Kurdistan Quotes
The Kurds are an ethnic people—Sunni Muslims by religion who like Armenians and Jews before Israel had no country of their own. There are large contingencies of Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Turkey where historically each of those countries saw the Kurds as part of their Nation. In Turkey, it could be said that almost half the population are Kurds. The Turkish government takes the position that all its citizens are Turks—there is no such thing as a Kurd. Turkey once banned the speaking of Kurdish and would not allow the language to be used in schools insisting that Turkish was the language of the country. Kurds outside of Turkey established terrorist cells and murdered many innocent Turkish people including Turkish Kurds. Turkey, Iraq and Iran have all tried to eliminate any semblance of a Kurdish state or province using force and military means. No country has really aided the Kurds but they have been able to avoid annihilation because of the mountains where they could hide and endure.
A large proportion of Turks are of Kurdish extraction. A minority of the Turkish Kurds want to take part of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran and create a new state of their own—Kurdistan. The PKK has been a revolutionary terror organization within Turkey and other nations and at the time Turkey, unwisely many thought, restricted the use of the Kurdish language as there was a movement there similar to the English only movement in the U. S. at the turn of the millennium. The official position is that all were Turks and there were not separate peoples. Zana, a member of Parliament had Parliamentary Immunity, although she shocked and outraged the conservative, nationalist Turkish establishment. When she left Parliament she joined an illegal political party, was sentenced to jail for terrorism on the testimony of two people who had been tortured and in response to international protests was released in 2004. A number of American Congressmen nominated Zana for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The problem persisted into the 21st century. Iraqi Kurds have constantly tried to carve out parts of Iran and Turkey with ethnic Kurds and form them into a Kurdish nation, separate and distinct from Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Some of the Kurds became fanatic terrorists to that end killing many in all three countries as well as fomenting civil war with other Kurdish factions in Iraq.
Many of the Kurdish people want an independent state—Kurdistan—of their own. There are large concentrations of Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. The Arabs who have a number of independent states in the Middle East came to the area well after the Kurds, but in the vicissitudes of history, the Kurds have not ended up with a country of their own.
Some Kurds had revolted and formed their own army. Fethi did not want to use force to disarm the militia. The assembly voted against him, causing his resignation. Force was used and the militia was disarmed.
The Kurdish People do not have a homeland of their own but are minorities of other states—mostly in Turkey and Iraq. There was a “Kurdistan” for a few years but it did not last do to major geopolitical forces. Whereas Barzani is opposed to violence, there are other Kurds who have resorted to vicious terrorism in their quest for a homeland. Kurds represent a wide range of opinion on the best way to create a stat of Kurdistan, but they were at the time, almost unanimous on their desire for independence and the belief in their moral right to have a homeland.
