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RAFFI the PROPHET


Arpa

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Arpa, very interesting article - I'd say almost tour-de-force.

Still, though, I have a few questions.

 

Nowadays the Assyrian Christians of Northern Iraq declare they are Kurds.

Why?

 

The Kurdish culture changes in time. Some "age-old Kurdish traditions" were in fact born in Germany in recent decades.

What does that mean? Were they born or revived?

 

In the World War I, the European colonial powers Russia, France and Britain were seizing new colonies by sharing the Middle East between each other. They planned to found two newly old Christian protectorats in Eastern Turkey: Armenia and Assyria. Both these regionally overlapped with Kurdistan. Hatred was incited between the Christian groups and the Islamic Kurds. This resulted massacres, for which it is nowadays fashionable to blame Turkey, while the guilt of the European counterparts is forgotten.

What is being referred to here?

 

When Armenia conquered territories from Azerbaijan, thousands of Muslim Kurds were murdered and expelled from their home villages. Only the Yesids got mercy from Armenians.

Is this NKR being mentioned?

 

I got such a laugh out of the following. :)

Guerrilla war took place in Iran and Turkey in 1980s and 1990s. In both countries 40’000 people were killed, in Iran probably more. Leaders of Iranian Kurds were assassinated in Europe, but for some reason the Western press has been mainly interested in the arrest of the Turkish PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, two years ago.

 

Yet Öcalan is about the worst possible example of a typical Kurd. Öcalan speaks Turkish. The emissaries of the PKK in Europe speak Turkish with each other. Öcalan has not for a single day fought as a guerrilla, but still he has ordered death penalties to traitors, deserters, school teachers and dissidents of his party. Öcalan’s original idols were Che Guevara and Pol Pot. A Kurdish activist hiding in Germany, Selim Cürükkaya, published a book named ‘PKK’ four years ago. In his book, Cürükkaya describes the horrible ways of discipline, paranoia and personal cult prevailing in the PKK. The fanaticism of the supporters, child soldiers and suicides by burning have caused immense damage to the reputation of the Kurds and their cause. It is not without reason that Germany, France, Britain and the United States have prohibited the PKK as a criminal organisation.

Not to mention how the loser pledged allegiance to Turkey, "I love Turkey, I want to serve my country" to a camera first thing on his flight out of Kenya, and not to mention how supporters still regard him with reverence even today, instead of branding him a traitor outright! :rolleyes:

 

"Kurdistan" is a word that raises passions. Many governments are allergic to it. On the other hand, many European politicians and journalists are connecting rather romanticised ideas with Kurds. Superficial and sensational supply of information is presenting things in a simplistic form.

Romanticised - how true!

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This author, a better word would be imposter, could not have produced a worst piece of trash if he were actually paid. Who says he was not paid?

"Europe has had the bad habit of playing hypocrite with human rights. Minorities have been used as tools in superpower politics, but in critical situations the minorities have been betrayed and abandoned. The Kurds have gained selective publicity, whenever European powers have wanted to avoid speaking about Basques or Bretons. The Turkish idea of understanding all citizens of Turkey as "Turks" does not differ from the similar conception of nationality in France and Spain."

Above one of many covert and overt comparisons of Turkey to European nations. Whether paid or not this person seems to be the premier advocate for Turkey's europification.

 

"In the World War I, the European colonial powers Russia, France and Britain were seizing new colonies by sharing the Middle East between each other. They planned to found two newly old Christian protectorats in Eastern Turkey: Armenia and Assyria. Both these regionally overlapped with Kurdistan. Hatred was incited between the Christian groups and the Islamic Kurds. This resulted massacres, for which it is nowadays fashionable to blame Turkey, while the guilt of the European counterparts is forgotten.
"

Wow!

Even the huge propaganda machine in Ankara dare not manufacture such a lie. Does anyone know what is is being said here? Is it that Turks had nothing to do with the Armenian massacres, that it was all between Armenians and Kurds competing for the land?

This author is not only a liar he does not even know history. And that goes about the "creation of an Armenia and Assyria(?). What is being said here? Anyone know?

 

As to "Red Kurdistan", the reference is to the Lachin-Kelbajar corridor which at one time was known as such.

 

 

To us the question is. Are Kurds, will they be a reliable ally when the occasion arises?

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It seems we are not the only ones spotting those gaping holes (in the head of that clown) masquerading as a historian..

 

 

Here; http://www.aina.org/guesteds/20050128130132.htm

 

Assyrian International News Agency

Guest Editorial

Misinformation From a Finnish Immigration Official

Dr. Eden Naby

Posted 01/28/05

 

(AINA) -- A member of the Finnish Directorate of Immigration, Antero Leitzinger published an article called Kurds and the Kurdistans, which appeared on 1/23/05 at GlobalPolitician.com. The article appeared so outrageous to a Kurdish supporter that this person called it to the attention of Dr. Eden Naby, Academic Advisor to the Assyrian Academic Society. The article below is Dr. Naby's editorial for AINA critiquing the misinformation that the author has knowingly or unwittingly passed into the public domain about Assyrians (ed.).

 

I am truly appalled at the shallowness of the analysis, lack of comparative data, and simple (mischievous?) twisting of facts in the article on Kurds and the Kurdistans, which appeared on 1/23/05 by Antero Leitzinger at GlobalPolitician.com. In the age of the Internet, thankfully, one cannot get away with such low quality work. Facts are easy to check, and propaganda cannot so easily pass for expert knowledge.

 

Not only does this author persist on weighing "oranges" against "apples" and coming up with useless analogies (Scandinavians, divided into several countries, cannot be equated with Kurds, nor can Turks be equated with the distant Uighurs of Central Asia, whatever the language affinities may be), but he treats lightly areas of cultural history that are very complex

 

But this is not his most egregious mistake. No, in his references to Assyrians your editors should not have let pass the absolute historical and linguistic misinformation being passed along by Kurdish extremists to unsuspecting western sources: Can Global Politician maintain its integrity if it presents such appallingly unbalanced material?

 

Assyrians have never been "Kurds." Nor are Jews who lived in northern Iraq "Kurds." From reliable Israeli accounts, there are no more than 100 Jews left in all of Iraq, and most of those are in Baghdad and Basra. The Jewish religious and cultural facilities in places like Mosul and especially the large village of Alqosh on the Nineveh Plain have been looked after by the local ChaldoAssyrians once the Jews finally got permission to flee to Israel after 1949. Assyrians and Jews in Iraq, because they shared religious status as dhimmis - barely tolerated non-Muslims - and a common Aramaic speaking heritage, maintained a close relationship. One of the earliest books published about Jews in Iraq is by an Assyrian (Ghanima, 1927).

 

Whatever the new strategic relationship between Iraq's Kurds and the Israelis and Americans may be, let us not gloss over the fact that most Jews living in northern Iraq are today in Israel or somewhere out of Iraq. Just because they spoke Kurdish does not mean that they were Kurds. Many minorities speak multiple languages of necessity, even as a mother language, of necessity. Look at the Uzbek elites or the Kazakhs who still are more comfortable in Russian than in their own written languages. Imagine the situation in northern Iraq where Jews and Assyrians spoke modern forms of Aramaic but of necessity also communicated in Kurdish, Arabic and in some cases Turkish and Persian. That is the state of minorities. It is an injustice to parlay multilingualism into Kurdish ethnicity and deny the existence of special ethnic minorities who already suffer enough physically and culturally.

 

In terms of religion therefore, Kurds do not include many religions. Absolutely not. They are Muslims of several stripes. Assyrians are Christians separated into several denominations. The language of Assyrian church liturgy is Syriac, and sometimes the modern Aramaic vernacular. If in some churches the knowledge of Aramaic has decreased due to its suppression in schools, and Arabic, Turkish and even Kurdish are adopted to carry on the Christian tradition, this does not make these people Kurds. Aramaic is the oldest continuously written and spoken language of the Middle East and second only to Chinese in the entire world. It is on the verge of joining the dead languages of the world like Latin precisely because of the kinds of persecution that Christians in parts of the Muslim world have experienced.

