It is Time to Say Sorry to the Kurds!

Hiwa Zandi
December 17, 2012

It is Time for the Turks, Persians and Arabs Draw Lessons from Kurdish History and Say Sorry to the Kurds!

Historically, Kurdistan has attracted geostrategic importance. It is a country that linked Europe, Middle East, South Asia and the Gulf waters together. For any imperial power or invader coming from Europe and wanting to enter Middle East and advance further into Arabia or South Asia, controlling Kurdistan was a top strategic, political and economic priority. Likewise any imperial power or invader coming from Central Asia or South Asia and attempting to advance further into Middle East, Arabia or North Africa or even towards Europe controlling Kurdistan was a strategically important precondition.



For these reasons from the time of Assyrians, Alexander, Islamic caliphs including Amawis and Abbasids, Saljoughis, Ottomans and Safavids, Kurdistan has been a contentious region. These invaders and powers vied for superiority in Kurdistan. The Ottomans and Safavids divided Kurdistan between themselves for the first time in 1514 after a long period of wars when they saw no other alternative.

One thing however remained a historical fact that long-term control of the four corners of Kurdistan by any local or foreign invader never became a reality. In particular, the rigid mountains of Kurdistan have always been under the direct control of the Kurds; restricting anyone laying a foothold.

In the modern period, Kurdistan still maintains its strategic, economic and geopolitical importance. Under the current geographic and demographic circumstances, Kurds and Kurdistan are located in between the Turks, Arabs and Persians, binding their respective countries of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria together. After the division of Kurdistan amongst these artificial States in 1923, control of Kurdistan, in line with its traditional attribute, has always been the major problems of these new States.

Qandil Mountain, currently shielding PKK guerrillas, has remained an indispensable natural fort for the Kurds. In recent history, Turkey, Iran and Iraq have undertaken numerous unsuccessful land and aerial military operations to control the Kurdish mountains and eliminate the presence of Kurdish freedom fighters. These failed incursions have resulted in unwanted massive human casualties.

There is a historical Kurdish saying that states “Kurds have no friend but the mountains”. This saying in fact captures the epic battles of the Kurds from the time immemorial to the period of Xenophon and his 10,000 Greek soldiers retreating through Kurdistan in 401 BC through to the invasion attempts of Holaco Khan the grandson of Genghis khan, the Ottomans and Safavids and the current Kurdish resistance in the Qandil Mountain.

Kurds have always defended their homeland and did not allow anyone gain control over its epicentre the mountainous region of Kurdistan. This derives a metaphorical conclusion that Kurds and their mountains are two inseparable natural elements; one cannot exist without the other. Whether it was Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, the Arab camel riders or the nomad Turks, the Persian vassals and subservient of the Median Kurds or the imperialists of Europe, Kurdish mountains have always remained under the foot of the Kurds and never fell to the foreign domination.

It seems ironical that these hard core historical facts have not been translated into a political framework that guided the policy makers in bringing peace and stability to the region. It is regrettable that the Turks,www.ekurd.net
Arabs and Persians in particular have not drawn lessons from Kurdish history and are still continuing with the bitter indulgence in the desire of control and occupation of Kurdistan. This behaviour has expectedly resulted in thousands of deaths of not only Kurds but equally their own people. In addition, these States have also wasted tremendous economic resources in attempting to cap Kurdish freedom and independence aspirations which could have been used to develop and modernise the third world status of their nationhood.

In this regard, the Arabs have tried to advance deeper into Kurdistan for centuries. In the contemporary period, this stimulus has not changed. Just weeks ago the previously oppressed Shia Arab led Iraqi government launched the Dijla military operation aiming at reoccupying the Kurdish areas classified as ‘disputed areas’ in the Iraqi constitution. Kurdistan forces retook de facto control of these areas in 2003 after the downfall of Saddam’s regime.

