Talk:Syrian Kurdistan

Rfc: Syrian Kurdistan's lead: is it universal or not

Syrian Kurdistan is a term used to refer to Kurdish inhabited areas of Syria. This designation is contested, so I would like interested editors to weigh in on the wording of the lead:

• A: Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê‎), often shortened to Rojava, is regarded by many Kurds and some regional experts as the part of Kurdistan in Syria.
• B: Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê‎), often shortened to Rojava, is the Syrian part of Kurdistan
• C: Syrian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê‎) is the Syrian part of Kurdistan

--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 23:45, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

— Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Thepharoah17 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.

Support A

• By Attar: There are no historical records that includes the Kurdish inhabited regions of Syria within historical Kurdistan before the establishment of Syria. As it is shown in the article, the idea that there is a Kurdistan in Syria is rather recent, opposed by the rest of Syria, has no international backing or recognition, and is far from universal. It is against the NPOV policy to hide those facts and give one side of the story.
  - Some sources on the issue: the book of Wladimir van Wilgenburg: in it, we see this: For ease of explanation, the term 'Kurdish areas' or 'northern Syria' is used to refer to the areas of northern Syria where Kurds are concentrated. Its use does not imply any politically motivated judgement on the ethnic or political character of the regions nor does it imply that these areas are homogenous ethnically. 1
  - Another source, this time by a scholar who totally support Syrian Kurdistan, Robert Lowe "The Emergence of Western Kurdistan and the Future of Syria" in D. Romano et al. (eds.), Conflict, Democratization, and the Kurds in the Middle East (2014), has the following:
  1- Western Kurdistan was previously a vague concept rarely used by most Kurds (page 225)
  2-Until 2012, the Kurdish national movement in Syria had barely flirted with the idea of devolved or autonomous government for Kurdish areas. The concept of Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan received very little attention. Even the term was rarely used and then mostly only by the PYD and some more radical nationalist groups operating from abroad. (page 236). So here you see that the term is not taken for granted, its new, not universal, and not a undisputed fact that can be presented as such in Wikipedia in accordance with the NPOV policy.
  3- In general, Syrian Sunni Arabs are deeply opposed to Western Kurdistan and any form of devolution or federation in Syria. The Kurds are unclear and disunited on the issue. (page 240). So here we have it: the rest of Syria contests the existence of such entity, this, combined with the lack of international recognition, and the fact that the majority of international media do not use the term Kurdistan to designate the regions of Syria, and use only Syria or North Syria or Kurdish inhabited regions, makes it deeply POV pushing not to represent the opposition in the lead--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 23:45, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
• Amr ibn Kulthoum. Thanks Sixula for opening this. Although I thought we already had this discussion before (see above), this new discussion will hopefully make things clear. We have a ton of evidence presented throughout the article and the Talk page that this is a term used/invented by Kurds (including the monographs mentioned above by paradise. If others exist, they would be the marginal minority. Thanks, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 06:11, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

BTW, the version that was the closest to a consensus was the one by Applodion here, before Paradise chronicle and konli started all the sabotage and mass content removal/addition in the last 48 hours. Can someone revert to that version waiting for this vote? @Sixula:. Thanks, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 06:17, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

@عمرو بن كلثوم: at present we shouldn't revert it all the way back because there is information that is actually good that has been added from the new eyes at this article. What we can do once this vote is finished is edit the article to reflect the consensus while maintaining the new information. Thanks, Sixula^Talk 14:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

But this is unfair, because I have restrained from editing while Konli removed half the article and placed it with their irrelevant POV content and paradise kept adding material and moving things around as they please. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 18:06, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

@عمرو بن كلثوم: they shouldn't be editing either during this RfC. Thanks, Sixula^Talk 14:01, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Dont lie, Amr. Konli17 (talk) 14:14, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I hope people will start listening to your advice, Sixula. I'll change it back. Konli17 (talk) 21:35, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Konli, Why don't you start by yourself and stop the edit-warring? Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 23:50, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, like Sixula said, we'll restore the clean-up and have a halt to edit-warring while we iron everything out. Konli17 (talk) 01:42, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

• Support A per Attar. --HistoryofIran (talk) 00:30, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
• It should be ""Syrian Kurdistan" or "Western Kurdistan" (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê‎), often shortened to "Rojava" are disputed terms regarded by some Kurds as the part of "Kurdistan" in northern Syria" --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 15:22, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support A per Attar. --Thepharoah17 (talk) 21:05, 15 November 2020 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Thepharoah17 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.