 

In Iraq, northwest Iran and in eastern Turkey, the biggest direct physical pressure on the Assyrians came from the Kurds, historically and today. Antero Leitzinger should have reflected a bit more, and read a great deal more about the First World War in the Middle East before repeating Kurdish propaganda about who persecuted whom. Written records alone, of Kurdish attacks on Assyrian villages, go back to the mid-19th century. They culminated in World War I when Kurds persistently attacked Urmiyah at a time when the Iranian government was too weak (caught up in the Constitutional Revolution) to resist either the Tsarist or Ottoman armies. Kurds took advantage of this weakness to kill off Assyrians and Armenians in persistent pulses sweeping down from the Zagros foothills onto the plains of Urmiyah. In 1914, just as the Ottomans joined the Central Powers, their Kurdish allies launched an attack on Margawar and Targawar, killing all who could not flee east to relative shelter. In 1915 when the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) launched its jihad in earnest against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks, driving who they could not kill into the Syrian desert, due to the Kurdish Hamidiya paramilitary units, very few, less than 50,000 Assyrians managed to reach Urmiyah since the mountain passes were held by Kurds who had taken over Margawar and Targawar already. The events of WWI culminated in the assassination of the Kurdish Shakkak tribe's honored dinner guest, the Assyrian Patriarch, titled Mar Shim'un at that time, in 1918. Some allege the after dinner assassination took place because the Kurdish chieftain coveted this Assyrian leader's ring. (Anzali, 1999)

 

Kurds have also coveted Assyrian and Armenian women, and being in a more religiously powerful position as Muslims, they have taken these women and girls as household servants or second wives with little that their Christian neighbors could do to prevent it, although trying to get the women back periodically occurred and as late as the 1960s got whole Christian villages destroyed (August Thiery, 2003). The offspring of such forced unions may be partly Assyrian, but ethnically and culturally they grew up Kurds. And Muslims. Forget racial purity in that part of the Middle East: what matters for identity is language, religion and heritage.

 

Due to the polygamous marriages so popular among peasant and non-peasant Kurds, the rate of population increase among Kurds is one of the highest in the world although population figures are notoriously unreliable and we only have the sample Soviet censuses to provide some evidence. One recent New Yorker article (October 2004) noted that among the Kurds moving into Kirkuk was a man with two wives and 21 children! He was interviewed at random. The upshot of all this is that the villages in Iran identified as Assyrian in 1927 were reduced drastically in number by the time of the official Iranian census published in the early 1950s (Razmara). And take a guess as to who had replaced the Assyrian Christians in and around Urmiyah? Mainly Kurds, not Azaris. Maybe Antero Leitzinger should have read a little more about why the Mahabad Republic was located where it was in WWII, instead of simply wondering why it was not in "Kordestan."

 

The same displacement process occurred in southeast Turkey, in northeast Syria and now with help from misinformation like that provided in Global Politician, on the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq. These replacements are genuine Kurds, not of the variety your author is presenting as "Christian Kurds" and "Jewish Kurds."

 

These ethnic and religious matters in the Middle East are not simple. To try to deal with them from a biased perspective, or to create untenable analogies, only leads to disastrously tragic policy decisions. Global political astuteness requires far greater diligence and care.

 

Ethnic cleansing is no joking matter. Careless words can wipe out the Assyrians, one of the oldest surviving communities in the world. The culture of the Assyrians of the Middle East is precious in all the senses of that word: it is old, rich, increasingly fragile, and has made many contributions to world culture from medicine (Le Coz, 2004) to agriculture (Abdalla 1980s, 1990s articles) and all the fields of human knowledge between them. To relegate the Assyrians to a branch of Kurds, who, for whatever reason, have a low prestige culture and little written history, is a cultural crime. At the least your author and you [globalpolitician.com] need to make a retraction.

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I think AINA's review of Leitzinger is an over-reaction. I see nothing Assyrians should be upset about aside from a sentence like "Nowadays the Assyrian Christians of Northern Iraq declare they are Kurds." This may or may not be true and while I wouldn't know I wouldn't be surprised if they were to maintain a low profile among the Kurds of Northern Iraq. This could have been elaborated on.

And Leitzinger didn't at all imply that Kurdish sentiments were farce - quite the contrary. This can be demonstrated here:

 

The strength of the Kurds and the vitality of Kurdish culture are in their ability to create new, and to combine traditions of the Middle Eastern dominant cultures and numerous minorities. The variety and flexibility of expression, typical for spoken language, the religious plurality, and the whole wide scale of culture are not necessarily weaknesses splitting up the community, and by no means they are reasons for shame. The Kurds have not succeeded in imitating European nationalism of the 1800s, but they have succeeded in what today’s Europeanity is dreaming about: unity in variety.

And there do exist Christian Kurds, or have - Bibles in the Kurdish language, written with the Armenian alphabet, have been reputed to exist.

 

If anything, AINA's response is demeaning of Kurds where Leitzinger's wasn't - all this talk of "coveting Assyrian women" and how many children a typical Kurdish family can have - give me a break.

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Are Kurds really a (one)nation by definition?

Below may be some answers.

Note that Armenia and Armenians are mentioned several times.

Apologies for the length but worth the read. There may be some lessons for us too.

 

http://globalpolitician.com/articles.asp?ID=316

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That was quite an interesting article and I have to agree with most of his assessments. Kurdish nationalism is a relatively late phenomenon and because it came so late to the international stage it is a highly irrational and virulent one. You can only talk about a nation if it has a unified language which isn't the case when it comes to the Kurds. We are Turkish Kurds who are Kirmancis, the most numerous but also the most assimilated ones. In fact besides my uncle not one of us speak can speak it. I don't agree with the author that there is unity out of diversity. The Zazas don't consider themselves as Kurds, so it is better to respect their wishes. The desire of a Kurdish nationhood and the geographical area where we live is what keeps this mystique alive. There is no concrete Kurdish national identity but a romantic one which only exists in some peoples dreams like the author said. The Kurds are similar to the Berbers, Tamazights and Romanies. All are nomad dwellers in spirit. There is no likelihood that statehood will ever be realised for these people. It wasn't meant for them. There so much to write on this but that's my take for today.

Edited by Med
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That was quite an interesting article and I have to agree with most of his assessments. Kurdish nationalism is a relatively late phenomenon and because it came so late to the international stage it is a highly irrational and virulent one. You can only talk about a nation if it has a unified language which isn't the case when it comes to the Kurds. We are Turkish Kurds who are Kirmancis, the most numerous but also the most assimilated ones. In fact besides my uncle not one of us speak can speak it. I don't agree with the author that there is unity out of diversity. The Zazas don't consider themselves as Kurds, so it is better to respect their wishes. The desire of a Kurdish nationhood and the geographical area where we live is what keeps this mystique alive. There is no concrete Kurdish national identity but a romantic one which only exists in some peoples dreams like the author said. The Kurds are similar to the Berbers, Tamazights and Romanies. All are nomad dwellers in spirit. There is no likelihood that statehood will ever be realised for these people. It wasn't meant for them. There so much to write on this but that's my take for today.

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

What a Kurd :D

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Yet Öcalan is about the worst possible example of a typical Kurd. Öcalan speaks Turkish. The emissaries of the PKK in Europe speak Turkish with each other. Öcalan has not for a single day fought as a guerrilla, but still he has ordered death penalties to traitors, deserters, school teachers and dissidents of his party. Öcalan’s original idols were Che Guevara and Pol Pot. A Kurdish activist hiding in Germany, Selim Cürükkaya, published a book named ‘PKK’ four years ago. In his book, Cürükkaya describes the horrible ways of discipline, paranoia and personal cult prevailing in the PKK. The fanaticism of the supporters, child soldiers and suicides by burning have caused immense damage to the reputation of the Kurds and their cause. It is not without reason that Germany, France, Britain and the United States have prohibited the PKK as a criminal organisation.

