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The term Syrian Kurdistan is often used in the context of [[Kurdish nationalism]], which makes it a controversial concept among proponents of [[Syrian nationalism|Syrian]] and [[Arab nationalism]].{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}} There is ambiguity about its geographical extent, and the term has different meanings depending on context.
The term Syrian Kurdistan is often used in the context of [[Kurdish nationalism]], which makes it a controversial concept among proponents of [[Syrian nationalism|Syrian]] and [[Arab nationalism]].{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}} There is ambiguity about its geographical extent, and the term has different meanings depending on context.

The [[historian]] and [[political science|political scientist]] Matthieu Cimino has stated: ""Rojava" (Syrian Kurdistan) is part of a mythology of pan-Kurdish unity which does not constitute a political objective for the Syrian Kurds in itself, but is rather a "cultural abstract""<ref name="Cimino2020">{{cite book|author=Matthieu Cimino|title=Syria: Borders, Boundaries, and the State|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1FvrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA19|date=13 June 2020|publisher=Springer Nature|isbn=978-3-030-44877-6|pages=19}}</ref>


== History ==
== History ==
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France negotiated a [[Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence|Treaty of Independence]] with the [[First Syrian Republic]] in 1936, but the onset of [[World War II]] prevented its implementation. France was occupied by Germany in 1940, and the French mandate was seized by [[Vichy France]]. Allied forces retook Syria in 1941 and recognized the Syrian Arab Republic as independent and sovereign within the French mandate. Xoybûn had remained active during the war years but disbanded in 1946.{{sfn|Phillips|2017|p=68}}
France negotiated a [[Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence|Treaty of Independence]] with the [[First Syrian Republic]] in 1936, but the onset of [[World War II]] prevented its implementation. France was occupied by Germany in 1940, and the French mandate was seized by [[Vichy France]]. Allied forces retook Syria in 1941 and recognized the Syrian Arab Republic as independent and sovereign within the French mandate. Xoybûn had remained active during the war years but disbanded in 1946.{{sfn|Phillips|2017|p=68}}

An academic source published by the [[University of Cambridge]] has described maps of greater Kurdistan created in the 1940s and forward as: "These maps have become some of the most influential propaganda tools for the Kurdish nationalist discourse. They depict a territorially exaggerated version of the territory of Kurdistan, extending into areas with no majority Kurdish populations. Despite their production with political aims related to specific claims on the demographic and ethnographic structure of the region, and their questionable methodologies, they have become 'Kurdistan in the minds of Kurds' and the boundaries they indicate have been readily accepted."<ref>{{cite book| last =Kaya| first =Zeynep N.| author-link =|title=Mapping Kurdistan: Territory, Self-Determination and Nationalism |publisher=Cambridge University Press| date =2020|pages=108| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=qRzhDwAAQBAJ|isbn =9781108474696}}</ref>


=== Syrian independence (1946) ===
=== Syrian independence (1946) ===
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Syria gained independence in 1946.{{sfn|Kwarten|2020|p=238}}
Syria gained independence in 1946.{{sfn|Kwarten|2020|p=238}}


The first popular Kurdish national party in Syria was the [[Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria]] (KDPS), formed in 1957, which soon changed its name to the "Kurdish Democratic Party of Syria" and maintained a "Syrianized" agenda whose objective was not the "liberation" of Syrian Kurdistan but the improvement of conditions for Syrian Kurds.{{sfn|Tejel|2009|p=86}} The academic historian [[Jordi Tejel]] has identified "Greater Kurdistan" as being one of the "Kurdish myths" that the KDPS were involved in promoting to Kurds in Syria.{{sfn|Tejel|2009|p=92}}
The first popular Kurdish national party in Syria was the [[Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria]] (KDPS), formed in 1957, which soon changed its name to the "Kurdish Democratic Party of Syria" and maintained a "Syrianized" agenda whose objective was not the liberation of Syrian Kurdistan but the improvement of conditions for Syrian Kurds.{{sfn|Tejel|2009|p=86}} The academic historian [[Jordi Tejel]] has identified "Greater Kurdistan" as being one of the "Kurdish myths" that the KDPS were involved in promoting to Kurds in Syria.{{sfn|Tejel|2009|p=92}}

Events in Iraqi Kurdistan and the discovery of oil in Syrian Kurdistan in the 1960s coincided with a marked worsening for the Kurdish population.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|page=199|pages=|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=The Kurds were suspected of being "in league" with the Kurds of Iraq, who had just launched the September 1961 insurrection aimed at securing autonomous status within an Iraqi framework. On August 23, 1961, the government promulgated a decree (no. 93) authorizing a special population census in Jezireh Province. It claimed that Kurds from Turkish Kurdistan were "illegally infiltrating" the Jezireh in order to "destroy its Arab character". The census was carried out in November of that year; when its results were released, some 120,000 Jezireh Kurds were discounted as foreigners and unjustly stripped of their rights as Syrian nationals. In 1962, to combat the "Kurdish threat" and "save Arabism" in the region, the government inaugurated the so-called "Arab Cordon plan" (''Al Hizam al-arabi''), which envisaged the entire Kurdish population living along the border with Turkey. They were to be gradually replaced by Arabs and would be resettled, and preferably dispersed, in the south. The discovery of oil at Qaratchok, right in the middle of Kurdish Jezireh, no doubt had something to do with the government's policy.|orig-year=1978}}</ref> In August 1961, the government decreed an extraordinary census of [[al-Jazira Province]], which was undertaken in November, by which time the uprising for Kurdish autonomy in Iraq had begun.<ref name=":2" /> As part of this census, 120,000 Kurds in the province were stripped of Syrian nationality and civil rights, on the pretext that they were foreigners – the August decree stated that Kurds were "illegally infiltrating" from Turkish Kurdistan into Syria, aiming to "destroy its Arab character". The following year, the Syrian government adopted the [[Arab Belt]] (''al-Hizam al-Arabi'') policy in order and "save Arabism" and defeat the "Kurdish threat" by expelling all the Kurdish inhabitants from the area of the Syria–Turkey border, dispersing and resettling them, and replacing them with Arabs.<ref name=":2" /> Oil had been discovered at Qaratchok, and the desire the control the Kurdish region's resources was connected with the policy.<ref name=":2" /> The region of the planned belt are rich in oil deposits and fertile agricultural land. About 50 to 60 per cent of the Syrian petroleum caves are estimated to be located in the district of [[Derik, Syria|Derik]].{{r|"YEP4e"}}