My friend, this RfC was was started on 12 November while the message you are referring to was left on 8 November. User Thepharoah has been active here long before my message to them. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 04:07, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

عمرو بن كلثوم, yes, I saw that on the user talk page. Thank you for clarifying that, as I was about to check if this was the case, before I saw your reply. Regardless, I think this is still technically canvassing, even if it's not doing so for the purpose of an RfC. Whoever the closer is, they'll presumably be able to weigh all of this appropriately. Apologies, thepharoah17, for doing this at all. Just don't want to run afoul of policy here. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 04:16, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

• Support A. of the three options, A is the most accurate. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Support C

• Paradise Chronicle

Syrian Kurdistan is an established term to refer to the subject in the article and is a complementary article to the existing articles of Iranian Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkish Kurdistan. That Kurdistan spans over Syria is also presented as a fact in the Encyclopedia Britannica. There are also numerous maps of which some are included in the sources of the article, where there is depicted a Syrian part of a larger Kurdistan which spans over Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The article is not about a recognized political entity but a geo-cultural region. This region is pretty well described in numerous high quality (according to WP:verifiability and WP:notability standards) sources and even the authors (Lowe and van Wilgenburg) of the sources brought for the bringing into doubt the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan speak of Kurds in Syria living there since centuries. Discussions about the political status of Syrian Kurdistan could be described in a specific section. Kurds and Kurdistan have gone through a long history of denial in the the countries Syria, Turkey and Iraq and this denial should not be supported on Wikipedia by mentioning that only by Kurds and "some" regional experts it is known as Syrian Kurdistan. Further arguments and numerous additional sources for Syrian Kurdistan can be read at Discussions.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:25, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

-I've framed this RfC based on what I typically see an RfC look like. If you guys aren't ok with it then no problem, just frame it however you'd like. Thanks, Sixula^Talk 00:02, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Looks great. Hope you participate.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 00:03, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

@Attar-Aram syria: hahaha, I don't think so; I have no knowledge in this area and don't feel it would be appropriate for me to comment. But for all of you participating (especially in the discusion) remember to be civil! Thanks, Sixula^Talk 00:05, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

-I have opened two Noticeboard discussions, one at the RSN and one at the NPOVN, adverted of both discussion at the Syrian Kurdistan talk page and Attam Aram Syria didn't take part in one of them. Now he should just accept about 20 mostly academic and reliable sources (a very few are from Reuters etc. and not academic) over his personal view that there doesn't exist and hasn't existed a Syrian Kurdistan. There is no reliable source which denies an existence of Kurds in present day Syria in regions adjacent to the the others commonly accepted cultural region of Kurdistan. If there exists one, we'll be pleased to read it. Here a some sources provided by GPinkerton at the NPOV noticeboard which are about a Syrian Kurdistan.

• In the Dispersion. World Zionist Organization, Organization Department, Research Section. 1962.
• Ghassemlou, Abdul Rahman (1965). Kurdistan and the Kurds. Publishing House of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.
• 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.
• Bruinessen, Martin van (1978). Agha, Shaikh and State: On the Social and Political Organization of Kurdistan. University of Utrecht.
• Gotlieb, Yosef (1982). Self-determination in the Middle East. Praeger. ISBN 978-0-03-062408-7.
• Bruinessen, Martin Van (1992). Agha, Shaikh, and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan. London: Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-85649-018-4.
• Izady, Mehrdad R. (1992). The Kurds: A Concise Handbook. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-8448-1727-9.
• Kreyenbroek, Philip G.; Allison, Christine (1996). Kurdish Culture and Identity. London: Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-85649-329-1.
• Bulloch, John; Morris, Harvey (1992). No Friends But the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-508075-9.
• Mirawdeli, Kamal M. (1993). Kurdistan: Toward a Cultural-historical Definition. Badlisy Center for Kurdish Studies.
• Jaff, Akram (1993). Economic Development in Kurdistan. Badlisy Center for Kurdish Studies.
• Gotlieb, Yosef (1995). Development, Environment, and Global Dysfunction: Toward Sustainable Recovery. Delray Beach, FL: St Lucie Press. ISBN 978-1-57444-012-6.
• Meho, Lokman I., ed. (1997). The Kurds and Kurdistan: A Selective and Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CN and London: Greewood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-30397-5.
• Berberoglu, Berch (1999). Turmoil in the Middle East: Imperialism, War, and Political Instability. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-4412-2.