 

 

That fellow was created by Turkey and by the atmosphere of that time in general. And not to forget the clumsy but still oppressive Turkish mindset and Kurdish clan structure. The great irony is that Öcalan got a scholarship by the state in the late sixties and studied at the Ankara University S.B.F. (Faculty of Political Sciences). That school is based on the French Ecole Nationale d’Administration the den of French officialdom and is better known as Mülkiye which was founded in Ottoman times. All Turkish diplomats and other senior public servants such as governors and all Interior Ministry officials are from that school. I know that Apo -his nom du guerre- desperately wanted to become a diplomat. I wonder which Ambassadorship post he would have had, had he chosen a different path. :) When the Student disturbances that swept Europe found its way to Turkey, Ankara University and O.D.T.U (Middle East Technical University, another university in Ankara) were the bastions of the Turkish student movement. Apo briefly flirted with Turkish nationalism and took part in their group meetings. What happened afterwards is a mystery. While most of these leftists students had a "miraculous" Road to Damascus experience and became the giddy liberal elite of today, Apo apparently got stuck somewhere. He never graduated and worked as a municipal worker in Diyarbakir for a while before he disappeared in 1975.

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As we speak Ms. Rice, the Secretary of State is in Ankara trying to allay fears about Kurdish issues. She is trying to convince the Turks that the US does not intend to create a Kurdish state in Iraq, assuring the Turks that there will be no reason to fear that Kurds in Aanatolia may follow suit and want the same.

 

As a rule issues don't get addressed unless there is reason. It is like when one would not declare ones innocence unless there is suspicion to assume otherwise.

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The New York Times

February 9, 2005

 

 

The Coming Clash Over Kirkuk

 

By Sandra Mackey.

 

Sandra Mackey is the author of ''The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy

of Saddam Hussein.''

 

AS the Iraqis turn their focus from holding elections to writing a

constitution, the make-or-break issue for their nation may be the

city of Kirkuk. Situated next to Iraq's northern oil fields, Kirkuk

is a setting for all the ethnic-sectarian conflicts that are the

historic reality of Iraq -- Muslim against Christian, Sunni against

Shiite, Kurd against Arab. It is also home to the Turkmens, who are

the ethnic cousins of the Turks and look to a willing Turkey as their

protector. In their fierce competition for the right to claim Kirkuk,

the Turkmens and the Kurds threaten to turn Iraqi internal politics

into a regional conflict.

 

On a visit to Kirkuk last fall, I talked to both Turkmens and Kurds,

and it was immediately obvious that both groups have a passion and

feeling of possession toward the city, with its impressive citadel

built on an ancient tell. . Kirkuk is the center of the Turkmen

population in Iraq, while for Kurds, the city is a touchstone of

their identity.

 

Each group employs demographics to back up its claim to the city. The

last official Iraqi census, in 1957, listed 40 percent of Kirkuk's

population as Turkmen and 35 percent as Kurdish; the rest were Arabs,

Assyrians, Armenians and others. Today, the population is roughly

850,000; based on unofficial estimates, the number of Arabs has

significantly increased, and the percentages of the Turkmens and

Kurds are probably reversed.

 

When the American invasion of Iraq began in March 2003, Kurdish

militias advanced southward from the Kurdish autonomous zone

established in the northern third of Iraq in 1991 and entered Kirkuk.

Since then the Kurds have used their position as American allies to

bring in Kurdish families and thus bolster their demand that Kirkuk

be incorporated in the Kurds' autonomous zone.

 

Their reason is emotional but also economic: Kirkuk is the key to oil

fields that represent 40 percent of Iraq's proven petroleum reserves.

At the least, those fields constitute an enormous bargaining chip in

the negotiations over the future Iraqi government; at most they

provide the economic base for a future Kurdish state.

 

The Kurds' numbers, and their determination to lay claim to Kirkuk,

have stoked the already intense hostilities between the Kurds and

Arabs that date to the late 1980's, when Saddam Hussein pushed many

Kurds out of the city and replaced them with Arabs. But it is the

contest for Kirkuk being waged between the Kurds and Turkmens that is

the far more serious problem for the United States because the only

card the Turkmens of Kirkuk have to play against the Kurds is Turkey.

It is a card Ankara is willing to allow them to put on the table.

 

Turkey holds its own claim to Kirkuk. Unlike the Ottoman territories

that were ceded to Iraq in the agreements that came at the end of

World War I, Kirkuk was taken from Turkey as a result of the 1923

Lausanne Treaty. Turkish nationalists still regard it as historically

part of Turkey. Ankara also asserts guardianship over the Turkmen

ethnic minority in northern Iraq. But those are more emotional than

political issues. What is mainly driving Turkey's interest in Kirkuk

is the long-term problem of Turkey's own rebellious Kurdish minority,

which is 20 percent of its population.

 

Since 1999, Turkish Kurds have attacked Turkey from bases in northern

Iraq, in the Kurdish autonomous region. To Turkey's frustration,

Iraqi Kurd officials turn a blind eye to their Turkish Kurd cousins'

activities, while the Americans have been reluctant to move against

the bases for fear of damaging their relationship with the Iraqi

Kurds. The Turkish military has taken matters into its own hands by

crossing the Iraqi border on occasion to battle the rebels.

 

But more ominous for American efforts to stabilize Iraq are Turkish

fears that Baghdad will be forced to allow the Kurds to make Kirkuk

part of their autonomous zone. For Ankara, this would constitute

excessive Kurdish autonomy, its red line in Iraq.

 

The Turkish military has repeatedly warned Iraqi Kurds against

changing Kirkuk's demographics. Although it acknowledges that the

future of Kirkuk is an internal issue for Iraq, the military insists

that the inclusion of the city into the Kurdish autonomous zone is a

question in which it intends to play a part. To underline the point,

the military makes no effort to hide its plans to send troops if

needed to thwart the Kurds' claim to Kirkuk.

 

Military intervention in northern Iraq is diplomatically risky for

Turkey. Having just secured Europe's agreement to open talks on

membership in the European Union, Ankara will move with caution. Yet

Turkey may well see preventing the emergence of a potentially

oil-rich Kurdish political entity on its borders as worth the risk.

And Europe may regard keeping the Iraqi Kurds within the boundaries

of Iraq, thus promoting stability in the Persian Gulf and in oil

markets, as more important than keeping Turkey out of Iraq.

 

Although publicly circumspect, Washington sees Turkish military

involvement as a looming possibility on the complex political

landscape of Iraq. Washington has quietly said that the Kurds will

not be allowed to take control of Kirkuk. American military bases in

northern Iraq are discreetly being reinforced. And the First Infantry

Division that has been in charge of Kirkuk for the last year has

balanced the rights of the Turkmens and Arabs against those of the

Kurds.

 

So Washington recognizes that the Kurds, further emboldened by their

anticipated numbers in the new Iraqi Parliament, could precipitate a

crisis over Kirkuk. The question is whether the United States or the

non-Kurdish members of the new Iraqi government can hold the Kurds in

check -- a difficult task considering the fervor, especially among

younger Kurds, for an eventual Kurdish state.

 

This is one of the complications of the Iraqi election that the Bush

administration has hailed as such a success. If the Kurds try to

change the status of Kirkuk, the United States may find itself forced

to turn its military power on them. But if America does nothing to

hold Kirkuk, it may well find itself in another crisis. Only this one

would not be confined to Iraq.

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  • 6 months later...

Another interesting article from that same issue of the Economist.

 

Allow mw to reproduce the entire article here as these may be removed in time.

 

Is this the beginning of another Hamidieh gangs reminiscent of the Hamidian times when the Kurds were given total license to prey on the “gavurs”?

Is this an affirmation of the common interests of the Kurds and Turks to share Asia Minor and cleanse the land of that , common enemy, the Arnenian “pest”? One wonders if Erdogan has convinced them that teir interests converge and that “benevolent” and “tolerant” Ankara is not the enemy… Yerevan is.

