by Sherkoh Abbas, Robert Sklaroff and Joseph Puder
inFocus Quarterly
Now that the Geneva “peace” convocation has predictably collapsed, so too has America’s paradigm for Syria that—at various times—has favored Shiites (Alawite President al-Asad) and Sunnis (al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood). As the civil war rages on, America should instead support the newborn, self-ruling non-Islamist entity—Kurdistan—as a model for a coalition Syrian government. Kurds have unsuccessfully sought freedom and self-determination since dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the legal basis of their modern-day independence efforts. Perhaps a parallel history explains the longstanding friendship between Kurds and Jews, for the Kurdish experience (citing Sèvres) recapitulates Israel’s (citing Balfour).
Kurds Have Struggled for Independence
The Kurds are an Indo-European ethnic group—descents of Medes and Hurrians—which has, for four millennia, inhabited a region that includes parts of present day Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Kurds are now largely Sunni Muslims, although non-Muslim Kurds are Jews, Christians, and Yazedi (who are, themselves, related to Zoroastrianism). About the time of the Arab conquests in the Seventh Century, the term “Kurd” (with Greek roots) was beginning to be applied as an ethnic description of the Persian-influenced Kurdish tribes. Kurds have historically befriended Jews, from Cyrus the Great (the only non-Jew to be viewed as a “messiah” for his decree to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple in 539 B.C.E., as per Isaiah 44:24, 26–45:3, 13) to Sultan Saladin (who promoted coexistence of the three major religions in Jerusalem in 1187, abrogating the wishes of many Muslims and Christians.)
A few short-lived Kurdish dynasties appeared between 830-1150 until the Seljuk Sultan Sandjar “Turk” annexed 17 Kurdish principalities by 1150 and officially established “Kurdistan Province.” The Kurdish dynasty, Ayyubid, founded by Sultan Saladin Ayyubi, took over the Muslim leadership. His empire lasted almost a century (1169-1250), and he garnered long-term Christian antipathy for having allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem en masse and for having expelled the Crusaders from the Middle East. In 1514, Turkish Sultan Selim I forged an alliance with the Kurds to protect its eastern borders from the Persian empire; in exchange for this support, Kurds attained self-rule in Kurdistan, yielding three centuries of peace, stability and cultural renaissance.
The Bohtan (Botan) Emirate (1812-1848), declared by Bader Khan Pasha as the first Kurdish kingdom, was absorbed by the Ottoman Empire in 1908. After World War I, just as the USSR ultimately evicted Armenians, Kurdish interests were eroded by a sequence of treaties and betrayals. Kurds were promised independence in the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which outlined a truncated Kurdistan located solely on Turkish territory (excluding Iran, British-controlled Iraq, and French-controlled Syria), but the treaty was supplanted by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which was silent on the subject of Kurdish rights. In this fashion, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, deceived the Kurds. The first Kurdish republic was formed in Eastern Kurdistan (Kurdistan of Iran) and lasted one year (1946-1947) until its leader, Qazi Muhammad, was executed by the Iranian regime. As a result, Kurds were not mentioned in any subsequent international document until 1991, when U.N. Security Council Resolution 688 outlined the fate of Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait had been reversed in the Gulf War.
Kurds Merit Independence
Thus, just as Israel was re-established as a Jewish state in 1948, the Kurds have yearned for self-rule. They merit a homeland to allow their distinct history, language, and culture to flourish. Although they enjoy quasi-sovereignty in northern Iraq, they have been repulsed during recent decades in eastern Turkey and they have been brutalized in Syria and Iran. Perpetuating their promotion of tolerance from King Cyrus to Sultan Saladin are their staunchly pro-American and pro-Israeli views. An independent Kurdistan would therefore serve as a bulwark against Syrian antagonists, but they need support from the United States, as they are surrounded by armies that covet their oil-rich lands and seek their demise.