Others, which are already presented in the article are: Paradise Chronicle (talk) 00:06, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

This isnt about me. Anyway, Kurds in Syria and Kurdistan in Syria are two different things. Please provide qoutes and pages numbers for those sources so that editors can see what is actually mentioned. Please also note that non of these sources provide a historical record for the inclusion of Syrian areas within historical Kurdistan before the establishemnt of Syria--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 00:08, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

I have added several additional sources for a Syrian Kurdistan and maps of a full Kurdistan overlaying the current borders of Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran (with pagenumbers). Turkish Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iranian Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan really exist. It is not about a recognized political entity named Kurdistan, but a region where Kurds lived and live since centuries. Also see the etymology section of Kurdistan or -stan Paradise Chronicle (talk) 02:36, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

As I mentioned before PC and konli have hijacked the article, removed all context and background in a pathetic effort to hide the history of the area. Instead, they cherry-picked new stories that suit their narrative. This page will need to go back to Applodion's version (on what I have many reservations) here before all the sabotage the two of you have done to the page. As for insisting on making a big deal out of the PhD thing, it seems you don't know anything about peer-reviewed research, which is about the quality the manuscript presented, not the degree the author has. We have presented a ton of evidence above (throughout the talk page) and in the article that show this is an invention of PKK/PYD and its affiliates. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 07:34, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Withdraw my vote for vote B, as the RfC doesn't cover the whole conflict. The main conflict was the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan, which was also debated in the discussions. Western Kurdistan can be included later in discussion of the term or in an etymology section. Option C could be: Syrian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê‎), is the part of Kurdistan in Syria. Maybe there would be an Option D as well.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 14:23, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Then add option C with your prefered wording, but stop editing this contested article before you get a consensus.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 14:33, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

@Paradise Chronicle: typically people give a reason to support in the vote, not the discussion. Thanks, Sixula^Talk 00:44, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Is West Kurdistan the same as Syrian Kurdistan

The info. GPinkerton just added clearly shows that western Kurdistan is not necessarily in Syria, rather refers to the part of Kurdistan in Turkey, bordering Iran and including Diyarbakır. I quote from their edit: The late 19th-century Chambers's Encyclopaedia referred to "west Kurdistan" as bordering Iran in its entry on that country.[18] A German gymnasium text book from Sorau (modern Żary) describes Diyarbakır as being "on the upper Tigris, in West Kurdistan". Thanks @GPinkerton: for the valuable addition. That removes a lot of confusion. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 06:14, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Real Kurdistan is in northern Iran, so Western Kurdistan is in western northern Iran. Any use of "Western Kurdistan" for an area in Syria is falsification of history and reality. The info GPinkerton added further proves the so called "Western Kurdistan/Syrian Kurdistan" hoax. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 07:41, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

You need to give up this propagandistic claptrap, it's not fooling anyone. It demonstrably false. GPinkerton (talk) 09:08, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Come on GPinkerton, please read your own input and look at a map! There is no border b/w Syria and Iran, which are separated by Turkey or Iraq. Diyarbakir is not currently in Syria or even close to the border. How do you make sense of that? Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 16:28, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

My thought exactly. They are edit warring and opening complaints and they don't even know what they are adding to the article. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 16:44, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Dear Amr Ibn. JStor is for free to read, just become a member. The map is perfectly depicting the Kurdish tribes in present day Syria/formerly a part of the Ottoman Empire. Each number on the map represents a Kurdish tribe. And it was Attar Aram who wanted Western Kurdistan included in the RfC. Parts of the text can be included in the etymology section.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:33, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Inaccurate historically false terminology

