Secession in Turkey is a phenomenon caused by the desire of a number of minorities living in Turkey to secede and form independent national states. [1] [2]
Secession in Turkey is a phenomenon caused by the desire of a number of minorities living in Turkey to secede and form independent national states. [1] [2]
At the beginning of the 21st century, the Kurds remain the largest of the groups without their own statehood. The Treaty of Sèvres between Ottoman Empire and Triple Entente (1920) provided for the creation of an independent Kurdistan. However, this agreement never entered into force and was cancelled after the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). In the 1920s and 1930s, Kurds several times unsuccessfully rebelled against the Turkish authorities.
In August 1984, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) declared war on the Turkish authorities, which continues today. Until 1993, the PKK made the most radical demand – the proclamation of a single and independent Kurdistan, uniting the Kurdish territories that are now part of the state borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
Since 1999, the PKK has put forward requirements that are close and understandable to the bulk of the Kurdish population, namely: granting autonomy, preserving national identity, practical equalization of Kurds in rights with the Turks, opening of national schools and introduction of Kurdish TV and radio broadcasting.
Western Armenia (Western Armenian: Արեւմտեան Հայաստան, Arevmdian Hayasdan), located in Western Asia, is a term used to refer to eastern parts of Turkey (formerly the Ottoman Empire) that were part of the historical homeland of the Armenians. [10] Western Armenia, also referred to as Byzantine Armenia, emerged following the division of Greater Armenia between the Byzantine Empire (Western Armenia) and Sassanid Persia (Eastern Armenia) in 387 AD.
The area was conquered by the Ottomans in the 16th century during the Ottoman–Safavid War (1532–1555) against their Iranian Safavid arch-rivals. Being passed on from the former to the latter, Ottoman rule over the region became only decisive after the Ottoman–Safavid War of 1623–1639. [11] The area then became known as Turkish Armenia or Ottoman Armenia. During the 19th century, the Russian Empire conquered all of Eastern Armenia from Iran, [12] and also some parts of Turkish Armenia, such as Kars. The region's Armenian population was affected during the Hamidian massacres.
The Armenian population was largely emptied from this region during the Armenian Genocide, such that only assimilated and crypto-Armenians live in the area today. Some irredentist Armenians claim it as part of United Armenia. The most notable political party with these views is the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.
Kurds or Kurdish people are an Iranic ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. There are exclaves of Kurds in Central Anatolia, Khorasan, and the Caucasus, as well as significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey and Western Europe. The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million.
Kurdistan, or Greater Kurdistan, is a roughly defined geo-cultural region in West Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity have historically been based. Geographically, Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges.
The Kurds are an Iranian ethnic group in the Middle East. They have historically inhabited the mountainous areas to the south of Lake Van and Lake Urmia, a geographical area collectively referred to as Kurdistan. Most Kurds speak Northern Kurdish Kurmanji Kurdish (Kurmanji) and Central Kurdish (Sorani).
The Treaty of Sèvres was a 1920 treaty signed between the Allies of World War I and the Ottoman Empire. The treaty ceded large parts of Ottoman territory to France, the United Kingdom, Greece and Italy, as well as creating large occupation zones within the Ottoman Empire. It was one of a series of treaties that the Central Powers signed with the Allied Powers after their defeat in World War I. Hostilities had already ended with the Armistice of Mudros.
The Zazas are a people in eastern Turkey who traditionally speak the Zaza language, a western Iranian language written in the Latin script. Their heartland consists of Tunceli and Bingöl provinces and parts of Elazığ, Erzincan and Diyarbakır provinces. Zazas generally consider themselves Kurds, and are often described as Zaza Kurds by scholars.
The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million. Most Kurdish people live in Kurdistan, which today is split between Iranian Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkish Kurdistan, and Syrian Kurdistan.
Turkish Kurdistan or Northern Kurdistan is the southeastern part of Turkey where Kurds form the predominant ethnic group. The Kurdish Institute of Paris estimates that there are 20 million Kurds living in Turkey, the majority of them in the southeast.
The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey. According to various estimates, they compose between 15% and 20% of the population of Turkey. There are Kurds living in various provinces of Turkey, but they are primarily concentrated in the east and southeast of the country within the region viewed by Kurds as Turkish Kurdistan.