Were the U.S. and Western Nations to support the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria and its allied Kurdish National Council of Syria forces—which dominate the Syrian Kurdish militia and political leadership—they could vet leaders of anti-Asad forces among Turks or rebels supported by the Arab Gulf-States, lest support be rendered to Islamists of whatever stripe. This would yield the ability to form a Republic led by an amalgamation of Kurds, non-Islamist Sunnis, non-Islamist Shiites, Assyrians, and Christians. Kurds know that nations formed by mirroring British and French spheres of regional influence—following myriad ideologies (from Leftists to Islamists)—have penetrated, derailed and undermined Kurdish movements aspiring for self-determination; which is why the Kurdish masses have resisted and rejected such tactics.
Reversing American passivity would yield resistance to self-serving motives of those who resist Kurdish empowerment, particularly when it is possible to achieve incremental improvement in Syria that would promise the long-term stability of a representative government yielding, in turn, to the return of millions of refugees who had fled this war-torn country. Instead, America (officially, via humanitarian aid) and the Gulf States (overtly, militarily) support radical Pan-Arab Nationalists and Islamist groups such as the Syrian National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army (themselves encompassing terrorist groups such as The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS). Through it all, the Kurds have resisted pressure to join them against the Asad regime in exchange for the promise of being recognized as citizens.
The Kurds reject such entreaties not because of fealty to the Asad regime, which continues to massacre its citizenry, but because they perceive the rebel groups as essentially no different than the regime regarding how they treat minorities, particularly Kurds. They recall these regime opponents supported father/son-Asad for four decades, aiding/abetting the oppression of the Kurds and they observe that these rebels want regime change simply to accrue power. Kurds, however, want the revolution to promote a moderate, peaceful and democratic government that would undo injustice perpetrated on Kurds, yielding freedom, democracy, human rights, and federalism.
Kurds Continue to Struggle for Independence
To determine which group(s) merit support, entities purporting to represent Kurds must be identified. Even before the two-and-a-half-year uprising against Asad, Kurds [including civic, religious, political and tribal leaders] supported regime-change. Now, they promote a new Federal Syria where Kurds and other minorities would achieve self-determination and prevent radical groups from controlling the nation. Conceptually, this resembles the governmental structure established by the United States Constitution, yielding a dynamic between a central authority that ensures security and the exercise of states’ rights.
Operationally, this necessitates scrutiny of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK); the former controls much of northwestern Syria near the Turkish border, and the latter is tethered to Turkey (which is itself experiencing persistent internal turmoil). Ultimately, this would yield an independent Kurdistan and involvement of Kurds in the government of the remaining Syrian region.
The PYD’s “Declaration of Local Autonomy”—that Rojava, the western Kurdistan Region of Syria, should become a Federal entity—trisects Kurdistan by excluding regions north and northeast of Syrian Kurdistan. Recalling what transpired almost a century ago, it risks setting precedent that could yield support for a tyrant (such as Asad) and compromised territorial control. This is why most Syrian Kurds view it as insufficient, for they don’t want to facilitate efforts by their enemies to divide and conquer the pesky Kurds, and they certainly don’t want their independence movement to be hijacked. By supporting PKK/PYD, neighboring countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Russia) block efforts by as many as 4 million Kurds in Syria to create an independent Kurdistan that could then forge a confederation with 5 million in Iraqi Kurdistan; this forestalls establishing an entity similar to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq that is pro-West and pro-democracy, while being against radical Islamists and butchers like Asad. This is how Asad and Syrian opposition groups have collaborated to suppress and to divide the Kurds; this is why self-determination is mandatory—at least for Syrian Kurdistan.
In Turkey, PKK’s senior leadership does not advocate an independent Kurdistan, perhaps because its top five senior leaders are non-Kurds, although they portray themselves as Kurds. The PKK’s chief demand is freedom for Abdullah Öcalan, undermining the Kurds. This explains why working with status quo groups for almost a century has not yielded the emergence of an independent Kurdistan. When terrorism and instability abound, America should support an alternative that is friendly to Western interests, an independent Kurdistan that could serve as a Homeland and then, if desired, federate with Kurds living in neighboring countries. This latter alternative would serve to assuage worry that creation of a rogue nation potentially could inflame regional tension.