=== Syrian Arab Republic (1963–present) ===
=== Syrian Arab Republic (1963–present) ===
The Kurdish situation worsened again when, in March 1963, the ultra-nationalist [[Ba'ath Party]] of [[Michel Aflaq]] took power by [[1963 Syrian coup d'état|Syrian coup d'état]] in Damascus.<ref name=":32">{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|pages=199|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=In March 1963, Michel Aflaq's Baath Party came to power. Its socialism was soon shown to be mainly of the national variety. The Kurds' position worsened. In November 1963, in Damascus, the Baath published a ''Study of the Jezireh Provnce in its National, Social, and Political Aspects'', written by the region's chief of police, Mohamed Talab Hilal. ... Hilal had set out to "prove scientifically", on the basis of various "anthropological" considerations, that the Kurds, "do not constitute a nation". His conclusion was that "the Kurdish people are a people without history or civilization or language or even definite ethnic origin of their own. Their only characteristics are those shaped by force, destructive power and violence, characteristics which are, by the way, inherent in all mountain populations." Furthermore: "The Kurds live from civilization and history of other nations. They have taken no part in these civilizations or in the history of these nations."|orig-year=1978}}</ref>{{sfnm |1a1=Kwarten |1y=2020 |1pp=238-239 |2a1=Maisel |2y=2018 |2p=xiv |3a1=Allsopp |3y=2016 |3p=31 |4a1=Gunter |4y=2014 |4pp=7-8}} In November the party published ''Study of the Jezireh Provnce in its National, Social, and Political Aspects'', a pamphlet written by the al-Jazira Province's chief of police, Mohamed Talab Hilal.<ref name=":32" /> An [[Arab nationalist]], Hilal claimed to use "anthropological" reasoning to "prove scientifically" Kurds "do not constitute a nation".<ref name=":32" /> His view was that "the Kurdish people are a people without history or civilization or language or even definite ethnic origin of their own. Their only characteristics are those shaped by force, destructive power and violence, characteristics which are, by the way, inherent in all mountain populations".<ref name=":32" /> It was also his opinion that "The Kurds live from civilization and history of other nations. They have taken no part in these civilizations or in the history of these nations."<ref name=":32" /> Hilal produced a twelvefold strategy to achieve the Arabization of the al-Jazira Province. The steps were:<ref>{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|pages=199-200|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=A zealous nationalist, Hilal proposed a twelve-point plan, which would first be put into operation against the Jezireh Kurds: (1) a ''batr'' or "dispossession" policy, involving the transfer and dispersion of the Kurdish people; (2) a ''tajhil'' or "obscurantist" policy of depriving Kurds of any education whatsoever, even in Arabic; (3) a ''tajwii'' or "famine" policy, depriving those affected of any employment possibilities; (4) an "extradition" policy, which meant turning the survivors of the uprisings in northern Kurdistan over to the Turkish government; (5) a "divide and rule" policy, setting Kurd against Kurd; (6) a ''hizam'' or cordon policy similar to the one proposed in 1962; (7) an ''iskan'' or "colonization" policy, involving the implementation of "pure and nationalist Arabs" in the Kurdish regions so that the Kurds could be "watched until their dispersion"; (8) a military policy, based on "divisions stationed in the zone of the cordon" who would be charged with "ensuring that the dispersion of the Kurds and the settlement of Arabs would take place according to plans drawn up by the government"; (9) a "socialization" policy, under which "collective forms", ''mazarii jama'iyya'', would be set up for the Arabs implanted in the regions. These new settlers would also be provided with "armament and training"; (10) a ban of "anybody ignorant of the Arabic language exercising the right to vote or stand for office"; (11) sending the Kurdish ''ulemas'' to the south and "bringing in Arab ''ulemas'' to replace them"; (12) finally, "launching a vast anti-Kurdish campaign amongst the Arabs".|orig-year=1978}}</ref>

* (1) ''batr'' (dispossession) {{endash}} eviction and resettlement of Kurds
* (2) ''tajhil'' (obscurantist) {{endash}} deprivation of all education for Kurds, including in Arabic
* (3) ''tajwii'' (famine) {{endash}} removal of Kurds from employment
* (4) extradition {{endash}} expulsion of refugees from Turkish Kurdistan into Turkish custody
* (5) encouragement of intra-Kurdish factionalism in order to [[divide and rule]]
* (6) ''hizam'' (Arab cordon) {{endash}} Arab settlement of former Kurdish lands, much as proposed in 1962
* (7) ''iskan'' (colonization) {{endash}} "pure and nationalist Arabs" to be settled in Syrian Kurdistan so Kurds might be "watched until their dispersion"
* (8) military involvement by "divisions stationed in the zone of the cordon" would guaranty "that the dispersion of the Kurds and the settlement of Arabs would take place according to plans drawn up by the government"
* (9) "socialization" {{endash}} "[[collective farms]]", (''mazarii jama'iyya''), to be established in the Kurds' stead by Arab settlers equipped with "armament and training"
* (10) prohibition of "anybody ignorant of the Arabic language exercising the right to vote or stand for office"
* (11) Kurdish ''[[ulemas]]'' were to be expelled to the south and replaced with Arabs
* (12) "a vast anti-Kurdish campaign amongst the Arabs" to be undertaken by the state

Though the 120,000 Kurds of al-Jazira Province deemed non-Syrians were unable to vote or marry or receive education or healthcare, they were nevertheless eligible to be conscripted for military service, and could be sent to fight on the [[Golan Heights]]; they were particular victims of the Arab Belt policy, which continued to set the Kurdish agenda of the Syrian government and many of whose provisions were implemented in the following years.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|pages=200-201|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=Many of the measures listed above were put into practice. The 120,000 Kurds classified as non-Syrian by the "census" suffered particularly heavily. Although they were treated as foreigners and suspects in their own country, they were nonetheless liable for military service and were called up to fight on in the Golan Heights. However, they were deprived of any other form of legitimate status. They could not legally marry, enter a hospital or register their children for schooling.|orig-year=1978}}</ref> The strategy called for the eviction of 140,000 Kurdish peasants and their replacement with Arabs; possibly even extending the expulsions to the Kurds of the Kurd Mountains was under consideration in 1966.<ref name=":0" /> In the decade following 1965, around 30,000 Kurds left al-Jazira Province to find work or escape persecution elsewhere in Syria or in Lebanon.<ref name=":0" /> In 1967, the land of the Kurds in al-Jazira Province was nationalized under the ''Plan to establish model state farms in the Jezireh Province'', a euphemism for the Arab Belt concept, and those who had been ordered out refused to leave but the events of the [[Six-Day War]] temporarily prevented its implementation from being completed.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|pages=200-201|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=The euphemistically renamed "Plan to establish model state farms in the Jezireh Province", the so-called "Arab Cordon" plan, was not dropped in the years that followed. Under the cover of "socialism" and agrarian reform, it envisaged the expulsion of the 140,000 strong peasantry, who would be replaced with Arabs. In 1966, there were even thoughts of applying it seriously, and perhaps extending it to the Kurd-Dagh. But those Kurdish peasants who had been ordered to leave refused to go. In 1967 the peasants in the Cordon zone were informed that their lands had been nationalized. The government even sent in a few teams to build "model farms" until the war against Israel forced it momentarily to drop its plans.|orig-year=1978}}</ref> The construction and flooding of the [[Tabqa Dam]] displaced Arabs who were then resettled in Kurdish al-Jazira. 40 "model villages" were constructed in 1975 and populated with 7,000 armed Arab peasant families; these settlements stretched from [[Amuda]] to [[Derik, Syria|Derik]], a town whose Kurdish name was replaced with the Arabic ''[[al-Malikiyah]]'' at that time.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|pages=200-201|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=The little town of Derik lost its Kurdish name and was officially restyled Al-Malikiyyeh.|orig-year=1978}}</ref> Proceeding slowly to avoid international criticism, the Syrian government suppressed Kurdish culture and harassed Kurdish people, and Kurdish literature and music was confiscated.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|pages=200-201|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=The plan was carried out gradually, so as not to attract too much attention from the outside world. The Kurds were subjected to regular administrative harassment, police raids, firings and confiscation orders. Kurdish literary works were seized, as were records of Kurdish folk music played in public places.|orig-year=1978}}</ref> Members of the [[Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria]] were given lengthy prison sentences for "anti-Arabist" crimes.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|pages=200-201|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=Syrian KDP leaders were imprisoned for years, charged with "anti-Arabist actions".|orig-year=1978}}</ref> In official government documents, mention of Kurds (along with all other non-Arabs) is omitted, and while there were Kurdish members of the legislative [[People's Council of Syria]], official identity was exclusively Arab.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|pages=200-201|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=True the Assembly retained a certain number of Kurdish deputies, but they could not stand as such since the official fiction decreed that all Syrian citizens are Arabs. In all the official publications of the Syrian Arab Republic, the Kurds - and every other non-Arab group - are never mentioned. Since the Republic is Arab, the Kurds must be as well.|orig-year=1978}}</ref>