GPinkerton has introduced a large amount of inaccurate and historically false terminology into the article. "and Syria was thereafter fixed, with the Syrian part of Kurdistan consisting of discontinuous" "and his brother Kamuran Alî Bedirxan and became widespread in Syrian Kurdistan," " Syrian Kurdistan appeared alongside Persian " "discontinuous areas Kurdish-inhabited areas on the Syria–Turkey border constitute Syrian Kurdistan," "All of Syrian Kurdistan, including the cities of" "The lowlands of Syrian Kurdistan is productive arable farmland"... these sentences suggests that there is a Syrian part of so called "Kurdistan" or that there actually exists a so called "Syrian Kurdistan" and that this is a real historical location. All of this false and imaginary terminology must be removed from the article. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 14:37, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, you really have to end this denial of Syrian Kurdistan for once. You can't produce a single reliable source that denies the existence of Kurds in Syria, which is what would be needed for a denial of a Syrian Kurdistan. I suggest, and not the first time, the editors who deny a Syrian Kurdistan go to check what Kurdistan means at [[Kurdistan#Etymology] and -stan#Regions There many more -stans for other people.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 17:59, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm not denying kurds in Syria. I am denying the existence of "Syrian Kurdistan" as a factual place. "Syrian Kurdistan" only exists as a thought, as an idea or as a believe by some people. Nothing more. The terminology introduced by GPinkerton straight out says that its a real place and that it existed in history. This is not acceptable. Its a complete denial of reality and documented history. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 08:02, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

It is a real place, reliable sources say so, and if you choose to continue to insist on the opposite in the face of all evidence and logic, it will only become the clearer that it is really your absurd and ahistorical claims that are confected "idea or as a believe by some people. Nothing more.". I suggest you drop your crusade to force your strange ideology on the encyclopaedia. Your beliefs have been shown to be in conflict with reality, and yet you persist in denialism. GPinkerton (talk) 08:06, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton, You added to the article "By the time of the Treaty of Lausanne after the Turkish War of Independence, no such state had been set up, and besides the changed status of French Hatay State to Turkish Hatay Province, the border between Turkey and Syria was thereafter fixed, with the Syrian part of Kurdistan consisting of discontinuous areas in the extreme north and northeast of first the State of Aleppo and then the First Syrian Republic, whose borders are largely coterminous with the modern Syrian Arab Republic, and which succeeded the short-lived State of Syria and Syrian Federation."... you are claiming that during the French Mandate there was a place in Syria with the name "Kurdistan". You can not show one single historical source of such a thing. This is straight falsification of history. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 08:19, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

What you imagine to be possible or otherwise is of decreasingly little interest to me and betrays an increasingly wide estrangement from reality on your part. It certainly has no bearing on the content of the article. GPinkerton (talk) 10:01, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Nationalism is a hell of a drug. Konli17 (talk) 10:03, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

If you can not show sources from 1920s talking about "Syrian Kurdistan", then there is no other option but to remove the historical falsifications you added from the article.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 10:22, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Open your eyes and unblind yourself before you open your mouth. Evidence is ample and in plain view, and your petulant desire to ignore it and attack others for their sightedness is really just your being upset that your transparent ploy to interlard the encyclopaedia with fringe ethno-nationalism has been discovered and will be excised root and stem. GPinkerton (talk) 11:02, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Mehrdad Izady

I see that material cited to the Kurdish nationalist professor Mehrdad Izady is being added. Now, if this will be the case, we will also use Arab natioanlists scholars here, or Izady needs to go. the user who wrote the last expansion used Izady to expalin about how the climate in Afrin is similar to that in Iranian Kurdistan! as if Idlib is different!! It meant to give the impression that we have a huge distinctive Kurdistan where Qamishli is more related to Iran than it is to Tel Abyad!. I will now give academic sources regarding Izady's style when it comes to Kurdish matter (note, he is not a bad scholar, just when it comes to Kurds, he is partisan):

• First, start with reading the book review: V. Strohmeyer. Review [M. Izadi, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, London: "Taylor&Francis", 1992], Acta Kurdica, vol. 1 (19994): 221-222. Published by RoutledgeCurzon
• Second: from the book: Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan, by Maria Theresa O'Shea, published by Taylor & Francis:

1-Page 181: "Much of the rest of Dr. Izady’s book is well written, dealing exhaustively with many hitherto unexplored aspects of the Kurds and Kurdistan. However, certain sections, such as that on ancient history are subject to seriously flawed reasoning, and the lack of citation ensures that his own conclusions are presented as factual evidence. However, its wide range of coverage and accessible tone, combined with its affordability and accessibility ensured that it rapidly became a ‘bible’ for both Kurds and Kurdophiles."