Also, Kurds have been hesitant to support either the PKK or the PYD because neither advocates pro-Western ideals that resonate with the Kurdish people: human rights, a democratic republic, and possible federation. Also, their functional track record has contrasted with a Kurdish culture that prioritizes family values, moderation and tolerance. They have conscripted 10-year-olds in child-soldier operations, commandeered property (e.g., automobiles) to fund their activities, and compromised basic Kurdish interests when dealing with Syrian and Turkish leaders. Cooperation with pro-regime Arab and Christian groups has led to Kurds having been killed, kidnapped, and displaced from the region, relegating them to refugee status.
This is why, on May 4, 2014, in Dusseldorf, Germany, 100+ key figures from around the world will convene to strategize regarding this initiative and to explain what it entails…for the Kurds, for Syria, for the region, and for the international community.
Kurds Model Non-Radical Islam
Those who lament the decision not to create an independent Kurdistan after the Gulf War (in lieu of the no-fly-zone) could now be vindicated by creation of a Homeland for Kurds in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey; far from providing sanctuary for cross-border attacks, this would allow for peaceful interaction between Syrian Kurds and those living in a Diaspora. This entity—free standing or federated—would provide America an ally in the heart of the battle between Iran/Russia-supported Asad and Islamist-dominated rebels, a bulwark against either ultimately controlling the region. Kurds can help to retard radicalization of the Middle East by preventing Shiites and Sunnis from unfurling flags with Islamist crescents; they would promote democracy, tolerance, and the pro-Western agenda, which is compatible with Kurdish culture.
Sherkoh Abbas is President of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria; Robert Sklaroff, a Republican Committee-Person, is a physician-activist; and Joseph Puder, a registered Democrat, is Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Taskforce for America and Israel (ITAI).
Must have been those moderate Muslims we keep hearing about.
@ ppksky:
You make it sound like it was a joint project of Kurds & Turks. This is simply not the truth.
It was an Ottoman policy, not a Kurdish policy.
SOME Kurds participated.
Other Kurds not only refused but actively resisted — just as actively as their ethnic relatives participated.
They ARE a nation, and have been one for FAR longer than any nation in the General Assembly.
— What they NEED is a state: to PROTECT their nation, so they’ll not have to rely on the largesse of the five states where they live as a minority. It was living under Ottoman sovereignty that forced them into the impossible position that resulted in the participation of some Kurds in the Armenian & Assyrian genocides.
You keep saying that, as if they had NOT acknowledged their role. I daresay you will find MANY more instances of Kurds publicly owning up to their forbears’ complicity than instances of their denying it (if you can find any at all, these days).
E.G. — Scroll down to the TABLE at the bottom half of the following, linked page (I’d print the TABLE here, but it’s WAY too long to escape the spambot):
List of recognizance
Turkey isn’t interested in the EU. She has turned instead back toward the Mideast, in hopes of challenging Iran’s bid for leadership of the Islamic world. That’s what the Mavi Marmora affair was really about.
It remains. Giving the Kurds a nation without an account for their role in committing genocide against the Armenians would be rewarding genocide. Much of the lands they claim are in fact Armenian lands, purged of Armenians through genocide.
Again,
@ ppksky:
Their allegation in the GreatWar had been that the loyalty of the Armenians was suspect.
Quite so. Their overwhelming majority status would’ve made it hard to square the assertion, and the course they took pursuant to it.
There’s a begged question in there; you’ve assumed something that isn’t established.
— The Turkish Kurds & PKK have not asked for independence from Turkey.
What’s more, I have yet to see any instance of Kurds making claims for land ANYWHERE that they have not been living on all this time. (If you have, then show it to me.)
It’s apparent that SOME kind of eventual accommodation will have to be reached betw Armenians & Kurds over “Western Armenia” — and they may well find in each other the best of allies in taking on Ankara.