In 1970, [[Hafez al-Assad]] seized power in a [[Corrective Movement (Syria)|subsequent coup]].{{sfnm |1a1=Kwarten |1y=2020 |1p=239 |2a1=Allsopp |2y=2016 |2p=31}} In 1976, the policy of the Arab Belt , never fully realized, were abandoned, with [[Hafez al-Assad]] preferring "to leave things as they are", remitting the official harassment and ceasing to build new settlements.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Nazdar|first=Mustafa|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W78I4hK0JLQC|title=Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan|publisher=Zed Books|year=1993|isbn=978-1-85649-194-5|editor-last=Chaliand|editor-first=Gérard|location=London|pages=200-201|language=en|translator-last=Pallis|translator-first=Michael|trans-title=A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan|chapter=The Kurds in Syria|quote=However in 1976, President Assad officially renounced any further implementation of the plan to transfer the population, and decided "to leave things as they are". The Kurdish peasants would not be harassed any more, and no further Arab villages would be built on their lands. But the villages which had already been built would stay, as would the newcomers transplanted from the Euphrates Valley. The radio began to broadcast Kurdish music and the Kurds in the country felt much safer. They wondered, however, if this was the beginning of a new policy ''vis-a-vis'' the Kurds of Syria or if it was just as government maneuver predicated on the rivalry between Damascus and the Iraqi Government.|orig-year=1978}}</ref> Existing Arab colonies and settlers remained in place, and while Kurdish music was again heard, the position of Kurds in Syria remained dependent to developments in relations between Syria and Iraq.<ref name=":1" /> The descendants of the 120,000 continued to be denied passports and documents and were still nevertheless the subject to conscription into the 21st century.<ref>{{Cite book|last=O'Shea|first=Maria T.|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Trapped_Between_the_Map_and_Reality.html?id=SvEfmAEACAAJ|title=Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|isbn=978-0-415-94766-4|location=New York and London|pages=176|language=en|quote=In 1961, 120,000 Kurds in the Jazireh region of Syria were declared foreigners by government decree, and they and their children are still denied passports or identity cards, although military service is still an obligation.}}</ref>
In 1963, the ultra-nationalistic [[Ba'ath Party]] launched a [[1963 Syrian coup d'état|successful coup]].{{sfnm |1a1=Kwarten |1y=2020 |1pp=238-239 |2a1=Maisel |2y=2018 |2p=xiv |3a1=Allsopp |3y=2016 |3p=31 |4a1=Gunter |4y=2014 |4pp=7-8}}
In 1970, [[Hafez al-Assad]] seized power in a [[Corrective Movement (Syria)|subsequent coup]].{{sfnm |1a1=Kwarten |1y=2020 |1p=239 |2a1=Allsopp |2y=2016 |2p=31}}


In 1978, north of the rail line, the [[Kurdistan Workers' Party]] (PKK) was founded by [[Abdullah Öcalan]], seeking to establish an independent Kurdish state in Turkey.{{sfn|Kwarten|2020|p=239}}
In 1978, north of the rail line, the [[Kurdistan Workers' Party]] (PKK) was founded by [[Abdullah Öcalan]], seeking to establish an independent Kurdish state in Turkey.{{sfn|Kwarten|2020|p=239}}

Revision as of 20:35, 21 February 2021

Location of Kurdish-speaking communities in the Middle East (Le Monde diplomatique, 2007)

Syrian Kurdistan is a Kurdish-inhabited area in northern Syria surrounding three noncontiguous enclaves along the Turkish and Iraqi borders: Afrin in the northwest, Kobani in the north, and Jazira in the northeast.[1] Syrian Kurdistan is sometimes called Western Kurdistan or Rojava,[a] one of the four "Lesser Kurdistans" that comprise "Greater Kurdistan", alongside Iranian Kurdistan,[b] Turkish Kurdistan,[c] and Iraqi Kurdistan.[d][2]

The term Syrian Kurdistan is often used in the context of Kurdish nationalism, which makes it a controversial concept among proponents of Syrian and Arab nationalism.[citation needed] There is ambiguity about its geographical extent, and the term has different meanings depending on context.

History

Ottoman Syria (1516–1920) and prior

Kurds, the world's largest stateless ethnic group, are a nomadic people inhabiting a mountainous region known as Kurdistan that spans parts of several sovereign states in Asia, primarily Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.[3] Although Kurdish origins and migration remain the subject of scholarly investigation and controversy, and several different groups throughout history have lived in Kurdistan, Kurds are traditionally considered to have descended from Indo-European tribes migrating westward toward Iran in the middle of the second millennium BCE.[4] In antiquity, Kurdistan was ruled, in turn, by the Median, Greek, Roman, and Persian empires.[5] After the advent of Islam in the 7th century CE, Kurdish tribes in Upper Mesopotamia and western Iran resisted advancing Muslim armies, but ultimately most Kurds converted to the Shafi'ite school of Sunni Islam.[6] Kurdish cultural and political power re-emerged over the next three centuries, as Kurds in Kurdistan lived semi-autonomously within the Islamic caliphates.[7]

The decline of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 10th century led to the rise of Kurdish dynasties, including the Ayyubids (1171–1260).[8] The founder of the Ayyubids, Saladin, famous for unifying Muslims and recapturing Jerusalem from Crusaders in 1187, expanded his empire into Syria and beyond.[9] Since the 11th century, the medieval Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers in the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range has been known as the "Fortress of the Kurds" or "Castle of the Kurds".[10] A group of Kurdish soldiers remained in Damascus after Saladin was buried there in 1193, establishing an enclave in the city known as the "Kurdish quarter", which was a center of Kurdish culture and language into the 20th century.[11] The Ayyubids lost Syria to the Mongols in the mid-13th century, who were quickly driven out by the Mamluks after the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, who in turn were defeated by the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century.[12]

Sharafkhan Bidlisi's 1596 epic of Kurdish history from the late 13th century to his own day, the Sharafnama, describes Kurdistan as extending from the Persian Gulf to the Ottoman vilayets of Malatya and Marash (Kahramanmaraş), an wide definition that counts the Lurs as Kurds and which takes an extreme expansionist view of the south. Lying to either side of the Gulf–Anatolia line were the vilayets of Diyarbekir, Mosul, "non-Arab Iraq", "Arab Iraq", Fars, Azerbaijan, Lesser Armenia, and Greater Armenia. Ahmad Khani's 1692 epic Mem û Zîn offers a similar conception of geography. In the 19th century poetry of Haji Qadir Koyi, literary Kurdistan extended across the north of later mandatory Syria, including Nusaybin and Alexandretta (İskenderun) on the Mediterranean Sea's Gulf of Alexandretta.[13]

At the beginning of the 17th century, land on either side of the Euphrates was settled by Kurds forced to migrate there at the Ottoman Sultans' behest from lands elsewhere within the empire. The area on the river's right bank was the main focus of settlement, especially around Kobanî. In the 18th century, some of the Kurdish tribes of Greater Syria (or Bilad al-Sham) remained closely related to those of neighbouring areas of Kurdistan, but some others were assimilated with local Arab tribes.[14]

French mandate for Syria (1920–1946)

World War I (1914—1918) had a significant impact on the Kurds.[15] The victorious Allies partitioned the defeated Ottoman Empire, dividing its Kurdish-inhabited areas among new nation-states such as Syria, Turkey, and Iraq.[16] In 1916, before the war had been won, Britain and France made a secret deal to divide the Middle East, known as the Sykes–Picot Agreement,[17] which influenced Middle East borders for a century and came to symbolize the victimization and manipulation of Kurds by British and French imperialists.[18] The first encounter between the French Armed Forces and Kurds in Syria came in late 1919 in the Kurd Mountains, which the French were able to pass through without much difficulty. In the Jazira, French troops were resisted more effectively.[19]

