Kurdish efforts to found a state

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Various borders of an independent Kurdistan proposed in the 20th century.

Kurdish state establishment efforts aim to create an independent Kurdish state . Its history goes back to the time of Ottoman rule and is followed up to the present, most recently with an independence referendum in Kurdistan in 2005 and one in 2017 . Several attempts to found a state had failed in the 20th century. Only in the north of Iraq was it possible to establish a state-like structure with its own parliament and government, the autonomous region of Kurdistan , from 1991 onwards , which, however, did not receive any international recognition as a state. In the course of the civil war in Syria , from 2013Rojava “Kurdish cantons” in northern Syria under the administration of the Partiya Yekitîya Demokratie , which also have state-like structures.

The Kurds , whose number is estimated at around 30–35 million people, are now considered to be one of the largest peoples in the world without their own nation state . Their settlement area, known as Kurdistan , extends over four states: Turkey , Syria , Iraq and Iran .

21st century

Iraq

After the Kurdish uprising in 1991, the Allies established a no-fly zone in northern Iraq to protect the insurgents from Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi central government thus lost military and soon domestic control over northern Iraq, which was mainly populated by Kurds. One year later, on July 4, 1992, the Kurdistan Regional Government was founded. After the second Iraq war , Kurdistan was officially recognized in the new Iraqi constitution of 2005 and renamed the Kurdistan-Iraq region .

The clearest tendency towards the disintegration of Iraq has been evident since the beginning of 2014 , when the terrorist organization Islamic State became active in Iraq and triggered the Iraq crisis in 2014. After IS was able to conquer some Iraqi cities, it expanded its struggle to the north, to the autonomous region of the Kurds. After the second Iraq war reached autonomy of the Kurds in Iraq's north was the defense of the ISIS strengthened -Aggression and recently taken through conquest of südkurdischen city of Kirkuk and the surrounding oilfields de facto economic independence developed.

Although Turkey - where the majority of the Kurds live - has always strictly rejected its own Kurdish state, this attitude of the government in Ankara is slowly softening. Because such a state would represent a buffer zone on the one hand with Syria, where a revolution against the government that has degenerated into a civil war has been ruling for years , and on the other hand with the constant trouble spot in Iraq with its contrast between the three parts of the population (Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites).

Its power vacuum , which became clear in 2014, is not only due to the controversial Shiite government of Prime Minister Maliki, but also to the advance of the ISIS rebels and the inability of parliament to find a political solution. The parliament, newly elected in the spring, adjourned again at the beginning of July without at least discussing a solution to the crisis.

Since January 2016, Peshmerga , the armed forces of the Kurdistan region, have been digging up several trenches along the border with the rest of Iraq for the fight against IS. These trenches extend from northern Mosul to southern Chanaqin and form a 652-mile (approx. 1,050 km) border. The Iraqi central government accused the Kurds of wanting to draw a de facto state border and thus to pursue independence from Iraq.

At the beginning of 2016, Masud Barzani , President of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan, announced that parliament would prepare a referendum for the independence of Kurdistan. In an interview with The Guardian , he noted that the era of the Sykes-Picot Agreement , which was responsible for dividing the territory of Kurdistan, was over. The referendum should take place before the 2016 presidential election in the United States . In a CNN interview he said that the division of Iraq was a fact for him: “It is time for the Kurds to determine their own future.” In contrast to the parts of the country overrun by Islamist ISIS, northern Iraq is a prosperous one Island of stability with its own parliament, its own army and important investments by Turkish industrialists . The Turkish government did not reject a Kurdish state.

On October 25, 2017, an independence referendum was held in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan (ARK) and in the areas that were controlled by the ARK after the conquest of the Islamic State (IS) . 92% are said to have spoken out in favor of independence from Iraq. The Iraqi government then closed the flight space over the Kurdish areas. In October Iraqi government troops began an offensive against the Kurdish areas and captured the oil-rich Kirkuk and the strategically important Mosul Dam .

Syria

In the civil war in Syria that began in 2011 , the People's Defense Units managed to control areas in the north of the country ( called Rojava ) and set up military bases there. In the course of the civil war, the Syrian government gave up control of the regions on the northern border towards the end of 2013. Local Kurdish forces took control in many places. On November 12, 2013, the Partiya Yekitîya Demokrat (PYD), together with the Christian Syriac Unity Party (an Assyrian / Aramaic party) and other small parties in northern Syria, decided to set up an interim administration in order to deal with the maladministration and supply of the population caused by the war to encounter. The administration was established in Cizîrê on January 21, 2014, in Kobanê on January 27, and a few days later in Afrin. Some of them also received help from the Syrian government, for example in the fight for Kobanê against IS.

Turkey

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From the point of view of the Turkish government, a separation of Kurdish areas from the central state is currently unthinkable, and autonomy is a long way off. Nevertheless, there has been a certain relaxation towards the Kurds in recent years. The current President Erdoğan in Diyarbakir in 2005 at least admitted “problems in the East” instead of just speaking of “terrorism” in connection with the PKK . In the same speech he described the cause of the conflict as a specifically "Kurdish problem" ( Kürt Sorunu ), thereby indirectly recognizing their ethnic character.

Iran

The Iranian Kurds have their main settlement area in the extreme northwest of Persia, a mountainous region of around 400 × 200 km². It is located in the west of the Iranian northern province of Azerbaijan , near the border with eastern Turkey and today's northern Iraq .