Armenian–Kurdish relations covers the historical relations between the Kurds and the Armenians.
The Koçgiri rebellion was a Kurdish uprising, that began in the overwhelmingly militant Koçgiri region in present-day eastern Sivas Province in February 1921. The rebellion was initially Alevi, but it succeeded in gathering support from nearby Sunni tribes. The tribal leaders had a close relationship with the Society for the Rise of Kurdistan (SAK). The rebellion was defeated in June 1921.
Kurds have had a long history of discrimination perpetrated against them by the Turkish government. Massacres have periodically occurred against the Kurds since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Among the most significant is the massacre that happened during the Dersim rebellion, when 13,160 civilians were killed by the Turkish Army and 11,818 people were sent into exile. According to McDowall, 40,000 people were killed. The Zilan massacre of 1930 was a massacre of Kurdish residents of Turkey during the Ararat rebellion, in which 5,000 to 47,000 were killed.
Kurdish nationalist uprisings have periodically occurred in Turkey, beginning with the Turkish War of Independence and the consequent transition from the Ottoman Empire to the modern Turkish state and continuing to the present day with the current PKK–Turkey conflict.
Kurdish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which asserts that Kurds are a nation and espouses the creation of an independent Kurdistan from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
Minorities in Turkey form a substantial part of the country's population, representing an estimated 25 to 28 percent of the population. Historically, in the Ottoman Empire, Islam was the official and dominant religion, with Muslims having more rights than non-Muslims, whose rights were restricted. Non-Muslim (dhimmi) ethno-religious groups were legally identified by different millet ("nations").
The nationalist movement among the Kurdish people first emerged in the late 19th century with an uprising in 1880 led by Sheik Ubeydullah. Many Kurds worked with other opponents of the Ottoman regime within the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). A growth in ethnic consciousness at the start of the 20th century was spearheaded by the Society for the Elevation of Kurdistan. Some Kurdish nationalist groups agitated for secession, others for autonomy.
The Sèvres syndrome refers to a popular belief in Turkey that dangerous internal and external enemies, especially the West, are "conspiring to weaken and carve up the Turkish Republic". The term originates from the Treaty of Sèvres of the 1920s, which partitioned the Ottoman Empire among Armenia, Greece, Britain, France, and Italy, leaving a small unaffected area around Ankara under Turkish rule; however, it was never implemented since it was left unratified by the Ottoman Parliament and due to Turkish victory on all fronts during the subsequent Turkish War of Independence. Turkish historian Taner Akçam describes this attitude as an ongoing perception that "there are forces which continually seek to disperse and destroy us, and it is necessary to defend the state against this danger".
Syrian Kurdistan is a region in northern Syria where Kurds form the majority. It is surrounding three noncontiguous enclaves along the Turkish and Iraqi borders: Afrin in the northwest, Kobani in the north, and Jazira in the northeast. Syrian Kurdistan is often called Western Kurdistan or Rojava, one of the four "Lesser Kurdistans" that comprise "Greater Kurdistan", alongside Iranian Kurdistan, Turkish Kurdistan, and Iraqi Kurdistan.
During World War I, several Kurdish rebellions took place within the Ottoman Empire.
The Republic of Turkey has an unofficial policy in place that denies the existence of the Kurds as a distinct ethnicity. The Kurds, who are an Iranic people speaking various dialects of Northwestern Iranic languages, have historically constituted the demographic majority in southeastern Turkey and their independent national aspirations have stood at the forefront of the long-running Kurdish–Turkish conflict. Insisting that the Kurds, like the Turks, are a Turkic people, Turkish state institutions do not recognize the Kurdish language as a language and also omit the Kurdish ethnonym and the term "Kurdistan" in their discourse. In the 20th century, as the words "Kurd" and "Kurdish" were prohibited by Turkish law, all Kurds were referred to as Mountain Turks in a wider attempt to portray them as a people who lost their Turkic identity over time by intermingling with Arabs, Armenians, and Persians, among others. More recently, Turkey's opposition to Kurdish independence has defined how it has conducted itself throughout the Middle East, particularly with regard to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Kurdish–Turkish relations covers the historical relations between Kurds and Turks.