At the end of the fighting between the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the United Kingdom, the French Third Republic, and the Arab Revolt, the territory of modern-day Syria and Iraq had been occupied by the Allies, and a Kurdish political and territorial entity was proposed. However, since neither Britain nor France was willing to withdraw from occupied areas of the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration, the territory allotted to the Kurds was to be located wholly in areas still under Turkish control at the time of the first partition of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Sèvres in August 1920.[20] The treaty, which was never ratified, would have created an independent Kurdistan under French patronage in Turkey without including Kurdish areas in Syria, Iraq, or Iran.[21]

The Treaty of Sèvres was opposed by the Turkish National Movement, a coalition of Turkish revolutionaries led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his Kemalist followers.[22] In 1921, France and the Turkish National Movement signed the Treaty of Ankara, ending the Franco-Turkish War and moving the border between Turkey and French Syria further south than provided by the Treaty of Sevres.[23] Both France and Turkey cultivated relations with the area's tribes in the hope of establishing territorial claims.[19] The Franco-Turkish agreement was ratified by the multiparty 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which made no provision for an independent or autonomous Kurdish region, instead dividing the Kurdish areas of the Ottoman Empire between the new states of Turkey, Syria (under the French-controlled Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon), and British-controlled Mandatory Iraq.[24]

The new Turkish–Syrian border, set largely along the Berlin–Baghdad railway line between Mosul and Aleppo, divided both Arabic and Kurdish communities, leaving Arab enclaves in Turkey and Kurdish enclaves in Syria.[25] To this day, Kurds on either side of the border do not refer to themselves as "Syrian" or "Turkish"; rather, for Turkish Kurds, Syria is Bin Xhet (below the line), and for Syrian Kurds, Turkey is Ser Xhet (above the line).[26] South of the rail line, Syrian Kurdistan was created as "a waste product of the colonial division of the Middle East", in the words of German cultural anthropologist Thomas Schmidinger.[27][28][29]

Under the mandate, the French had authority over three Kurdish-populated areas left on the southern side of the new line, namely the areas of the Kurd Mountains (or Kurd-Dagh), Jarabulus, and the French Mandate territory in Upper Mesopotamia (the Northern Jazira). From the beginning of the Syrian state under the French Mandate, the geographical discontinuity of the Kurdish territory, as well as its relative smallness compared with the Kurdish areas of Iraq and Turkey, shaped much of the region's subsequent history. According to Jordi Tejel, "These three Kurdish enclaves constituted ... a natural extension of Kurdish territory into Turkey and Iraq".[30]

The new borders did not significantly impact Kurdish tribesmen in the area at the time because the placement of Kurdish communities under two different governments separated them but did not physically sever them.[26] However, developments north of the line in Turkey profoundly affected Syrian Kurds.[26] In the 1920s and 1930s, Kemalist repression and failed Kurdish uprisings such as the Sheikh Said rebellion (1925) and the Ararat rebellion (1927–1930) resulted in many Kurds fleeing or being exiled from Turkey to Syria.[31] The French mandate was not popular in France, and the local High Commissioner of the Levant sought to increase the profitability of the territory by resettling Kurds fleeing Kemalists in Turkey and other refugees in Jazira, a decision that resulted in the politicization of Kurdish ethnicity in Syria.[32]

French military efforts were hindered by propaganda favouring Turkey distributed among Kurdish and Arab tribes. Resistance to the French in the Jazira continued until 1926. By 1927, the Kurdish-majority villages of the area numbered 47. (The numbers of Kurds and Kurdish villages grew significantly in the Interwar period.)[14]

During the 1920s, use of the Latin alphabet to write the Kurdish languages was introduced by Celadet Bedir Khan and his brother Kamuran Alî Bedirxan and became standard in Syrian and Turkish Kurdistan.[33] Early French Syria's Kurds were predominantly speakers of Kurmanji, a northern Kurdish language. Besides the main three Kurdish enclaves, there were other Syrian Kurds outwith Syrian Kurdistan; primarily these were resident in the major cities of Aleppo (like the Alawite Kurds) and Damascus, though Yazidi Kurds inhabited Jabal Sam'an and others were nomads. Just as their districts were fragmented, the Kurdish inhabitants of Syria in the French mandatory period were heterogenous, and refugees arriving from Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan helped foster Kurdish political consciousness, engendering a "pan-Kurdism" that complemented pre-existing Kurdish identities. The immigration from Kurdish areas outside Syria increased the Kurdish component of the population in Jazira.[30]

In 1924, a delegate from Kurd Dagh made the first petition to the French authorities for autonomy for Kurdish-majority regions in Syria.[34] In 1927, Kurdish exiles from Turkey in Beirut founded Xoybûn, a secular pan-Kurdish movement that became the intellectual foundation of Kurdish nationalism.[35] Although Xoybûn pursued a military revolt in Turkish Kurdistan, it advocated for local autonomy for Kurds in Syria.[34] Xoybûn was popular in Syrian Kurdistan, and in 1931, Xoybûn delegates were elected from Kurd Dagh, Jarablus, and Jazira.[36] The French government rejected the Kurdish petitions for autonomy.[37]

France negotiated a Treaty of Independence with the First Syrian Republic in 1936, but the onset of World War II prevented its implementation. France was occupied by Germany in 1940, and the French mandate was seized by Vichy France. Allied forces retook Syria in 1941 and recognized the Syrian Arab Republic as independent and sovereign within the French mandate. Xoybûn had remained active during the war years but disbanded in 1946.[36]

Syrian independence (1946)

Syria gained independence in 1946.[38]

The first popular Kurdish national party in Syria was the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria (KDPS), formed in 1957, which soon changed its name to the "Kurdish Democratic Party of Syria" and maintained a "Syrianized" agenda whose objective was not the liberation of Syrian Kurdistan but the improvement of conditions for Syrian Kurds.[39] The academic historian Jordi Tejel has identified "Greater Kurdistan" as being one of the "Kurdish myths" that the KDPS were involved in promoting to Kurds in Syria.[40]

Events in Iraqi Kurdistan and the discovery of oil in Syrian Kurdistan in the 1960s coincided with a marked worsening for the Kurdish population.[41] In August 1961, the government decreed an extraordinary census of al-Jazira Province, which was undertaken in November, by which time the uprising for Kurdish autonomy in Iraq had begun.[41] As part of this census, 120,000 Kurds in the province were stripped of Syrian nationality and civil rights, on the pretext that they were foreigners – the August decree stated that Kurds were "illegally infiltrating" from Turkish Kurdistan into Syria, aiming to "destroy its Arab character". The following year, the Syrian government adopted the Arab Belt (al-Hizam al-Arabi) policy in order and "save Arabism" and defeat the "Kurdish threat" by expelling all the Kurdish inhabitants from the area of the Syria–Turkey border, dispersing and resettling them, and replacing them with Arabs.[41] Oil had been discovered at Qaratchok, and the desire the control the Kurdish region's resources was connected with the policy.[41] The region of the planned belt are rich in oil deposits and fertile agricultural land. About 50 to 60 per cent of the Syrian petroleum caves are estimated to be located in the district of Derik.[42]

Syrian Arab Republic (1963–present)

The Kurdish situation worsened again when, in March 1963, the ultra-nationalist Ba'ath Party of Michel Aflaq took power by Syrian coup d'état in Damascus.[43][44] In November the party published Study of the Jezireh Provnce in its National, Social, and Political Aspects, a pamphlet written by the al-Jazira Province's chief of police, Mohamed Talab Hilal.[43] An Arab nationalist, Hilal claimed to use "anthropological" reasoning to "prove scientifically" Kurds "do not constitute a nation".[43] His view was that "the Kurdish people are a people without history or civilization or language or even definite ethnic origin of their own. Their only characteristics are those shaped by force, destructive power and violence, characteristics which are, by the way, inherent in all mountain populations".[43] It was also his opinion that "The Kurds live from civilization and history of other nations. They have taken no part in these civilizations or in the history of these nations."[43] Hilal produced a twelvefold strategy to achieve the Arabization of the al-Jazira Province. The steps were:[45]