@ ppksky:
I already told you [post #3, above], they are in no position to PRESSURE the Turkish govt. They endanger themselves by speaking up at all (though many have done just that) — let alone, ‘pressuring’ the govt.
— As a minority in a non-democratic country, they have to walk a very fine line.
Repeat: “A lot of Kurds (incl Öcalan) have acknowledged the complicity of their forbears. But it’s obvious that until the Turks themselves ‘come to the mourner’s bench,’ the Turkish Kurd minority will be taking serious risks in owning up to their wrongdoing — as this would bring Turkey under the spotlight .”
MORE HERE. and HERE.
The Kurds have done nothing to pressure Turkey to admit they committed genocide against the Armenians. And what more could the Kurds do except admit that they were also guilty in the genocide? And if they admit they committed genocide, then they admit that the land they claim for independence was Armenian land, the cradle of Armenian civilization. It is you who is putting the cart before the horse.
This is just like the Albanian claims on Kosovo, the cradle of Serbian civilization, except that the Albanians have successfully pawned themselves off as victims of the Serbs. The Turks are weak imitators in trying to pose themselves as victims of Armenian aggression. There are Turks who make the claim, but it is a sad display that nobody takes seriously.
The other thing that the Kurds, Albanians and Kurds have in common is that they are Muslim and it is Islam that has been the motivating factor in committing genocide.
@ ppksky:
Order was no longer the province of the authorities. I told you, the (local) authorities were flagrantly complicit.
Don’t know. If you’re interested, perhaps you could explore that.
Obviously, uniformed troops would have been wherever they were stationed, and Kirkuk itself was over four hours from Baghdad in the 1940’s. It’s clear, in any event, that had the Kurdish brigades not intervened when they did (and apparently in the teeth of orders to the contrary), the Farhud would’ve continued far longer than it did.
There is no single “claim” but a multiplicity of them — put forward by several entities, to several countries besides Turkey: Syria, Iran & Iraq.
In Turkey itself, there will be no possibility of resolution in re the Armenians till Ankara begins to accept its fundamental (and overwhelming) responsibility. Asking the Kurds to do more than they’ve been doing in that regard before the Turks do anything at all amounts to putting the cart before the horse.
Unless, of course (and as is always possible in that neighborhood), EVENTS change the character of geopolitical reality in the region. . . .
If the Kurds “restored order” in Iraq, that is of no significance to anyone except the authorities they “restored order” to. Where were they when the Jews were being massacred? If they had been actually protecting Jews, that might be worth observing.
It remains, the territory the Kurds claim in Turkey, at least, is Armenian territory purged of Armenians through genocide brought about by Turks and Kurds. What they claim belongs to Armenians.
@ ppksky:
Conclusion, re the Kurds. . . . and the Jews. . . . and the Farhud.
On the first two days of June, during Shavuot, 1941 the city of Baghdad erupted in a fury of bloodlust. . . .and lawlessness, with uniformed Iraqi troops and Baghdad’s own police openly & ACTIVELY participating — along with enthusiastic university & secondary school students — in the 2 days of carnage & rape that ultimately left as many as 600, or more, Iraqi Jews dead.
Fatalities have actually been estimated at substantially higher levels, but, as Black has noted, “The final toll may never be known, [as] Rabbis were forced to sign statements vastly minimizing the numbers of casualties.” [Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq’s 7000 Year History of War, Profit and Conflict (John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2004), p. 334] Jews were forbidden by the govt to bury their dead. Instead the govt itself collected the dead and buried them all in one mass grave.
Iraqi soldiers, police, and members of youth groups seized Jewish pedestrians, bound them hand & foot, and threw them under the wheels of tramcars, others were stabbed. Murder, pillage, rape, and the burning of Jewish shops & houses continued for 2 days. [Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, Miriam Kochan, David Littman, trans. (Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, Rutherford, NJ, 2002)]
Children were tossed into the Euphrates, or disembowelled in the presence of their parents. A virtual madness seems to have poisoned the very air. The Ba-tawe’en District [Baghdad’s main Jewish quarter] became the scene of a free-for-all slaughter.