The Iraqi government has not been able to draw lessons from the former Iraqi regime. Saddam’s dictatorial regime could not achieve any success in trying to maintain a long-term occupation of Kurdistan even by conducting a genocide campaign against the Kurds that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Kurds through the infamous 1988 Anfal campaign, using chemical weapon in Halabja, massacre of Barzani in 1980s and many other tragedies. Common sense and human empathy underscores that the Arabs in Iraq would look into mirror and regret the inhumane oppression of Saddam and his Arab army. One would expect that the Iraqi government would come to the Kurds and offer wholehearted apology for the genocide and do anything to redress their grievances. At the same time, this conclusion should also have been reached that attempts of occupying Kurdistan should be a matter of history. Regrettably, it appears this reasonability and conclusion has not prevailed and the occupation mindset has continued.

Similarly, the Turks have been trying to maintain their grip over Kurdistan ever since they abandoned their Central Asian homeland and chose Asia Minor instead in the 11th century AD. Various Kurdish principalities confronted the Turks and challenged them in indulging themselves with the occupation mission. Whilst the Turks have been able to control the Kurdish cities especially after the Ata Turk’s betrayal of the Kurds under the rhetoric of Islamic brotherhood in 1920s, the Kurdish mountains have not fell to their control.

Uprising after uprising maintained the historical character of the Kurds being a free nation and inseparable to their land. The Turkish oppressive regimes continued the Ata Turk’s annihilation and assimilation policy against the Kurds. They proclaimed the Kurds to be ‘mountain Turks’ even though Kurds have lived on their land and mountains for over three millennia, way before the Turks entered the Asia Minor. They massacred Kurds in thousands, destroyed thousands of villages, displaced millions of people and at the same time suppressed the Kurdish culture and language.

The aim of these oppressive policies was to erase the Kurdish identity from the face of their historical homeland. To the misperception this could not occur. Recently, the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan made a superficial and politically impregnated apology to the Kurds for the Darsim Massacre which is only a partial but painful wound of the past Kurdish tragedies.

Nevertheless, the Turkish government has continued with the occupation of Kurdistan and suppression of the Kurds. Currently, over 8000 Kurdish political activists, council members and parliamentarians are holed in prison, education in mother tongue is prohibited in schools, the Kurdish southeast has left drastically underdeveloped compared with the Turkish northwest, and at the same time the bloody war against the PKK guerrillas has been continued.

The case of Islamic regime of Iran is not anything promising. It has adopted the suppressive policies of the predecessor regime of Shah against the Kurds. Shah had managed to put an end to the Republic of Kurdistan in 1946 with the help of foreign powers. The President of the Republic and other government officials were hanged. Thousands of Kurds were massacred and Kurdish identity was suppressed. The Islamic regime extended this suppression through Khalkhali’s massacre of Kurds after the revolution. Today, Kurdish political prisoners are hanged frequently in Iran just because they demand equal cultural, political and economic rights in Iran. Kurdish education is still banned and publication is heavily restricted.

This is in a circumstance that Kurds have close cultural affinity with the Persians and for most part of history Kurds were the rulers of Iran. Commencing with the Meds that established the Median Empire in the mid ninth century BC, covering a vast region stretching from Mediterranean Sea through to Afghanistan, the Kurdish rule continued through the Partians or Ashkanis, the Sasanis and the Zands. Kurds laid the foundation of an everlasting civilization in Kurdistan and Iran in particular and other parts of the Middle East in general. Kurds have a glorious history in protecting Iran and its people from the foreign intruders and invaders. Having this immense glorious past and rich cultural heritage one would expect that the Persians led Iranian governments would treat the Kurds with dignity and cherish their culture and language. On the contrary, the lust for domination has done exactly the opposite by supressing the Kurdish identity.

With all the sufferings and the changing political dynamic in the region, Kurds expect the Arab, Turkish and Persian governments to use logic and come forward sooner rather than later with their apologetic appeals to the Kurdish nation and return to them what is not rightly theirs; for it may be too late when in near future the winds of change sweeps the chance to do so.