  • (1) batr (dispossession) – eviction and resettlement of Kurds
  • (2) tajhil (obscurantist) – deprivation of all education for Kurds, including in Arabic
  • (3) tajwii (famine) – removal of Kurds from employment
  • (4) extradition – expulsion of refugees from Turkish Kurdistan into Turkish custody
  • (5) encouragement of intra-Kurdish factionalism in order to divide and rule
  • (6) hizam (Arab cordon) – Arab settlement of former Kurdish lands, much as proposed in 1962
  • (7) iskan (colonization) – "pure and nationalist Arabs" to be settled in Syrian Kurdistan so Kurds might be "watched until their dispersion"
  • (8) military involvement by "divisions stationed in the zone of the cordon" would guaranty "that the dispersion of the Kurds and the settlement of Arabs would take place according to plans drawn up by the government"
  • (9) "socialization" – "collective farms", (mazarii jama'iyya), to be established in the Kurds' stead by Arab settlers equipped with "armament and training"
  • (10) prohibition of "anybody ignorant of the Arabic language exercising the right to vote or stand for office"
  • (11) Kurdish ulemas were to be expelled to the south and replaced with Arabs
  • (12) "a vast anti-Kurdish campaign amongst the Arabs" to be undertaken by the state

Though the 120,000 Kurds of al-Jazira Province deemed non-Syrians were unable to vote or marry or receive education or healthcare, they were nevertheless eligible to be conscripted for military service, and could be sent to fight on the Golan Heights; they were particular victims of the Arab Belt policy, which continued to set the Kurdish agenda of the Syrian government and many of whose provisions were implemented in the following years.[46] The strategy called for the eviction of 140,000 Kurdish peasants and their replacement with Arabs; possibly even extending the expulsions to the Kurds of the Kurd Mountains was under consideration in 1966.[46] In the decade following 1965, around 30,000 Kurds left al-Jazira Province to find work or escape persecution elsewhere in Syria or in Lebanon.[46] In 1967, the land of the Kurds in al-Jazira Province was nationalized under the Plan to establish model state farms in the Jezireh Province, a euphemism for the Arab Belt concept, and those who had been ordered out refused to leave but the events of the Six-Day War temporarily prevented its implementation from being completed.[47] The construction and flooding of the Tabqa Dam displaced Arabs who were then resettled in Kurdish al-Jazira. 40 "model villages" were constructed in 1975 and populated with 7,000 armed Arab peasant families; these settlements stretched from Amuda to Derik, a town whose Kurdish name was replaced with the Arabic al-Malikiyah at that time.[48] Proceeding slowly to avoid international criticism, the Syrian government suppressed Kurdish culture and harassed Kurdish people, and Kurdish literature and music was confiscated.[49] Members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria were given lengthy prison sentences for "anti-Arabist" crimes.[50] In official government documents, mention of Kurds (along with all other non-Arabs) is omitted, and while there were Kurdish members of the legislative People's Council of Syria, official identity was exclusively Arab.[51]

In 1970, Hafez al-Assad seized power in a subsequent coup.[52] In 1976, the policy of the Arab Belt , never fully realized, were abandoned, with Hafez al-Assad preferring "to leave things as they are", remitting the official harassment and ceasing to build new settlements.[53] Existing Arab colonies and settlers remained in place, and while Kurdish music was again heard, the position of Kurds in Syria remained dependent to developments in relations between Syria and Iraq.[53] The descendants of the 120,000 continued to be denied passports and documents and were still nevertheless the subject to conscription into the 21st century.[54]

In 1978, north of the rail line, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was founded by Abdullah Öcalan, seeking to establish an independent Kurdish state in Turkey.[55] Assad, who had disputes with Turkey over issues such as the use of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, allowed the PKK to operate from Syria in exchange for the PKK focusing its efforts in Turkish Kurdistan and not Syria.[56] According to Tejel, as a result, "Northern Syria became a breeding ground for PKK militants during the 1980s and 1990s".[57]

The idea of a Syrian territory being part of a "Kurdistan" or "Syrian Kurdistan" gained more widespread support among Syrian Kurds in the 1980s and 1990s.[58] Several smaller Kurdish political movements in Syria, amongst them the Yekiti and the Azadi, began to organize manifestations in cities with a large Kurdish population demanding a better treatment of the Kurdish population while advocating for an recognition of a "Syrian Kurdistan".[59] This development was fueled by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that strengthened Kurdish nationalist ideas in Syria, whereas local Kurdish parties had previously lacked success in promoting "a clear political project" related to a Kurdish identity, partially due to political repression by the Syrian government.[60]

Cooperation between Assad and the PKK ended in the late 1990s when Turkey moved its military to the Syrian border and demanded Öcalan's extradition.[56] Öcalan was exiled from Syria, captured by the Turks in Kenya and imprisoned.[56]

In 2000, Hafez al-Assad was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad.[55]

In 2003, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) was founded as a Syrian affiliate of the PKK.[55] Despite the role of the PKK in initially spreading the concept of "Syrian Kurdistan", the PYD (the Syrian "successor" of the PKK),[61] generally refrained from calling for the establishment of "Syrian Kurdistan".[62] As the PKK and PYD call for the removal of national borders in general, the two parties believed that there was no need for the creation of a separate "Syrian Kurdistan", as their internationalist project would allow for the unification of Kurdistan through indirect means.[63]

Syrian civil war (2011–present)

The Syrian civil war began in 2011.[64] Some observers see Syrian Kurdistan as a concept emerging from the ongoing Syrian Civil War.[65] The concept of a Syrian Kurdistan gained even more relevance after the Syrian Civil War's start, as Kurdish-inhabited areas in northern Syria fell under the control of Kurdish-dominated factions. The PYD established an autonomous administration in northern Syria which it eventually began to call "Rojava" or "West Kurdistan".[63][66][67] By 2014, many local Kurds used this name synonymously to northeastern Syria.[68] Non-PYD parties such as the KNC also began to raise demands for the establishment of Syrian Kurdistan as separate area, raising increasing concerns by Syrian nationalists and some observers who regarded these plans as attempts to divide Syria.[69] As the PYD-led administration gained control over increasingly ethnically diverse areas, however, the use of "Rojava" for the merging proto-state was gradually reduced in official contexts.[70] Regardless, the polity continued to be called Rojava by locals and international observers,[71][72][73][74] with journalist Metin Gurcan noting that "the concept of Rojava [had become] a brand gaining global recognition" by 2019.[72] Tejel has described "Kurdistan and the concept of Greater Kurdistan" as "a powerful amalgam of myths, facts and ambitions".[75]

Geography

Syrian Kurdistan comprises three noncontiguous enclaves along the Turkish and Iraqi borders: Afrin in the northwest, Kobani in the north, and Jazira in the northeast.[1] The enclave in the northwest corner of the country is referred to as Afrin after its main city, and includes the surrounding plains and Kurd Mountains (Kurd Dagh).[76] The north-central enclave along the Euphrates river near Jarabulus is also named after its main city, Kobanî.[76] In the northeast, Jazira (meaning "island", due to its location between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers) includes the cities of Al-Hasakah and Qamishli, the de facto capital of Syrian Kurdistan.[76] All three enclaves border Turkish Kurdistan to the north, while Jazira also borders Iraqi Kurdistan to the east.[77]