2-Page 136: "For example, Izady claims that less than 60 percent of Kurds are Sunni Moslems, and attempts to diminish the role of Islam in Kurdish culture. He also attempts to link the several heterodox sects in a way that make them simply remnants of an original Kurdish religion, a religion that he implies is more ‘natural’ for Kurds than Islam.64 It is probably only in the former Soviet republics with a large number of Kurds, such as Georgia and Armenia, that the experience of being Kurdish is inherently bound up with Yezidism.65"

3-Page 134: "Izady has developed a theory of Kurdish language classification, which is markedly different to any other.Curiously, he asserts that this classification is accepted by all educated Kurds, whereas, I have not seen or heard any other reference to Pahlawani, nor heard Kurmanji in general referred to as Badinani.53"

4-Page 132: "As described in chapter 6, more fantastic claims of Kurdish history have recently been advanced. An excellent example of this trend exists in Izady’s recent account, where a speculative account of Kurdish history from 10,000 BC onwards is given as if factual. Except in Izady’s work, narrative usually skips from Xenephon to Marco Polo to the nineteenth century European travellers,40"

5-Page 60: "Thus there is a shift away from the purely philological argument to the territorial argument whereby, as for Izady, any past inhabitant of present day Greater Kurdistan was Kurdish."

6-Page 59: "Even during the classical period, for which there are more sources, Izady continues his flawed axioms. A fundamental problem in Izady’s reasoning is that he confuses the Kurds with Kurdistan."

7-Page 59: "Although Izady’s thesis is so fundamentally flawed, the overall theme is likely to become an inherent part of the Kurdish mythology. Indeed, many articles and works now refer to Izady as an authority on Kurdish history"

8-Page 60: "Citing Izady’s work offers an alternative to charges of orientalism, lends a pseudo-academic tone to writings, and can be used to justify almost any Kurdish nationalist myths."

9-Page 58: "The culmination of attempts to establish an unbroken chain of Kurdish historical presence in Kurdistan, as well as a glorious history is reached in one of the most outstanding, as well as astonishing, attempts to create a complete Kurdish history by using a combination of remembered, recovered, invented and borrowed history,18 that of Mehrdad Izady, a Kurdish scholar from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University"

10-Page 59: "He traces the existence of Kurdish culture back more than 50,000 years, to include the Neanderthal findings in the Shanidar caves.20 His thesis is the astounding claim that, ‘I treat as Kurdish every community that has ever inhabited the territory of Kurdistan and has not acquired a separate identity to this day, or been unequivocally connected with another identifiable nation, the bulk of which is or was living outside the territories of Kurdistan. This is consistent with what is accepted by consensus for the identification of the ancient Egyptians or Greeks, and the relationship they have to modern Egyptians and Greeks.’21 Using this thesis, as well as judicious extension of the boundaries of Kurdistan, Kurds can claim credit for the Neolithic revolution;22 the invention of agriculture (prior to Mesopotamia); the domestication of animals; the invention of material technologies, such as pottery, metalwork and textiles; cuneiform writing; urban communities, until Kurdistan was overshadowed by Mesopotamia. According to Izady, although unsourced and elsewhere not mentioned, in the 3rd millennium BC the Qutils established a unified kingdom and were the only Zagros group to conquer part of Mesopotamia, namely Akkadia and Sumer, which they ruled for 170 years.23"

• Third: Turkey's Alevi Enigma. The article: A Comprehensive Overview- The Debate on the Identity of 'Alevi Kurds', by Paul J. White, published by Brill:

1- Page 22, where it is commented on Izady's attempt to claim that Dailamites are Kurds: "Quite a different view is propounded by the noted Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady , who states that the Dailamite expansion ended in Dailam. Izady, who is otherwise a scholar of considrable merit, is not able to present any proof for this astonishing assertion , or even to cite a similar view by earlier scholars . Izady's view must therefore be considered as so far unproven"

Now, I hope this is clear. I have no wish of long discussions, either delete Izady, or I bring Arab nationalists scholars here and you have to accept them like you want us to accept Izady.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 10:10, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

You are right. User:GPinkerton has crossed a line. She is inserting falsehoods into wikiepdia.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 10:19, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Nonsense. None of these claims are relevant here, and neither is this wall of text. No-one is going to let you openly push Arab nationalism, you can stop trying to claim neutral facts are Kurdish nationalist conspiracy. No-one believes this frantic pearl-clutching by the the Arab nationalists themselves. GPinkerton (talk) 10:59, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