 

http://www.economist.com/printedition/disp...tory_ID=4300168

 

Turkey and the Kurds

 

Peace be unto you

Aug 18th 2005 | ANKARA AND DIYARBAKIR

From The Economist print edition

 

The Turkish prime minister paves the way for a deal with the Kurds

Erdogan in the Kurds' den

 

Get article background

WHEN Turkey's prime minister came to power some 30 months ago, few expected his mildly Islamic government to resolve the country's knotty Kurdish question. But last week, in a landmark speech in Diyarbakir, Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first Turkish leader ever to admit that Turkey had mishandled its rebellious Kurds. Like all great nations, declared Mr Erdogan, Turkey needed to face up to its past. He added that more democracy, not more repression, was the answer to the Kurds' long-running grievances.

Mr Erdogan's visit to the largest city in the mostly Kurdish south-east followed ground-breaking talks with a group of Turkish intellectuals, seen by some as mouthpieces for rebels of the outlawed PKK terrorist group. In these talks, Mr Erdogan pledged that, despite a renewed spasm of rebel violence, there would be no going back on his reforms. The Kurdish problem, he said, could not be solved through purely military means.

The opposition is crying treason. “This will inevitably lead to bargaining with the PKK,” fumed Deniz Baykal, leader of the Republican People's Party. Nationalists within Mr Erdogan's own Justice and Development party have also made angry noises. The army has so far kept silent, even though some retired generals have called for the reintroduction of emergency rule in the Kurdish provinces.

The Kurds have been only a little less provocative. Embarrassingly few showed up at Mr Erdogan's rally. Diyarbakir's mayor, Osman Baydemir, later boasted that “we could have bused in a million people had we wanted.” Orhan Dogan, another Kurdish leader, stoked nationalist fury when he told a newspaper that Turkey would have to negotiate with the PKK and that the group's imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, would walk free one day. Some Kurds saluted Mr Erdogan for his courage, but even they insisted that he must match his words with deeds.

There are encouraging signs that he will. Within hours of returning from Diyarbakir, Mr Erdogan urged media supervisors to allow regional radio and television stations to broadcast in Kurdish. But more needs to be done if Turkey's Kurds are not to be infected by calls for independence by Iraq's powerful Kurds next door. Measures to stimulate the economy of the impoverished Kurdish provinces must be a priority, as Mr Erdogan has acknowledged. That will necessitate also the return of hundreds of thousands of Kurds expelled from their villages by the army during its scorched-earth campaign against the PKK.

Mr Erdogan's call to put right past mistakes will ring hollow unless the state compensates the Kurds for their losses. The interior ministry revealed this week that only 5,239 of a total 104,734 victims who had applied under a new law for such compensation had been considered, and only 1,190 were to be paid anything. With the deadline for applications past, the programme “is a complete fiasco”, declared Mesut Deger, an opposition Kurdish deputy, who is pressing for an extension.

Lastly, Mr Erdogan must find a way of giving an amnesty to 5,000 rebels, entrenched in the mountains of south-east Turkey and northern Iraq, that is acceptable to Turks and Kurds alike. The PKK was expected this week to announce a suspension of hostilities, to allow such a deal to be done. Should Mr Erdogan come up with a workable pardon, vowed Naci Aslan, another opposition Kurdish deputy, “I will erect his statue, kiss his feet.”

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Another interesting article from that same issue of the Economist.

 

Allow mw to reproduce the entire article here as these may be removed in time.

 

Is this the beginning of another  Hamidieh gangs reminiscent of the Hamidian times when the Kurds were given total license to prey on the “gavurs”?

Is this an affirmation of the common interests of the Kurds and Turks to share Asia Minor and cleanse the land of that , common enemy, the Arnenian “pest”? One wonders if Erdogan has convinced them that teir interests converge and that “benevolent” and “tolerant” Ankara is not the enemy… Yerevan is.

 

http://www.economist.com/printedition/disp...tory_ID=4300168

 

Turkey and the Kurds

 

Peace be unto you

Aug 18th 2005 | ANKARA AND DIYARBAKIR

From The Economist print edition

 

The Turkish prime minister paves the way for a deal with the Kurds

Erdogan in the Kurds' den

 

Get article background

WHEN Turkey's prime minister came to power some 30 months ago, few expected his mildly Islamic government to resolve the country's knotty Kurdish question. But last week, in a landmark speech in Diyarbakir, Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first Turkish leader ever to admit that Turkey had mishandled its rebellious Kurds. Like all great nations, declared Mr Erdogan, Turkey needed to face up to its past. He added that more democracy, not more repression, was the answer to the Kurds' long-running grievances.

Mr Erdogan's visit to the largest city in the mostly Kurdish south-east followed ground-breaking talks with a group of Turkish intellectuals, seen by some as mouthpieces for rebels of the outlawed PKK terrorist group. In these talks, Mr Erdogan pledged that, despite a renewed spasm of rebel violence, there would be no going back on his reforms. The Kurdish problem, he said, could not be solved through purely military means.

The opposition is crying treason. “This will inevitably lead to bargaining with the PKK,” fumed Deniz Baykal, leader of the Republican People's Party. Nationalists within Mr Erdogan's own Justice and Development party have also made angry noises. The army has so far kept silent, even though some retired generals have called for the reintroduction of emergency rule in the Kurdish provinces.

The Kurds have been only a little less provocative. Embarrassingly few showed up at Mr Erdogan's rally. Diyarbakir's mayor, Osman Baydemir, later boasted that “we could have bused in a million people had we wanted.” Orhan Dogan, another Kurdish leader, stoked nationalist fury when he told a newspaper that Turkey would have to negotiate with the PKK and that the group's imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, would walk free one day. Some Kurds saluted Mr Erdogan for his courage, but even they insisted that he must match his words with deeds.

There are encouraging signs that he will. Within hours of returning from Diyarbakir, Mr Erdogan urged media supervisors to allow regional radio and television stations to broadcast in Kurdish. But more needs to be done if Turkey's Kurds are not to be infected by calls for independence by Iraq's powerful Kurds next door. Measures to stimulate the economy of the impoverished Kurdish provinces must be a priority, as Mr Erdogan has acknowledged. That will necessitate also the return of hundreds of thousands of Kurds expelled from their villages by the army during its scorched-earth campaign against the PKK.

Mr Erdogan's call to put right past mistakes will ring hollow unless the state compensates the Kurds for their losses. The interior ministry revealed this week that only 5,239 of a total 104,734 victims who had applied under a new law for such compensation had been considered, and only 1,190 were to be paid anything. With the deadline for applications past, the programme “is a complete fiasco”, declared Mesut Deger, an opposition Kurdish deputy, who is pressing for an extension.

Lastly, Mr Erdogan must find a way of giving an amnesty to 5,000 rebels, entrenched in the mountains of south-east Turkey and northern Iraq, that is acceptable to Turks and Kurds alike. The PKK was expected this week to announce a suspension of hostilities, to allow such a deal to be done. Should Mr Erdogan come up with a workable pardon, vowed Naci Aslan, another opposition Kurdish deputy, “I will erect his statue, kiss his feet.”

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

We know Turkish politics by now to see through these gestures.

They want to get into the EEC, so must be tolerant of the minorities.

Once they're in they can revert back to represive 'anti-terrorist' policies.

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  • 4 months later...

Cover story of the Jan. 2006 issue of the National Geographic is about Iraqi Kurdistan.

See below, also click on the “feature to see part of the article, as well as photos, videos and side articles.

 

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/060...ssignment1.html

 

 

Her is something eerie. Look at the name of the local assistant. Highlights mine.

=====

The lynchpins of any overseas assignment, especially at troubled datelines, are the local men and women known as fixers. They supply what's often missing in a foreign correspondent's armory: intimate knowledge of a country and its people, inside contacts in government ministries or rebel armies, and the instinctive savvy that can be the difference between life and death. In northern Iraq, a young Kurd named Yerevan Adham made that difference for photographer Ed Kashi and me. He had a sixth sense about danger spots—insisting on last-minute detours that kept us healthy to the end—and a gut-level feel for a good story and how to get it. Yerevan had lost half his family in Saddam Hussein's chemical attacks on Halabja, the Adhams' hometown. One of the survivors, a cousin who was the de facto patriarch of what remained of the Adham clan, died in a Halabja suicide bombing my last week in Iraq. For a day, the usual camaraderie between fixer and client ebbed. Yerevan said nothing, but his silence spoke eloquently of a gap that could not be breached. When the assignment was finished, Ed and I would leave Iraq. Yerevan would

 

The feature article on the internet does not go too far unless one is subscribed.