Meanwhile large detachments of British forces: having just regained control of the country — with assistance from Assyrian Christian auxiliaries (‘Levies’) as well as from the British-trained, Arab Legion (of the neighboring, fellow Hashemite, Transjordanian regime of cooperative British client, Emir Abdullah), commanded by Glubb Pasha, but with all said Allied forces under strict orders to avoid the appearance of a counter-coup — stood at the gates of the city, as the pogrom proceeded, none of them lifting a finger.
Order would ultimately be restored only by intervention from 2 loyalist brigades — mostly Kurds — of the Royal Iraqi Army, from the Kirkuk region.
Jews have not forgotten.
@ ppksky:
About the Kurds. . . . and the Jews. . . . and the Farhud.
Baghdad of late spring 1941 was home to 90,000 Jews, who constituted a fourth of the city’s total population & two-thirds of Iraq’s Jewish community.
As the failed, pro-Nazi Iraqi coup was collapsing — and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini (a fugitive after the Arab Revolt of 1936-39), as well as the ex Iraqi PM, Raschid Ali, and the other major conspirators were quietly making good their escape — the Iraqi Minister of Economics, Yunis al-Sab’awi, appointed himself Military Governor of Baghdad & ruler of the south central region. Refusing to concede an end to the revolt, he called the President of the Baghdad Jewish community, and ordered him to restrict all Jews to their homes for the 3-day period of May 29 to June 2. Next, he directed the paramiltary youth group, Katayib al-Shabab, to mark each-and-every Jewish house and storefront in red paint.
He then sent to the primary radio station a message exhorting the broader Arab population of Baghdad to massacre the Jews.
The actual broadcast was blocked, and al-Sab’awi was arrested & deported by the British, and later hanged [20 July 41]. Not all such urgings were thwarted, however; the groundwork had been laid for the Mufti’s parting shot to the region & its Jews: the infamous and bloody, Baghdad Farhud — a Persian expression indicating not only the total breakdown of law & order, but also something which Edwin Black has suggested may best be translated as “violent dispossession” — by which he refers perhaps not only to dispossession from material property, but also to dispossession from the mental & moral faculties. That is to say, pathology was everywhere in play.
I’ll have to finish this in another post. (There IS a point to it; rest assured.)
@ ppksky:
Some Kurds participated; some refused, and instead saved Armenian lives.
Those Kurds who did participate in the killings were under influence of the Young Turks, CUP leaders, who promised them a free Kurdistan.
A lot of Kurds (incl Öcalan) have acknowledged the complicity of their forbears. But it’s obvious that until the Turks themselves “come to the mourner’s bench,” the Turkish Kurd minority will be taking serious risks in owning up to their wrongdoing — as this would bring Turkey under the spotlight.
Meanwhile, there’s one other thing you should know.
If I add it to this post, however, I risk its lengthiness getting the whole comment a spell in the SPAMMER. So I’ll put in a separate post.
Until the Kurds admit, along with the Turks, that they exterminated the Armenians from Eastern Turkey and other parts of the surrounding area in those areas contested as Kurdish homeland, their pleas for any kind of state should be ignored. So too should Turkey’s interest in the EU be ignored for the same reason.
Turkey was once Christian. When Istanbul was Constantinople, it was the birthplace of modern Christianity in Europe. Christianity was liberated in the Roman Empire in Constantinople, not Rome. With the invasion of Islam, Christianity was purged from what is now Turkey. Later, it was the Armenian Christians who were eventually exterminated in Turkey in a systematic act of genocide, with the active participation of the Kurds. What remains is Armenia, which was territory granted to exiled Armenians by the Russians outside of Turkey on Turkey’s eastern border.
This guy sounds too reasonable for any Western leader to take him seriously. They tend to suppport Arab/Islamic terrorists or Nazis.