You seem to not get whats happening here. Stop your shitty behavior, and stop giving us judgements. The only nonsense is what you are doing here. I will revert you now, and you better stick to discussing on the talk page before inserting your none sense into this contested article. Izady is a nationalist, and you will not be allowed to use it.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 11:05, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

So you disagree about the weather? The only shitty behaviour here is this collective effort to push lunatic fringe view that a whole region sprung up out of the earth as the result of long-invalidated treaty. Quit it. GPinkerton (talk) 11:07, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Listen here and calm you stubborn head. Izady is a Kurdish nationalist: DO NOT USE IT. Period. No on will use Arab nationalists, but so Kurdish nationalists will be treated. This rude behavior of yours has been tolerated and I dont know why. Who tf are you to tell people that what they write is non-sense and personally attack every user you diagree with? Stop this battleground mentality, and understand that you need to learn some manners of discussion, and actually discuss.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 11:12, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

The Arab nationalist POV has had a chokehold on this page for far too long. Konli17 (talk) 11:15, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

No, discussion with you people is clearly impossible if you refuse to accept that Syrian Kurdistan exists and is not invented for the purposes of offending your or your co-nationalists. Neither is this your personal page to scrawl delusional conspiracy theories on. GPinkerton (talk) 11:17, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

No Konli, it hasent. All what you were asked to present is evidence that these Syrian regions were subsumed under Kurdistan before the establishment of Syria, and you failed, while that GPinkerton managed finally to get us Haji Qadir Koyi's work, which is a good start. This still doesnt make you justified to overlook the opposition of this Kurdistan in Syria, who will be represented in the article, whether GPinkerton likes it or not. And GPinkerton: you will discuss whether you liked it or not. You will be forced to, and you will compromise, or you will be blocked like you already were several times.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 11:20, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

What is this "these Syrian regions were subsumed under Kurdistan before the establishment of Syria" babble got to do with anything? This is so illogical its hard to know where to begin in the refutation of its stupidity. Is this what this furious POV pushing is all about? You want to prove that because Syria is a colonial project dreamed up by the French it is a real and genuine place name, but because Kurdistan was not constructed into an artificial state without any prior history of its own by a foreign power less than a century ago "Syrian Kurdistan" is somehow less valid as a placename. What a hilariously narrow-minded approach! I expect it will be you who will be blocked, we don't maintain private spaces in this project to incubate pet theories about the how the world is trying to force the Syrians to accept the real world they live in. GPinkerton (talk) 11:30, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

How can someone be that thick! First of all: who are we? do not include yourself in any "we". Second: these regions, whether they were called Syria, or Mesopotamia, cannot be a Syrian Kurdistan unless you have evidence for it (as in they were part of Kurdistan before Syria or Turkey or whatever took them), so only provide that evidence and spare me your arguments. Third: do not use Kurdish nationalists like Izady.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 11:34, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

When I say "we", I mean the rational beings that are intended to use and improve the encyclopaedia, as opposed to those that merely lurk in groups, crafting silly and vicious conspiracy theories believable only to themselves and carefully and shamefully pushing a nationalist POV, such as may be found littering this very conversation …. There is evidence of this being a Syrian Kurdistan. You have not provided a shred of evidence to back your laughable claims and numerous failures of logic, and finding none, you will fail to do so. GPinkerton (talk) 11:48, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

You are delusional if you consider yourself part of that "we". I have provided enough evidence in the rfc that this region is disputed, which is the core of these long discussions, and you better provide such evidence too, and not count on logic, which you dont possess.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 11:50, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

You have provided nothing but your contorted claims and factual errors. You have nothing further to say here. GPinkerton (talk) 11:53, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