The article goes into such critical issues as, more than 90% of Kurds in Northern Iraq think that this loose federation is only artificial and temporary and that they would not settle for anything short of fully independent Kurdish state. That, the elected president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, says one thing in public and another in his native villages. Finally, the article touches on how the neighbors ,Syria, Iran and Turkey in particular are extremely nervous about the prospect of an independent Kurdistan. The Christian minority is mentioned as well, Chaldeans but not Armenians.

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  • 10 months later...

There seems to be a new article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker which is not yet available on line, where he talks about how Israel is not only stirring things in the Iraqi Kurdistan, but also in the so called Iranian Kurdistan, Beluchistan and the so called “azerbaijan” in northern Iran, I.e south of the border from the Republic of Azerbaijan, virtually encircling the land of Tehran.

As that new article is not available , the below may be a preamble to it.

Partially (too large for my notepad) pasted, the rest may be seen here.

Note any references to Turkey.

====

 

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/arti...t?040628fa_fact

 

PLAN B

As June 30th approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds.

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

Issue of 2004-06-28

Posted 2004-06-21

 

In July, 2003, two months after President Bush declared victory in Iraq, the war, far from winding down, reached a critical point. Israel, which had been among the war’s most enthusiastic supporters, began warning the Administration that the American-led occupation would face a heightened insurgency—a campaign of bombings and assassinations—later that summer. Israeli intelligence assets in Iraq were reporting that the insurgents had the support of Iranian intelligence operatives and other foreign fighters, who were crossing the unprotected border between Iran and Iraq at will. The Israelis urged the United States to seal the nine-hundred-mile-long border, at whatever cost.

The border stayed open, however. “The Administration wasn’t ignoring the Israeli intelligence about Iran,” Patrick Clawson, who is the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and has close ties to the White House, explained. “There’s no question that we took no steps last summer to close the border, but our attitude was that it was more useful for Iraqis to have contacts with ordinary Iranians coming across the border, and thousands were coming across every day—for instance, to make pilgrimages.” He added, “The questions we confronted were ‘Is the trade-off worth it? Do we want to isolate the Iraqis?’ Our answer was that as long as the Iranians were not picking up guns and shooting at us, it was worth the price.”

Clawson said, “The Israelis disagreed quite vigorously with us last summer. Their concern was very straightforward—that the Iranians would create social and charity organizations in Iraq and use them to recruit people who would engage in armed attacks against Americans.”

The warnings of increased violence proved accurate. By early August, the insurgency against the occupation had exploded, with bombings in Baghdad, at the Jordanian Embassy and the United Nations headquarters, that killed forty-two people. A former Israeli intelligence officer said that Israel’s leadership had concluded by then that the United States was unwilling to confront Iran; in terms of salvaging the situation in Iraq, he said, “it doesn’t add up. It’s over. Not militarily—the United States cannot be defeated militarily in Iraq—but politically.”

Flynt Leverett, a former C.I.A. analyst who until last year served on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, told me that late last summer “the Administration had a chance to turn it around after it was clear that ‘Mission Accomplished’ ”—a reference to Bush’s May speech—“was premature. The Bush people could have gone to their allies and got more boots on the ground. But the neocons were dug in—‘We’re doing this on our own.’ ”

Leverett went on, “The President was only belatedly coming to the understanding that he had to either make a strategic change or, if he was going to insist on unilateral control, get tougher and find the actual insurgency.” The Administration then decided, Leverett said, to “deploy the Guantánamo model in Iraq”—to put aside its rules of interrogation. That decision failed to stop the insurgency and eventually led to the scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison.

In early November, the President received a grim assessment from the C.I.A.’s station chief in Baghdad, who filed a special field appraisal, known internally as an Aardwolf, warning that the security situation in Iraq was nearing collapse. The document, as described by Knight-Ridder, said that “none of the postwar Iraqi political institutions and leaders have shown an ability to govern the country” or to hold elections and draft a constitution.

A few days later, the Administration, rattled by the violence and the new intelligence, finally attempted to change its go-it-alone policy, and set June 30th as the date for the handover of sovereignty to an interim government, which would allow it to bring the United Nations into the process. “November was one year before the Presidential election,” a U.N. consultant who worked on Iraqi issues told me. “They panicked and decided to share the blame with the U.N. and the Iraqis.”

A former Administration official who had supported the war completed a discouraging tour of Iraq late last fall. He visited Tel Aviv afterward and found that the Israelis he met with were equally discouraged. As they saw it, their warnings and advice had been ignored, and the American war against the insurgency was continuing to founder. “I spent hours talking to the senior members of the Israeli political and intelligence community,” the former official recalled. “Their concern was ‘You’re not going to get it right in Iraq, and shouldn’t we be planning for the worst-case scenario and how to deal with it?’ ”

Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, who supported the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq, took it upon himself at this point to privately warn Vice-President Dick Cheney that America had lost in Iraq; according to an American close to Barak, he said that Israel “had learned that there’s no way to win an occupation.” The only issue, Barak told Cheney, “was choosing the size of your humiliation.” Cheney did not respond to Barak’s assessment. (Cheney’s office declined to comment.)

In a series of interviews in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, officials told me that by the end of last year Israel had concluded that the Bush Administration would not be able to bring stability or democracy to Iraq, and that Israel needed other options. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government decided, I was told, to minimize the damage that the war was causing to Israel’s strategic position by expanding its long-standing relationship with Iraq’s Kurds and establishing a significant presence on the ground in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. Several officials depicted Sharon’s decision, which involves a heavy financial commitment, as a potentially reckless move that could create even more chaos and violence as the insurgency in Iraq continues to grow.

Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel’s view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel’s clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports.

Asked to comment, Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said, “The story is simply untrue and the relevant governments know it’s untrue.” Kurdish officials declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the State Department.

However, a senior C.I.A. official acknowledged in an interview last week that the Israelis were indeed operating in Kurdistan. He told me that the Israelis felt that they had little choice: “They think they have to be there.” Asked whether the Israelis had sought approval from Washington, the official laughed and said, “Do you know anybody who can tell the Israelis what to do? They’re always going to do what is in their best interest.” The C.I.A. official added that the Israeli presence was widely known in the American intelligence community.

The Israeli decision to seek a bigger foothold in Kurdistan—characterized by the former Israeli intelligence officer as “Plan B”—has also raised tensions between Israel and Turkey. It has provoked bitter statements from Turkish politicians and, in a major regional shift, a new alliance among Iran, Syria, and Turkey, all of which have significant Kurdish minorities. In early June, Intel Brief, a privately circulated intelligence newsletter produced by Vincent Cannistraro, a retired C.I.A. counterterrorism chief, and Philip Giraldi, who served as the C.I.A.’s deputy chief of base in Istanbul in the late nineteen-eighties, said:

Turkish sources confidentially report that the Turks are increasingly concerned by the expanding Israeli presence in Kurdistan and alleged encouragement of Kurdish ambitions to create an independent state. . . . The Turks note that the large Israeli intelligence operations in Northern Iraq incorporate anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian activity, including support to Iranian and Syrian Kurds who are in opposition to their respective governments.

In the years since the first Gulf War, Iraq’s Kurds, aided by an internationally enforced no-fly zone and by a U.N. mandate providing them with a share of the country’s oil revenues, have managed to achieve a large measure of independence in three northern Iraqi provinces. As far as most Kurds are concerned, however, historic “Kurdistan” extends well beyond Iraq’s borders, encompassing parts of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. All three countries fear that Kurdistan, despite public pledges to the contrary, will declare its independence from the interim Iraqi government if conditions don’t improve after June 30th.