According to the Crisis Group, the term Rojava "refers to the western area of 'Kurdistan'", namely those in Syria.[67] Although the concept of an independent Kurdistan as homeland of the Kurdish people has a long history,[78] the extent of said territory has been disputed over time.[79] Kurds have lived in territories which later became part of modern Syria for centuries,[80] and following the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurdish population before living in the Ottoman Empire, was divided between its successor states Turkey, Iraq and Syria.[81] Local Kurdish parties generally maintained ideologies which stayed in a firmly Syrian framework, and did not aspire to create a separate Syrian Kurdistan.[39] In the 1920s, there were two separate demands for an autonomy of the areas with a Kurdish majority. One of Nouri Kandy, an influential Kurd from the Kurd Dagh, and another one of the Kurdish tribal leaders of the Barazi confederation. Both demands were not taken into consideration by the authorities of the French Mandate.[82] According to Tejel, until the 1980s Kurdish-inhabited areas of Syria were mainly regarded as "Kurdish regions of Syria".[79]

In the 20th century, Kurdistan was usually only included areas in Turkey and Iraq. The Kurdish-inhabited areas in northern Syria are adjacent to "Turkish Kurdistan" in the north and "Iraqi Kurdistan" in the east.[83]

By 2013, "Rojava" had become synonymous with PYD-ruled areas, regardless of ethnic majorities. For the most part, the term was used to refer to the "non-contiguous Kurdish-populated areas" in the region.[67] In 2015 a map by Kurdish National Council (KNC) member Nori Brimo was published which largely mirrored the Ekurd Daily's maps, but also included the Hatay Province. The claimed map includes large swaths of Arab-majority areas.[69]

Demographics

Map of ethno-religious groups in Syria and Lebanon during the French Mandate in 1935, with the Kurds concentrated on the border with the Republic of Turkey

Population figures for Kurds in Syria are contentious and politicized. No census since the French mandate has included ethnic identity. Due to a lack of reliable data, only estimates can be given.[84] Most population estimates of Syrian Kurds range between 1.8 and 3.5 million, or about 8–15% of Syria's total population of 22 million.[85]

Northern Syria is an ethnically diverse region. Kurds constitute one of several groups which have lived in northern Syria since antiquity or the Middle Ages.[86][87][e] The first Kurdish communities constituted a minority and mostly consisted of nomads or military colonists.[80] During the Ottoman Empire (1516–1922), large Kurdish-speaking tribal groups both settled in and were deported to areas of northern Syria from Anatolia.[62] The last years of Ottoman rule witnessed extensive demographic changes in northern Syria as a result of the Assyrian Genocide and mass migrations.[88] Many Assyrians fled to Syria during the genocide and settled mainly in the Jazira area.[89]

Starting in 1926, the region saw another immigration of Kurds following the failure of the Sheikh Said rebellion against the Turkish authorities.[90] Waves of Kurds fled their homes in Turkey and settled in Syrian Al-Jazira Province, where they were granted citizenship by the authorities of the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon.[91] The number of Kurds settled in the Jazira province during the 1920s was estimated at 20,000[92] to 25,000 people,[93] out of 100,000 inhabitants, with the remainder of the population being Christians (Syriac, Armenian, Assyrian) and Arabs.[92] According to Michael Gunter, many Kurds still do not see themselves as belonging to either the Turkish or Syrian Kurdistan, but rather as one who originates from "above the line" (Kurdish: Ser Xhet) or "below the line" (Kurdish:Bin Xhet).[94]

French mandate authorities gave the new Kurdish refugees considerable rights and encouraged minority autonomy as part of a divide and rule strategy and recruited heavily from the Kurds and other minority groups, such as Alawite and Druze, for its local armed forces.[95] French Mandate authorities encouraged their immigration and granted them Syrian citizenship.[96] Giving Syrian nationality to refugees by French mandate authorities was legally required so that refugees could be hired as employees of the Syrian state (Armenians as clerks and interpreters and Kurds as gendarmes) but also to receive grants of state land by mandate authorities.[97]

The French official reports show the existence of at most 45 Kurdish villages in Jazira prior to 1927. A new wave of refugees arrived in 1929.[98] The mandatory authorities continued to encourage Kurdish immigration into Syria, and by 1939, the villages numbered between 700 and 800 [98] due to several successive Kurdish immigration waves from Turkey.[97] The French authorities themselves generally organized the settlement of the refugees. One of the most important of these plans was carried out in Upper Jazira in northeastern Syria where the French built new towns and villages (such as Qamishli) were built with the intention of housing the refugees considered to be "friendly". This has encouraged the non-Turkish minorities that were under Turkish pressure to leave their ancestral homes and property, they could find refuge and rebuild their lives in relative safety in neighboring Syria.[99]

These successive Kurdish immigrations from Turkey have led the governing Ba'ath Party to think about Arabization policies in northern Syria, settling 4000 farmer families from areas inundated by the Tabqa Dam in Raqqa Governorate in al-Hasakah Governorate [100] Mass migration also took place during the Syrian civil war. Accordingly, estimates as to the ethnic composition of northern Syria vary widely, ranging from claims about a Kurdish majority to claims about Kurds being a small minority.[101]

In Syrian Kurdistan were concentrated roughly half a million Kurds in Syria in the 1970s.[102] At that time, Kurds represented around 10% of Syria's population, living mainly in these "well-defined areas" on the northern border.[103]

Climate and resources

Annual temperatures in Syrian Kurdistan are between 15–20 degrees Celsius (59–68 degrees Fahrenheit).[104] The geographical area is economically important to the state.[105] Syrian Kurdistan is rich in natural resources, such as coal, oil, natural gas, potential hydro-electric river power, and minerals including phosphates, lignite, copper, iron, and chrome.[106] Lying between Orontes, Euphrates and Tigris rivers, the area contains productive arable farmland,[105] giving the region the appellation of the "granary" of Syria. Similarly, the adjacent Iraqi Kurdistan is known as the granary of Iraq.[107] Kurd Dagh is well-known for the olives, olive oil, and other products derived from its more than 13 million olive trees.[105]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê, lit.'Kurdistan where the sun sets'
  2. ^ Kurdish: Rojhilatê Kurdistanê, lit.'Kurdistan where the sun rises'
  3. ^ Kurdish: Bakurê Kurdistanê, lit.'Northern Kurdistan'
  4. ^ Kurdish: Başûrê Kurdistanê, lit.'Southern Kurdistan'
  5. ^ It is difficult to properly define early Kurds, as "Kurdish" was often used as a catch-all word for nomadic tribal groups west of Iran during antiquity and medieval times.[87]