No, I have nothing further because I dont see anyone in this conversation aside from me and Konli with enough brain capacity to see what is going on. Now, refrain from using partisan sources, and behave yourself and learn some manners. You will be treated with respect once you show some.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 11:54, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I have no need of what you imagine to be respect from yourself. You do, however, need to respect Wikipedia rules, and you and your pals have been so flagrantly breaching them in a systematic way it's amazing you can't hear the hypocrisy drip. GPinkerton (talk) 12:02, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I know you dont have such need. After all, it depends on your manners and the way you were raised. As I said, stick to reliable, neutral, sources. Do not force yourself on people, or their arguments, and speaking of wiki rules, start reading this Wikipedia:Civility--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:04, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Taking your uncalled for and hypocritical advice, I have removed the some of the more gross NPOV violations you have been cultivating here. GPinkerton (talk) 12:14, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I dont wait for you to ask. This is what Wikipedia is, and you will be forced to respect it. P.S., I didnt insert what you deleted.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:15, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh OK, you just happen to be arguing along the same lines as the text supposedly claims. I guess its just myth that's become common among some. Still, doesn't make you any less exempt from WP:RS and so far your claims have gone wholly uncited and quite without foundation in logic. Next you'll be telling me there's no such thing as Ulster. GPinkerton (talk) 12:24, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I havent add anything to this article, and I always stick to RS. Every claim I made was cited, and its not my problem that you are so blind to the point of considring anything you dont like: non-sense. Plz stop this discussion, I feel like Im talking to a wall. I tell you this region is contested, and I provide actual academic sources (in the rfc) with quotes and pages numbers, and you claim I didnt do that. Ulster has been mentioned for hundreds of years. These regions as part of Kurdistan, on the other had, havent. (Yea yea I saw your sources, and none prove that the designation Kurdistan applied to these regions before the establishment of Syria, aside from that Kurdish poet you finally found)--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:27, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Note: I will not reply further to this. The point I made is clear: Izady isnt to be used. Cheers.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:36, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Wrong again, and if you'd actually look at the source, instead of repeating the same old lies, you'd see that it nowhere supports your claims, and is in any case refuted by the existence of other sources the very existence of which demonstrates the ill-advisability of maintaining this outrageous and flagrant failure of logic. If a source claims a phrase is new, and that phrase is not new, and sources can be adduced to prove the source wrong, then it is futile to keep claiming that the erroneous source is somehow still free of error. Next you be saying the Syrian Arab Republic is contested fiction and a conspiracy by foreign powers, since no Republican Syrian Arabs could be found in Republican Syrian Arabia when the area was still Syrian Kurdistan. GPinkerton (talk) 13:05, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Fully protected

Due to the issues at theis page I have fully protected it for a month. Hopefully this will prompt discussion rather than edit-warring. Black Kite (talk) 12:33, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Big thanks.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:34, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Demographics 2

The 'Demographic background' section of this article ought not depart so much from the 'Demographics' section of Kurds in Syria. That it does seems to be the work of one editor, who has failed over the years to have their particular interpretation, complete with cherrypicked references, accepted at Talk:Kurds in Syria, and has since shoehorned it into articles that see less traffic e.g. Al-Hasakah_Governorate#Demographics and Arab_Belt#Background. And now they've got it in here. For me, this is the most glaring example of the problems with this article; an entire section devoted to pushing the Assadist/Neo-Ottomanist propaganda line that Kurds are not native to Syria and do not belong there. Konli17 (talk) 14:38, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

What text is not following the source?--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 14:59, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

It's difficult to assume good faith with such an egregious misreading of the points I made.Konli17 (talk) 15:41, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Konli, which one of the references is from "Assadist/Neo-Ottomanism| propaganda"? I'd like to see specific examples. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 17:57, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

And again, it's difficult to assume good faith with such an egregious misreading of the points I made. Konli17 (talk) 19:47, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Konli17 It can be hard to assume good faith in certain situations; I would urge you to continue trying. Many of the threads above are impossible to wade through, containing little but snide comments about other editors, shading into blatant personal attacks. I'm willing to try to help move this conversation on into something more productive, but that will only be possible if we keep the discussion focussed on the content, and away from observations about who added it or what their motivations were.