Israeli involvement in Kurdistan is not new. Throughout the nineteen-sixties and seventies, Israel actively supported a Kurdish rebellion against Iraq, as part of its strategic policy of seeking alliances with non-Arabs in the Middle East. In 1975, the Kurds were betrayed by the United States, when Washington went along with a decision by the Shah of Iran to stop supporting Kurdish aspirations for autonomy in Iraq.

Betrayal and violence became the norm in the next two decades. Inside Iraq, the Kurds were brutally repressed by Saddam Hussein, who used airpower and chemical weapons against them. In 1984, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or P.K.K., initiated a campaign of separatist violence in Turkey that lasted fifteen years; more than thirty thousand people, most of them Kurds, were killed. The Turkish government ruthlessly crushed the separatists, and eventually captured the P.K.K.’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan. Last month, the P.K.K., now known as the Kongra-Gel, announced that it was ending a five-year unilateral ceasefire and would begin targeting Turkish citizens once again.

The Iraqi Kurdish leadership was furious when, early this month, the United States acceded to a U.N. resolution on the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty that did not affirm the interim constitution that granted the minority Kurds veto power in any permanent constitution. Kurdish leaders immediately warned President Bush in a letter that they would not participate in a new Shiite-controlled government unless they were assured that their rights under the interim constitution were preserved. “The people of Kurdistan will no longer accept second-class citizenship in Iraq,” the letter said.

There are fears that the Kurds will move to seize the city

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OK people,

This is another call to arms, cri de guerre…

Ee zen Hayer!!

The Kurds are coming!!!

 

Iran and Turkey Prepare for War in Iraqi Kurdistan

DEBKAfile Exclusive Military Report

Below, a paragraph from the said article.

"This conversation, which was not nearly as amicable as it looked from the press photos, was clouded by a disturbing incident: A semi-official American military publication recently ran a new map showing parts of Turkish and Armenian territory marked “Kurdistan.”

Read the rest here;

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1214

 

As to who and what DEBKA is. In reading their manifesto, they claim to report, have reported news days, sometimes months ahead of all the reliable news media, before they have happened. Naturally. They hold the trademark and patent on “prophecy”. With “prophets” of the kind, who needs soothsayers.

 

Giora Shamis is Chief Editor and CEO; Diane Shalem, English Editor and Head of Research. Both had long records as international correspondents with mainstream media before opening DEBKAfile in the summer of 2000.

DEBKAfile's editorial desk, located in Jerusalem, Israel, is supported by half a dozen full- and part-time correspondents, contributors in world hot spots and a far-flung web of tried and proven sources.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

A rather long article but worth a read.

http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~siamakr/Kurdis...a-interview.htm

Interview with the chief editor of the Riya Taza newspaper in Armenia, Amarik Sardarian

Interview conducted by Onnik Krikorian

... Kurdish language is taught in Kurdish schools twice a week, but no text book has been published for ten years. Whatever was published has been worn out, the books are old, and it is impossible to use them now. Whatever exists is outdated and do not correspond to the demands of the present time. A lot of what remains is Communist ideology, so we spoke to the government about our concerns.

Amarik Sardarian is the Yezidi editor of the Kurdish newspaper, "Riya Taza". "Riya Taza" is one of the oldest Kurdish newspapers in the world and is based in Yerevan, Armenia.

OK: Thank you for your finding the time to conduct this interview. Could you please introduce yourself.

AS: Firstly, may I thank you for conducting research into the situation of national minorities within the Republic of Armenia. My name is Amarik Sardarian, and I am the chief editor of the newspaper, "Riya Taza", and at the same time the Chairman of the Board of the Kurdish Intelligentsia Council.

I am also a member of the Union of Journalists and Writers, and I have a degree of Laureate and am a honourable member of the Union of Writers. I have been in journalism for 40 years, and started my career in radio in the Department of Kurdish Programmes. Since 1952 I have been working at "Riya Taza". I started my work here as a translator, then became a journalist, vice-chairman, chairman, vice-editor, and now I am chief editor.

OK: Can you tell me a little about "Riya Taza"? It has been said that it was one of the first Kurdish newspapers, and I would also be interested in hearing what its circulation is, and whether that circulation has changed over time.

AS: "Riya Taza" has been published since 1930, and it has been the longest surviving of all Kurdish newspapers. It was the third or the fourth Kurdish newspaper to come into existence in the world, but not the first. The first Kurdish newspaper was called "Kurdistan" and published in Cairo in 1898. After that some other newspapers and journals were published abroad, but "Riya Taza" was the first Kurdish newspaper to be published in the Soviet Union, and perhaps the only one.

As for the circulation, before the collapse of the Soviet Union the circulation was more than 5,000, with readers in other Republics. After the collapse of the Soviet Union former ties with other Republics also collapsed, and circulation has now fallen to around 700. The newspaper used to be published twice a week during Soviet times, but now it is twice a month. It consists of four pages, so the size has decreased too. The newspaper is now only read within Armenia, and I would like to say why the number of readers within Armenia has also decreased.

Firstly, the educational level in the community is not very high, and secondly, the community is mainly scattered in mountainous regions far from roads, and delivering the newspaper to those regions is very difficult. We do not sell the newspaper at newspaper stands. We only deliver the newspaper by subscription.

This is a completely de-politicised newspaper that does not favour any political party, and the issues we address are mainly in the areas of culture, science, and language. At present the newspaper survives because of financial assistance from the Government of Armenia. This financial assistance is hardly enough for our survival. We have three members of staff, but nevertheless we are grateful to the Government for its financial assistance otherwise we would be closed.

We are very much concerned by the attitude of rich Kurds - millionaires - living abroad, and we would like to know that our voice reaches them so that they know what a miserable situation our newspaper is in. This newspaper is a chronicle for this community so it is worth preserving it and taking care of it. Rich Kurds in the diaspora should be concerned for its survival. It is worth pointing out that we do not have a single computer, and that we are using an old method of publication - Linotype. We have no fax machine, and our correspondents have no way to hand in their articles but to visit the office. In order not to finish on this sad note I am certain that in the future we will prosper. We know that there are international organisations that try to promote the development of free media and I will be happy if they take us into consideration.

OK: The first thing that I notice about "Riya Taza" is that it looks as though it is published in Russian. I presume it is Kurmanji written in cyrillic script, and that this was because Riya Taza was distributed outside of Armenia in other Soviet Republics.

AS: Yes, and one of the misfortunes of our nation is that we are using three different scripts. Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic. In 1929, when an alphabet was chosen for the Kurds in Armenia, the Latin alphabet was chosen. From 1929-1937 everything was published in Latin. In 1937 Stalin issued a decree that all those nationalities that before the revolution did not have their own alphabet should transfer to the Russian alphabet. Armenians and Georgians had their own alphabets, but the Kurds transferred to Russian [Cyrillic]. In 1937 the newspaper was closed and was only re-opened in 1954 because of the persecution in the period of Stalin. After that, the newspaper was published in Russian. Changing the alphabet now from Russian [Cyrillic] to Latin creates great problems - financially and educationally.

OK: Are you Yezidi or Kurd?

AS: I am a Yezidi, but unlike those people that confuse the question of nationality with religion, I recognise the distinction. By religion I am Yezidi, but I consider myself to be Kurdish by nationality. the majority of Kurds in Armenia - perhaps 98% - are Yezidi Kurds, and the percentage of Moslem Kurds is very insignificant.

During 1989-1990 the Moslem Kurds left Armenia. This issue very often becomes politicised and a foundation for political debate. Some people claim that Moslem Kurds were persecuted, and because of that they left Armenia. The reality is that Moslem Kurds lived in the villages with Azerbaijanis. Their children attended the same schools as the Azerbaini children, and they were linked to the Azerbaijanis through mixed marriages. When the Azerbaijanis left Armenia as a result of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabagh, Moslem Kurds left too. There was no persecution of the Moslem Kurds by Armenians.

There are still Moslem Kurds in Armenia, but their numbers are very insignificant. They live in the regions of Sevan and Dilijan and they live very well. Not in terms of economy, a problem facing Armenians as well, but in terms of human relations. There is no discrimination, but there are some interest groups - our enemies - that play on this issue.