References

  1. ^ a b Kajjo 2020, pp. 279, 284; Tejel 2020, pp. 251–252, 259; Lange 2018, pp. 275–276, 285; O'Leary 2018; Phillips 2017, p. 67; Allsopp 2016, p. 29; Gunter 2014, p. 8.
  2. ^ Kajjo 2020, p. 273; Tejel 2020, p. 261; O'Leary 2018; Bengio 2017, p. 79; Bengio 2014, p. 2: "Hence the terms: rojhalat (east, Iran), bashur (south, Iraq), bakur (north, Turkey), and rojava (west, Syria)."
  3. ^ Maisel 2018, pp. xii–xiii; Phillips 2017, p. xvii.
  4. ^ Aydin 2018, p. 19; McDowall 2004, p. 8.
  5. ^ Neggaz & Majed 2020, pp. viii–ix; Aydin 2018, pp. 19–20.
  6. ^ Aydin 2018, p. 20; Bajalan 2018, p. 4; Izady 2015, p. 109.
  7. ^ Aydin 2018, p. 20; Izady 2015, p. 117.
  8. ^ Aydin 2018, p. 20.
  9. ^ Aydin 2018, p. 20; Bajalan 2018, p. 5; Lange 2018, p. 277; Izady 2015, p. 109.
  10. ^ Lange 2018, p. 277; Gunter 2014, p. 8.
  11. ^ Tejel 2020, p. 252; Aydin 2018, p. 20; Bajalan 2018, pp. 6–7; Lange 2018, p. 277; Allsopp 2016, p. 29; Izady 2015, p. 109; O'Leary 2018; Gunter 2014, p. 8.
  12. ^ Bajalan 2018, pp. 6–8; Lange 2018, p. 277.
  13. ^ Tejel 2020, p. 248.
  14. ^ a b Tejel 2020, pp. 252–253.
  15. ^ Aydin 2018, p. 21; Bajalan 2018, p. 15; Maisel 2018, p. xiii.
  16. ^ Kwarten 2020, pp. 237–238; Aydin 2018, p. 21; Bajalan 2018, pp. 16–17; Maisel 2018, p. xiii; Gunter 2014, p. 7.
  17. ^ Kwarten 2020, pp. 233–234; Aydin 2018, p. 21; Phillips 2017, p. 67; Gunter 2014, pp. 8–9.
  18. ^ Kwarten 2020, pp. 233–234, 237; Gunter 2014, p. 9.
  19. ^ a b Tejel 2020, p. 252.
  20. ^ Bulloch, John; Morris, Harvey (1992). No Friends But the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds. Oxford University Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-19-508075-9. The British and the French made it clear from the outset that they were unwilling to surrender those parts of Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan which fell under their control, and that an independent Kurdistan, if such an entity were to be created, would have to be in what was still Turkish territory.
  21. ^ Kwarten 2020, pp. 237–238; Bajalan 2018, pp. 16–17; Maisel 2018, p. xiii.
  22. ^ Kwarten 2020, p. 238; Tejel 2020, p. 252; Bajalan 2018, pp. 16–17.
  23. ^ Kwarten 2020, p. 237; Tejel 2020, p. 252; Aydin 2018, p. 21; Bajalan 2018, p. 17.
  24. ^ Kwarten 2020, p. 238; Aydin 2018, p. 21; Bajalan 2018, p. 17; Maisel 2018, p. xiii; Gunter 2014, p. 9.
  25. ^ Kwarten 2020, p. 238; Tejel 2020, pp. 251–252; Bajalan 2018, p. 17; Gunter 2014, p. 9.
  26. ^ a b c Gunter 2014, p. 9.
  27. ^ Kwarten 2020, pp. 237–238: "South of the railway, Syrian Kurdistan was born as 'a waste product of the colonial division of the Middle East', as the German cultural anthropologist Thomas Schmidinger elegantly described it."
  28. ^ Schmidinger, Thomas (2018-06-20). Rojava: Revolution, War and the Future of Syria's Kurds. Translated by Schiffmann, Michael. Pluto Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1qv2bm. ISBN 978-1-78680-254-5. JSTOR j.ctv1qv2bm.
  29. ^ Glioti, Andrea (2019-09-04). "Review of Thomas Schmidinger, Rojava: Revolution, War, and the Future of Syria's Kurds". New Middle Eastern Studies. 9 (2). doi:10.29311/nmes.v9i2.3247. ISSN 2051-0861.
  30. ^ a b Tejel 2020, pp. 251–252.
  31. ^ Tejel 2020, pp. 252–253; Bajalan 2018, p. 17; O'Leary 2018; Phillips 2017, p. 67; Gunter 2014, p. 7.
  32. ^ Tejel 2020, p. 253.
  33. ^ Berberoglu 1999, p. 84: "Then, in the 1920s, the Bedirkhan brothers introduced the Latin alphabet, which became standard in Turkish and Syrian Kurdistan."
  34. ^ a b Tejel 2020, p. 254.
  35. ^ Phillips 2017, p. 68; Tejel 2020, pp. 253–254.
  36. ^ a b Phillips 2017, p. 68.
  37. ^ Phillips 2017, p. 68; Tejel 2020, p. 254.
  38. ^ Kwarten 2020, p. 238.
  39. ^ a b Tejel 2009, p. 86.
  40. ^ Tejel 2009, p. 92.
  41. ^ a b c d Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. p. 199. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. The Kurds were suspected of being "in league" with the Kurds of Iraq, who had just launched the September 1961 insurrection aimed at securing autonomous status within an Iraqi framework. On August 23, 1961, the government promulgated a decree (no. 93) authorizing a special population census in Jezireh Province. It claimed that Kurds from Turkish Kurdistan were "illegally infiltrating" the Jezireh in order to "destroy its Arab character". The census was carried out in November of that year; when its results were released, some 120,000 Jezireh Kurds were discounted as foreigners and unjustly stripped of their rights as Syrian nationals. In 1962, to combat the "Kurdish threat" and "save Arabism" in the region, the government inaugurated the so-called "Arab Cordon plan" (Al Hizam al-arabi), which envisaged the entire Kurdish population living along the border with Turkey. They were to be gradually replaced by Arabs and would be resettled, and preferably dispersed, in the south. The discovery of oil at Qaratchok, right in the middle of Kurdish Jezireh, no doubt had something to do with the government's policy.
  42. ^ Cite error: The named reference YEP4e was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  43. ^ a b c d e Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. p. 199. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. In March 1963, Michel Aflaq's Baath Party came to power. Its socialism was soon shown to be mainly of the national variety. The Kurds' position worsened. In November 1963, in Damascus, the Baath published a Study of the Jezireh Provnce in its National, Social, and Political Aspects, written by the region's chief of police, Mohamed Talab Hilal. ... Hilal had set out to "prove scientifically", on the basis of various "anthropological" considerations, that the Kurds, "do not constitute a nation". His conclusion was that "the Kurdish people are a people without history or civilization or language or even definite ethnic origin of their own. Their only characteristics are those shaped by force, destructive power and violence, characteristics which are, by the way, inherent in all mountain populations." Furthermore: "The Kurds live from civilization and history of other nations. They have taken no part in these civilizations or in the history of these nations."
  44. ^ Kwarten 2020, pp. 238–239; Maisel 2018, p. xiv; Allsopp 2016, p. 31; Gunter 2014, pp. 7–8.
  45. ^ Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. pp. 199–200. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. A zealous nationalist, Hilal proposed a twelve-point plan, which would first be put into operation against the Jezireh Kurds: (1) a batr or "dispossession" policy, involving the transfer and dispersion of the Kurdish people; (2) a tajhil or "obscurantist" policy of depriving Kurds of any education whatsoever, even in Arabic; (3) a tajwii or "famine" policy, depriving those affected of any employment possibilities; (4) an "extradition" policy, which meant turning the survivors of the uprisings in northern Kurdistan over to the Turkish government; (5) a "divide and rule" policy, setting Kurd against Kurd; (6) a hizam or cordon policy similar to the one proposed in 1962; (7) an iskan or "colonization" policy, involving the implementation of "pure and nationalist Arabs" in the Kurdish regions so that the Kurds could be "watched until their dispersion"; (8) a military policy, based on "divisions stationed in the zone of the cordon" who would be charged with "ensuring that the dispersion of the Kurds and the settlement of Arabs would take place according to plans drawn up by the government"; (9) a "socialization" policy, under which "collective forms", mazarii jama'iyya, would be set up for the Arabs implanted in the regions. These new settlers would also be provided with "armament and training"; (10) a ban of "anybody ignorant of the Arabic language exercising the right to vote or stand for office"; (11) sending the Kurdish ulemas to the south and "bringing in Arab ulemas to replace them"; (12) finally, "launching a vast anti-Kurdish campaign amongst the Arabs".
  46. ^ a b c Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. pp. 200–201. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. Many of the measures listed above were put into practice. The 120,000 Kurds classified as non-Syrian by the "census" suffered particularly heavily. Although they were treated as foreigners and suspects in their own country, they were nonetheless liable for military service and were called up to fight on in the Golan Heights. However, they were deprived of any other form of legitimate status. They could not legally marry, enter a hospital or register their children for schooling.
