representation in the parliament. However, these reforms have been deemed as largely inadequate. For instance, education in mother tongue does not extend to state-owned schools, the repressive anti-terror laws have been left out of the package and the electoral reforms (options to be debated in the parliament) are designed to benefit only the larger parties28 .
Kurdish disappointment with the reforms is elucidated by a commander of the PKK military wing, Murat Karayilan, who says that 'Erdogan spoke for 45 minutes on the package but never uttered the word Kurdish...This mentality from the 1990s. It refuses to say Kurdish and recognise the inherent rights of the Kurds'29 .
Some news reports have called the Kurds the 'region's new wild cards'. This holds true as the 'Syrian PKK', the Democratic Union Party (PYD), remoulds Kurdish reality and moves towards creating an autonomous Kurdish zone in northeast Syria30 . The possibility of a quasi-Kurdish State along Turkey's own Kurdish dominated south-eastern border is a shared concern for both the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq and Ankara. Masoud Barzani's visit to Turley earlier this month, indicates a sense of urgency towards the situation and a desperate bid to bring the PKK back to the negotiating table.
These developments also allude towards shifting alliances that have characterised regional responses to the Kurdish situation. Formerly allied with Syria, Iran and Iraq, Ankara has now colluded with the KRG to keep PKK insurgency at bay. The Shiite-led central government in Iraq, KRG's control over the Turkish-Iraqi border and the expanding economy of the Kurdish region made Erbil a strategic partner as opposed to Baghdad.
Secondly, Iran is mindful of the possible spill-over of the Ankara-KRG relations and has often threatened to leverage the PKK bases within its territory against Turkey. Lastly, Syria has often used the PKK as a tool against Turkey. Even though relations improved when Ocalan was expelled from Damascus, Ankara's opposition to the Shia-Alawite regime in Syria (among other countries) compelled Assad to ally with Kurdish militia and increase his support base.
Kurdish aspirations have always been suppressed by imperial powers, evolving dynamics of the West Asian states and their own divisive character. However, the political dynamics of the region have now provided a space for the Kurds to reinstate their demands. Hence, there is an increasing fear that the external dynamics of the West Asian region coupled with the restive internal dynamics of Turkey, Syria and Iraq could potentially unify fractured Kurdish movements and destabilize the region at large.
By Special Arrangement with : Observer Research Foundation (www.orfonline.org)