The debate between Yezidi and Yezidi-Kurd is very interesting, and it has been suggested that more money has been made available to those groups that encourage a separate Yezidi national identity. I think that "Riya Taza" was closed for six months in recent years whilst separate Yezidi newspapers seemed to flourish.

I want to apologise for repeating what I have already said. the money that comes to "Riya Taza" comes only from the Government. As for the "Voice of Yezidi" it is only published once or twice a year, and this money too comes from the Government. I am on very bad terms with Aziz Tamoyan, the National Chairman of the Union of Yezidi, I do not have a very high opinion of him as a human being, but I can not go against my conscience. They are in a very bad financial situation as well.

I do however, want to express my gratitude towards the Soros Foundation for the publication of a book, "Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History" by Susan Meiselas.

In that book, the map of Kurdistan goes into Armenia and up to Etchmiadzin.

Unfortunately, I know those maps, but in the book the map just illustrates the distribution of the Kurds - where the Kurds live. Many regions were also included, including Aragatz, and Western Armenia [Eastern Turkey]. We do not mean to say that Western Armenia and these other regions are Kurdistan, but that they are the areas where the Kurds live.

Recently a lecture was held in the American University of Armenia by an Armenian academic from the United States, Astarjian, who is the head of the Centre of Armenian and Kurdish Friendship. The topic was "Kurdish Revolution and the Armenian Cause". In his lecture he mentioned that he had meetings with Kurdish Parliament members and leaders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and that certain agreements were be taken into consideration.

Armenia was to be a separate country, and Kurdistan was to be a separate country. According to these agreements the boundaries of Armenia were set, and there was no overlap. Kurdistan started from Lake Van. So, I do not exclude that there are people who have big dreams, and that may even claim that Kurdistan even extends up until the Urals. However, it is not real.

OK: Can you give me more detailed overview of the content of "Riya Taza"? For example, does it just deal with issues indigenous to Armenia, or does it deal with Kurdish issues in Turkey, Iran and Iraq?

AS: Because "Riya Taza" is a newspaper sponsored by the Armenian Government, we feel responsible for illustrating life in Armenia in general, and not specifically the life of the Kurdish community here. In the history of our culture, folklore plays a key role, and we always deal with such issues in our newspaper. How it is of great importance to Kurdish culture, and also because the main bearers of Kurdish folklore are elderly people whose time on this earth is very limited we hope to preserve that folklore through our newspaper for future generations. At the same time we pay great attention to the development of our literature, and developing a tradition of Kurdish literary language. We also illustrate the life of the Kurds in Armenia in our newspaper.

It would be illogical if the newspaper stayed neutral to what is happening in Turkey but unfortunately we have no correspondents abroad. We mainly use the news that appears in the Armenian and Russian media. The interest of the Kurdish community in Armenia is very strong with regards to the [global Kurdish] movement, and articles on the situation in Turkey are demanded even. The ideology of the movement is not vital, we are more interested in the national trends of this movement in terms of the fact that it is directed against Turkey and against the violation of human rights. And also in terms of the fact that the Kurds have taken up arms to defend their families, and their wives and children.

According to some sources the total Kurdish population within Turkey is 20 million. However, the Turkish Government does not even want to accept the existence of Kurds in Turkey. According to the last census in Armenia in 1989 the number of Yezidi and Moslem Kurds was sixty thousand, and in Armenia the Government has created the best environment for the development of our culture, our schools, our culture and our language. However, we only see persecution and massacre in Turkey.

When Armen Sarkissian was Ambassador to London, and at the time of the reports of the clearance of Kurds from Kelbajar and Lachin during the Karabagh conflict, he stated that there were no Kurds in Armenia, only Yezidi. If you can see a political motivation in the definition of Kurds in Turkey as "Mountain Turks", is there a similar political motivation in defining the Kurds in Armenia as Yezidi?

We are greatly concerned by this issue. Both Yezidi Kurd and Moslem Kurd are two branches of the same nation. Apart from a religious distinction, there is no other distinction between these two sections. Yezidis worship the sun; Moslem Kurds, Mohammed and the Koran. In the southern part of Kurdistan, Kurds speak Sorani, and in all other parts Kurmanji. Yezidi speak Kurmanji too. There is absolutely no difference between the language spoken by Moslem Kurds speaking Kurmanji, and Yezidi Kurds.

Spiritual, cultural is absolutely the same, and in scientific circles everyone agrees that Yezidi Kurds and Moslem Kurds are the same, but because of religious differences they call themselves Yezidi in the same way that amongst Russians there is a section different from Orthodox Russians that call themselves "Molokans". It is the same amongst us with just a few subtle differences.

Because of the delicate issue of human rights, if someone calls himself a Yezidi then Armenian officials say that if this person wishes to be called a Yezidi I have no moral right to call him a Kurd. This has historical roots of course. the Yezidi were periodically massacred by Moslem Kurds because of their different religion. This conflict between two segments of the Kurdish nation was mainly on this religious basis. We have a special saying in Kurdish - Dooshmar - which means "enemy by religion".

I have a great respect for Armen Sarkissian, and when he stated that there were no Kurds in Armenia he based his assumption in the census of 1989 where Yezidi were identified as a separate national identity, and the source of these statistics was the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In those days during censuses they would use a special list where minorities were listed, and in that list there were the words "Kurd" and in parenthesis "including Yezidi". The Chairman of the Ideological Department in the Central Committee of the Communist Party sent a written order to the administrator of statistics in Armenia requesting them to consider the Yezidi as a separate nationality, and the snowball started to roll after that. This is why Armen Sarkissian and other officials declared that there were no Kurds in Armenia, only Yezidi.

In Armenia we have twenty-one purely Yezidi villages, eleven in the region of Alagyaz, eight in Talin, one in Ashterak, and one in Etchmiadzin. If the head of this Yezidi movement goes to any of these villages I am sure they will be beaten, perhaps even killed. The whole population of these villages are unanimous in ascerting that they are Kurds, and that their worship is Yezidi.

OK: How do you feel about individuals such as Garnik Asatrian who are energetic in their attempts to deny any links between the Yezidi and the Kurds?

AS: I have a great respect for Garnik Asatrian as a scientist, but I do not share his opinions. Garnik Asatrian proves that Yezidi are not Kurds, but all the members of the Yezidi communty say that they are Kurds. Garnik Asatrian, being an Armenian, states that Yezidi are not Kurds. this is very strange. There may be some reason for trying to do this but I am not aware of what that might be. However, Some years ago there was a scientist who put into circulation the term "pan-Kurdish". Poor Kurds! They are scattered in three or four countries, and they are all severely persecuted there, and this scientist uses the term "pan-Kurdish".

In our dispute with Garnik Asatrian I tell him that if he is ascerting that the Yezidi are not Kurds then please tell us what differences we have in our language. If there is a historical nation called the Yezidi then it has had to come from somewhere. Where did it come from? So, the language is the same, but our religious centre is in Lalish in Iraqi Kurdistan. Recently another absurdity has been introduced - that Yezidi originate from northern India, and that there are Yezidi tribes living in northern India today. This is perhaps one of the greatest discoveries of the twentieth century!

I completely disagree with Garnik Asatrian, and Garnik Asatrian changes his opinions depending on the direction the wind blows. Ten years ago he stated that Yezidi were Kurds living in Armenia, and now he is ascerting that Yezidi are not Kurds.

Garnik Asatrian also states that there are external forces trying to promote the Yezidi as Kurds in the interest of involving the Yezidi in the Kurdish struggle. If the Yezidi can be defined as Kurds then it substantiates the accusations coming from Turkey that Armenia is supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and that it is providing bases for the PKK, and giving help in the form of financial and military assistance. At a Yezidi village yesterday I was not expecting to meet an official representative from the PKK itself, or to see so many ERNK and PKK flags displayed. This is a very sensitive issue for the Armenian Government.