  47. ^ Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. pp. 200–201. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. The euphemistically renamed "Plan to establish model state farms in the Jezireh Province", the so-called "Arab Cordon" plan, was not dropped in the years that followed. Under the cover of "socialism" and agrarian reform, it envisaged the expulsion of the 140,000 strong peasantry, who would be replaced with Arabs. In 1966, there were even thoughts of applying it seriously, and perhaps extending it to the Kurd-Dagh. But those Kurdish peasants who had been ordered to leave refused to go. In 1967 the peasants in the Cordon zone were informed that their lands had been nationalized. The government even sent in a few teams to build "model farms" until the war against Israel forced it momentarily to drop its plans.
  48. ^ Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. pp. 200–201. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. The little town of Derik lost its Kurdish name and was officially restyled Al-Malikiyyeh.
  49. ^ Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. pp. 200–201. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. The plan was carried out gradually, so as not to attract too much attention from the outside world. The Kurds were subjected to regular administrative harassment, police raids, firings and confiscation orders. Kurdish literary works were seized, as were records of Kurdish folk music played in public places.
  50. ^ Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. pp. 200–201. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. Syrian KDP leaders were imprisoned for years, charged with "anti-Arabist actions".
  51. ^ Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. pp. 200–201. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. True the Assembly retained a certain number of Kurdish deputies, but they could not stand as such since the official fiction decreed that all Syrian citizens are Arabs. In all the official publications of the Syrian Arab Republic, the Kurds - and every other non-Arab group - are never mentioned. Since the Republic is Arab, the Kurds must be as well.
  52. ^ Kwarten 2020, p. 239; Allsopp 2016, p. 31.
  53. ^ a b Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. pp. 200–201. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. However in 1976, President Assad officially renounced any further implementation of the plan to transfer the population, and decided "to leave things as they are". The Kurdish peasants would not be harassed any more, and no further Arab villages would be built on their lands. But the villages which had already been built would stay, as would the newcomers transplanted from the Euphrates Valley. The radio began to broadcast Kurdish music and the Kurds in the country felt much safer. They wondered, however, if this was the beginning of a new policy vis-a-vis the Kurds of Syria or if it was just as government maneuver predicated on the rivalry between Damascus and the Iraqi Government.
  54. ^ O'Shea, Maria T. (2004). Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan. New York and London: Routledge. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-415-94766-4. In 1961, 120,000 Kurds in the Jazireh region of Syria were declared foreigners by government decree, and they and their children are still denied passports or identity cards, although military service is still an obligation.
  55. ^ a b c Kwarten 2020, p. 239.
  56. ^ a b c Kwarten 2020, p. 239; O'Leary 2018.
  57. ^ Tejel 2020, p. 258.
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  59. ^ Kajjo 2020, p. 275.
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  61. ^ Allsopp & van Wilgenburg 2019, p. 28.
  62. ^ a b Tejel 2009, p. 123.
  63. ^ a b Kaya & Lowe 2017.
  64. ^ O'Leary 2018.
  65. ^ Lowe 2014.
  66. ^ Kurdish Regional Self-rule Administration in Syria: A new Model of Statehood and its Status in International Law Compared to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq
  67. ^ a b c "Flight of Icarus? The PYD's Precarious Rise in Syria" (PDF). International Crisis Group: Middle East Report N°151. 8 May 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2020. : "The Middle East's present-day borders stem largely from the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement between France and the UK. Deprived of a state of their own, Kurds found themselves living in four different countries, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The term 'rojava' ('west' in Kurdish) refers to the western area of 'Kurdistan'; today in practice it includes non-contiguous Kurdish-populated areas of northern Syria where the PYD proclaimed a transitional administration in November 2013.".
  68. ^ "Special Report: Amid Syria's violence, Kurds carve out autonomy". Reuters. 22 January 2014. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
  69. ^ a b Mohamed Al Hussein (21 February 2020). "Map of proposed Syrian Kurdistan provoke questions". zamanalwsl. Retrieved 12 September 2020.
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  75. ^ Tejel 2020, pp. 250–251: "Today, like in the early twentieth century, Greater Kurdistan remains largely a cultural abstract. The importance of Kurdistan thus lies not in its existence as a geographical region or as a geopolitical zone, but rather in its potential. Therefore, despite the divisions, despite its inadequacies, Kurdistan and the concept of Greater Kurdistan survive the reality as a powerful amalgam of myths, facts and ambitions (O'Shea 2004: 2)."
  76. ^ a b c O'Leary 2018; Phillips 2017, p. 67; Gunter 2014, p. 8.
  77. ^ Tejel 2020, p. 261; O'Leary 2018; Allsopp 2016, p. 29; Gunter 2014, p. 8.
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  86. ^ Vanly 1992, p. 116: "To the east of Kurd-Dagh and separated from it by the Afrin valley lies the western and mountainous part of the Syrian district of Azaz which is also inhabited by Kurds, and a Kurdish minority lives in the northern counties of Idlib and Jerablos. There is reason to believe that the establishment of Kurds in these areas, a defensive site commanding the path to Antioch, goes back to the Seleucid era."
  87. ^ a b Kreyenbroek 2006, p. 445.
  88. ^ Tejel 2009, pp. 9–10.
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  92. ^ a b Simpson, John Hope (1939). The Refugee Problem: Report of a Survey (First ed.). London: Oxford University Press. p. 458. ASIN B0006AOLOA.
  93. ^ McDowall 2004, p. 469.
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  95. ^ Yildiz, Kerim (2005). The Kurds in Syria : the forgotten people (1. publ. ed.). London [etc.]: Pluto Press, in association with Kurdish Human Rights Project. p. 25. ISBN 0745324991.
  96. ^ Kreyenbroek, Philip G.; Sperl, Stefan (1992). The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview. London: Routledge. pp. 147. ISBN 0-415-07265-4.
  97. ^ a b White, Benjamin Thomas (2017). "Refugees and the definition of Syria, 1920–1939*". Past and Present (235): 168. Retrieved 2021-01-01.
  98. ^ a b Tejel 2009, p. 144.
  99. ^ Tachjian Vahé, The expulsion of non-Turkish ethnic and religious groups from Turkey to Syria during the 1920s and early 1930s, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, [online], published on: 5 March 2009, accessed 09/12/2019, ISSN 1961-9898
  100. ^ Allsopp & van Wilgenburg 2019, p. 27.
  101. ^ Allsopp & van Wilgenburg 2019, pp. 7–16.
  102. ^ Bruinessen, Martin van (1978). Agha, Shaikh and State: On the Social and Political Organization of Kurdistan. University of Utrecht. p. 22. I shall refer to these parts as Turkish, Persian, Iraqi, and Syrian Kurdistan. ... Most sources agree that there are approximately half a million Kurds in Syria.
  103. ^ Chaliand, Gérard, ed. (1993) [1978]. Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. Are these three regions - Kurd-Dagh, Ain-Arab, and Northern Jezireh - part of Kurdistan? Do they form a Syrian Kurdistan, or are they merely region of Syria which happen to be populated with Kurds? The important thing is that 10% of Syria's population are Kurds who live in their own way in well-defined areas in the north of the country. Syrian Kurdistan has thus become a broken up territory and we would do better to talk about the Kurdish regions of Syria. What matters is that these people are being denied their legitimate right to have their own national and cultural identity.
  104. ^ Aydin 2018, p. 23; Izady 2015, pp. 63–64.
  105. ^ a b c Allsopp 2016, p. 29.
  106. ^ Aydin 2018, p. 23; Allsopp 2016, p. 29.
  107. ^ van Bruinessen 1992, p. 15: "The plains of Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan are the granaries of Iraq and Syria, respectively."

Works cited

General references

Further reading

External links