At the beginning of the 20th century there were several uprisings against the government in Tehran , the last of which ended in 1930 with the murder of the Kurdish leader Simko Aga . But after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran , a regional Kurdish state was founded with Stalin's help in January 1946 . This People's Republic of Mahabad only existed for eleven months, as did the Azerbaijani People's Government in Tabriz in the larger eastern part of the northern province, which is inhabited by Azeris . After support from Iraqi Barzani warriors, negotiations with Iran took place over several months , but the army then marched in.

After that there was " cemetery peace" under the Shah , and even after Khomeini's revolution in 1979, the Kurds were not granted any autonomy. Because there are no ethnic groups, only the Islamic religious community . In July 2005, an uprising broke out in Mahabad that spread to ten Kurdish cities and was ultimately suppressed by 100,000 soldiers.

Failed attempts to found a state

Illustration from the Milliyet newspaper from September 19, 1930 with the inscription This is where fictional Kurdistan is buried . The Ararat (Ağrı) is represented as a tomb.

Kingdom of Kurdistan (1922-1924)

Republic of Ararat (1927-1931)

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Peace Treaty of Sèvres was set out in 1920, which, among other things, provided for an autonomous Kurdistan. The treaty was completely rejected by the Turkish national movement under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk . In the further course of the following Turkish War of Independence (1920-1923) she took over the Turkish government. During this war, the Kemalist troops received military support from Kurdish tribes, who in return were promised an independent Kurdish state. The 1923 Peace Treaty of Lausanne , in which the initial Treaty of Sèvres was revised in favor of the victorious Turkish Republic, did not provide for Kurdish autonomy. This led in 1930 to the so-called Ararat uprising of the Kurds, who felt they had been betrayed by the new Turkish republic. As a result of one of these uprisings, the Republic of Ararat ( Kurdish Komara Agiriyê ) was proclaimed a Kurdish state in eastern Turkey in 1927. Their territory extended over the province of Ağrı. This state was not recognized internationally and only lasted until 1931, when the Turkish government put down the uprising militarily.

Republic of Kurdistan (1946)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Contemporary history. In: gov.krd. Kurdistan Regional Government, accessed February 1, 2016 (Some key events since the early 20th century.).
  2. ↑ Iraqi Constitution. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Iraqinationality.gov.iq, archived from the original on November 28, 2016 ; accessed on February 1, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iraqinationality.gov.iq
  3. ↑ ISIS proclaims "Caliphate" in Iraq and Syria. In: tagesschau.de. Accessed February 1, 2016 (German).
  4. ↑ Sinjar has been liberated from ISIS, Kurds say - CNN.com. In: CNN. Retrieved February 1, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Peshmerga forces repel ISIS attack west of Mosul, 60 militants killed - ARA news. In: ARA News. Retrieved February 1, 2016 (American English).
  6. ↑ Martin Chulov: 'Tyranny has gone': Kurds and Yazidis celebrate recapture of Sinjar from Isis . In: The Guardian . November 13, 2015 ( theguardian.com [accessed February 1, 2016]).
  7. ^ Oil flow from Iraq to Turkey quadrupled in 2015. In: Daily Sabah. Retrieved February 1, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Kurdish Peshmerga forces fortify oil-rich city of Kirkuk against ISIS jihadis - ARA news. In: ARA News. Retrieved February 1, 2016 (American English).
  9. ↑ As ISIS Weakens, Oil Investment In Iraqi Kurdistan Soars, But Ordinary Iraqis Lose Out On Riches. In: International Business Times. Retrieved February 1, 2016 .
  10. ↑ KRG Provided Kirkuk With $ 10 Million From Oil Sale. In: nrttv.com. NRT TV , accessed February 1, 2016 .
  11. ↑ a b Isis Terror: Turkey does not exclude the Kurdish state in northern Iraq. In: tagesspiegel.de. Retrieved February 1, 2016 .
  12. ^ Kurdish Trenches Against IS Draw Iraqi Ire. In: VOA. Retrieved February 1, 2016 .
  13. ↑ Martin Chulov: Iraqi Kurdistan president: time has come to redraw Middle East boundaries . In: The Guardian . January 22, 2016 ( theguardian.com [accessed February 1, 2016]).
  14. ↑ Barzani: referendum for Kurdish independence should take place before US polls. In: Rudaw. Retrieved February 1, 2016 .
  15. ↑ 92 percent vote for the independence of Kurdistan . In: sueddeutsche.de . September 27, 2017, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed July 21, 2018]).
  16. ↑ Subscribe to read. Retrieved July 21, 2018 (UK English).
  17. ↑ Iraq: Baghdad blocks international flights to Kurdish areas. In: tagesschau.de. Retrieved on July 21, 2018 (German).
  18. ↑ Government troops take the seat of governor in Kirkuk . In: Der Tagesspiegel Online . October 16, 2017, ISSN  1865-2263 ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed July 21, 2018]).
  19. ↑ Reuters Editorial: Iraqi forces take control of Kurdish-held areas in Mosul's ... In: US ( reuters.com [accessed on July 21, 2018]).
  20. ^ Kurds declare an interim administration in Syria . reuters.com, November 12, 2013
  21. ↑ Markus Bickel: Struggle for Kobane Syrian government: We support the Kurds . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . October 22, 2014 ( faz.net [accessed February 2, 2016]).
  22. ^ Ahmad Taheri: Mahabad - the sold Kurdish state . In: The time . No. 16 , 1991 ( zeit.de [accessed February 2, 2016]).