Putting the question this way is not valid. When I received my passport in 1954 there was a line for nationality. On that line my nationality was shown as Kurd. In those days, Aziz Tamoyan, Garnik Asatrian and the PKK did not exist. The village where I was born and grew up was called "Kurdi Pump" but Yezidi lived there. Next to that village was another village where Armenians lived called "Hyegagan [Armenian] Pump" . In those days everyone understood that Yezidi were Kurds, and to differentiate the two villages they were called "Kurdi" and "Hyegagan".

As for PKK representatives visiting us, we do not make a secret of this, but I can not agree that becaise of the existence of Kurds in Armenia and the PKK in Turkey there will be a problem between Yezidi and the Armenian Government. Yezidi Kurds do not go to Turkey, and do not fight against the Turks, but we morally support the Kurds in Turkey. the existence of the Kurdish question and the PKK in Turkey has had no influence on the relationship between Yezidi and Armenians. We know the Turkish ideology that accuses all of its neighbours of supporting the PKK. It accuses Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Cyprus and Greece.

They accuse everybody because they are unable to supress the movement. They even say that Abdullah Ocalan is Armenian, and that the majority of the guerillas are Armenian. They even go so far as to study the genitals of their victims in order to see if they are circumsided in order to prove that they are Armenians. Some try to prove that because of the Yezidi in Armenia, relations between Armenia and Turkey will become very tense. Turkey is making it tense already with its ideology. Our moral support has nothing to do with the relations between Turkey and Armenia. From the information that we have, through the Azerbaijani territory of Nakhichevan, weapons have been transferred to the Kurdish guerillas in Turkey, but not one gun has passed through Armenia.

Being citizens of the Republic of Armenia we are very loyal to this country, and I am speaking on behalf of the whole Kurdish community. It is not in our interest to do anything that might damage our relationship with the country in which we live.

In the village I visited yesterday, I held my interview with the representative of the PKK in a house that had on a wall a large picture of a young teenager, perhaps about eighteen years old. It had been his house and he was killed fighting with the PKK in south east Turkey. I was also told that another from the region had been killed with the PKK, and when I asked how many had joined the movement the villagers would not say. So, this is a very sensitive issue, and I certainly believe that it is very sensitive for the Armenian Government.

OK: Which village?

AS: Near Jarjaris in the Aragatsotn region, and even Karlene Chachani has even admitted that Yezidi have left to fight with the PKK.

Maybe some individuals have gone, but on their own initiative. It's not organised, and they go through other countries rather than straight from Armenia. There were rumours that someone from Yerevan had gone there, driven by their heart, and if I had the wish to go I would fight too, It is very obvious that people driven by their patriotic feelings go, and maybe they are killed there, but it is beyond our control. As for a PKK representative visiting Armenia, he has come here to spread the ideology of the movement among the Kurdish people, and to clarify the nature of this movement, its objectives and its goals. They go to the villages, they speak to the people, and they try to raise their awareness of these national issues. It is all just of an informative nature, informing people as to what is occurring within the PKK.

Unfortunately, there is no official information. Only through the official Russian NTV Channel, and not everyone has a television set at home. So, there is no information and these PKK visits represent a first hand information source for them. There are three or four satellite antennae in the Aragatsotn region to allow people to watch MED-TV [Kurdish Satellite Television broadcast from Belgium] and people are interested in getting information about the PKK.

OK: How useful is MED-TV for helping the Yezidi in Armenia with regards to culture, language and education?

AS: I am an atheist, but I highly appreciate the programmes on Yezidi religion broadcast on MED-TV. On these programmes, Yezidi Sheiks speak and explain the Yezidi religion. It is very useful. There are also numerous programmes on Armenian Yezidi, and MED-TV has interviewed me on many occasions.

OK: Given that Kocharian has stressed the importance of Armenia's national minorities are there signs that the situation of minorities within Armenia will improve still further?

AS: With regards to the situation of "Riya Taza" there have been no signs yet, but I can see some positive tendencies. Recently I was invited by Vahan Hovanissian, a consultant to the President. He wanted to know what unsolved problems and difficulties the community faced. We spoke about our concerns, and not least our desire to have representation in Parliament. During the first Republic, the Kurds had such representation, and until 1990. At present we have no representative in Parliament.

Kurdish language is taught in Kurdish schools twice a week, but no text book has been published for ten years. Whatever was published has been worn out, the books are old, and it is impossible to use them now. Whatever exists is outdated and do not correspond to the demands of the present time. A lot of what remains is Communist ideology, so we spoke to the government about our concerns.

The next issue of concern is the training of Kurdish teachers for working in Kurdish schools. We raised the issue of accepting two or three representatives a year from the Kurdish community in teacher training schools, but on a non-competitive basis and even though Armenian students are accepted on a competive one.

Eight or nine Kurdish villages are in the earthquake disaster regions. School buildings, especially in the mountainous regions, are in a very bad way. In the winter there is no way to heat the classrooms, and so Kurdish Community representatives spoke on this issue in the presence of government officials. Three villages in Talin region, and one village in Aragatsotn region, have no drinking water.

These are the problems we raised, and the government has promised to solve them shortly. We understand that this is due to the economic crisis in the country and leaving problems unsolved is not typical for the Armenian nation. Armenia has always been very sensitive towards the Kurds and has always attempted to create a stable environment for the Kurds to live in.

[Yezidi Kurds in Armenia]

 

 

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I do wonder with these interviews: is he replying so positively about Armenians because he's afraid to be critical or because he truly feels this way?

 

I admit that I don't know much about the relationship between Armenians and minorities in Armenia. Last time I was in Armenia (2005), many of the people that I spoke to complained about Persians. And we know Indians are made fun of all the time. Aren't Kurds considered dirty or hetamnats? I wonder.

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I do wonder with these interviews: is he replying so positively about Armenians because he's afraid to be critical or because he truly feels this way?

 

I admit that I don't know much about the relationship between Armenians and minorities in Armenia. Last time I was in Armenia (2005), many of the people that I spoke to complained about Persians. And we know Indians are made fun of all the time. Aren't Kurds considered dirty or hetamnats? I wonder.

He is speaking as an “Armenian” I.e a citizen of Armenia, unlike some other kurds whose suggested maps of ‘Kurdistan” include the region “iriwan”.

To my ears he sounds sincere. See where he speaks gratefully about Armenia where the Kurdish culture and language were not only not censored but encouraged. even in that dark anti-ethnic stalinist era.

See also where he tries to impress on the world that the Yezdis of Armenia are not your everyday muslim kurds, and that the muslim kurds chose to move out with their coreligionist azis, perhaps panicking baselessly. Many Yezdis participated in and heroically fought during the liberation of Artsakh.

During those scary days our local priest went to Armenia to spread the “word” and kiss and make all well many horrible booboos. On his return he gave me clip from a local paper where it shows his picture blessing two “Kurdish” (war casualty) boys (with muslim sounding names) at the hospital. Upon my bewilderment he said that the Yezdis of Armeina are very much “Armenian”, and that many are in fact “christian”. A few years after that I met a group of “kurds” in Khor Virap. Their spokesperson was a certain handsome lady Gayaneh, a medical doctor by profession, who spoke better Armenian than most of us. She may have seen the “question mark” on my face, she reached at her chest and pulled out a cross necklace, kissed it and, not in so many words she said that she was a Christian. Then she asked me to tape a message (in kirmanja)directed to the Kurdish Society of New York I did. I still have the tape. I don’t know what she said. Whether she said how safe and comfortable hey were in Armenia, or how they were persecuted.

Hoping someday I will find someone to translate it.

To repeat my question. Why do we still call them “yesdi/kurd” etc. instead of just calling them Armenian (citizens) with a slightly different religion. Many of them have much better Armenian sounding family (probably patronymic) names with the “IAN” suffix, Temoyan, the above Sardarian etc. than most of us with furkish surnames.,like gaga-oghlu-IAN.**

** Among them there was young man who told me his name was “Assad”. He thought it was a variation os “azat”, and when I told him that it was an Arabic word to mean “lion” he was exhilarated and roared like a lion, and promised that one day we will ALL view Ararat from the other side..

Edited by Arpa
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