I am entirely neutral on this matter, and know very little indeed about the subject matter. I will be happy to help mediate this discussion, if I can, but that will only work if people are prepared to say things like 'This sentence is problematic because Source X is unreliable', or whatever. If you think there is a problem with the Demographic background section, please spell out what it is very clearly - what are the problems with the content, what are the problems with the sourcing. I don't mean who they were added by or what their interpretation of them was - just keep it focussed on the content. You will need to speak to me like I am an idiot, assume no prior knowledge on my part. Explain the problem. GirthSummit _(blether) 16:25, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

OK, thanks for giving this a shot. There's no problem with most of the sources, the problem is the overall interpretation given to them, and the manner in which some are highlighted and others downplayed, which I contend has little to do with their perceived reliability. Exaggerating the Kurdish north-south migration of the 1920s (estimated to have added 10% to the Kurdish population of al-Jazira Province by one source, much less than has sometimes been implied) is a familiar trope, used by the Syrian regime to justify the Arab Belt land seizures from Syrian Kurds and denial of citizenship to them, and by the Turkish regime to justify its current ethnic cleansing. The major Syrian Kurdish areas to the west are ignored. Kurdish migration to Jazira, small as it was, is presented as Kurdification; Christian migration is presented as neutral. There's an interesting story to tell about how, why, and when these parts of Syria came to be settled by Kurdish people, and how the last major migration in the early 20th century still informs citizenship laws and attitudes today, but giving the impression that the majority of Syrian Kurds are descended from recent migrants ignores the many references available at Kurds_in_Syria#Demographics that say otherwise. 80% of Syrian Kurds live in Syrian Kurdistan, and I've long argued that any demographics section in this article ought to follow the one at the Kurds in Syria article closely. Konli17 (talk) 16:53, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Konli17, I agree in general terms that we ought not to have two articles which have conflicting information in them, but at present I don't know which of the two articles does it better. Would it possible for you to break this down into particular paragraphs, sentences or assertions in the article as it currently stands that you have problems with, so we can discuss specifics? GirthSummit _(blether) 17:06, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I can, but for you to get the thrust of my argument I'd like you first to scan the relevant sections in both articles. Some of the information here is at Kurds_in_Syria#Demographics, but there it isn't WP:UNDUE; it takes up as much room as its relevance dictates. But the opposite isn't the case, most of the information there is missing here. On this article, the section is longer and at the same time more concentrated, both geographically (just the east of Syrian Kurdistan) and in time (covering mostly the 1920s and 1930s, with the occasional foray as far as the 1950s), ignoring the rest of Syrian Kurdistan and the rest of the history. Konli17 (talk) 17:26, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I've scanned them (no more than that), but without knowing the specifics of what I'm looking for I'm pretty much in the dark. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:42, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

OK, well that's the most important point regarding this section; it has a geographical and chronological focus that's inexplicable when assuming good faith, and only becomes more difficult to explain given its length relative to the corresponding section at Kurds in Syria. Other problems include:

• Giving undue weight to some sources that are contradicted by others e.g "Until the beginning of the 20th century, parts of al-Hasakah Governorate (then called Jazira province) were "no man's land" primarily reserved for the grazing land of nomadic and semi-sedentary tribes.", "The number of Kurds settled in the Jazira province during the 1920s was estimated at 20,000[61] to 25,000 people,[62] out of 100,000 inhabitants", "Consequently, the border areas in al-Hasakah Governorate started to have a Kurdish majority".
• Pointy language e.g. "French mandate authorities gave the new Kurdish refugees considerable rights", "French Mandate authorities encouraged their immigration" and "French official reports show the existence of at most 45 Kurdish villages".
• Original research e.g. "the population of northeastern Syria has seen several unnatural, big jumps (as shown in the table) fueled by the arrival of Kurds from Turkey".
• Biased language in Wikipedia's voice e.g. "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" to describe the Arab Belt.

Konli17 (talk) 21:00, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Girth Summit, are you happy with this summary? Konli17 (talk) 01:33, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Konli17, sorry - I got side tracked with some other threads in this discussion, which seems to be growing arms and legs rapidly. I'll try and get this read shortly. GirthSummit _(blether) 06:30, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Konli17 Hi - OK, I've taken a look at this.

• On the first point (undue weight) - can you expand on what (and why) you think is undue weight?
• On the second point, I see what you're getting at, but I'm not sure that I agree with all your bolding. 'Considerable' is a value judgement, and ought to be attributed since this is contentious. 'Encouraged' seems less problematic - either they encouraged it, or they didn't, what does the source say? 'At most' I agree is problematic - it is WP:EDITORIALISING in an attempt to downplay the size of the number. It ought to give a number, or a range, neutrally.
• On the third point, I agree with you quite strongly - 'unnatural' seems like a very strange word to use in Wikipedia's voice in this context. Can you give a sense of what the source says, and whether there is a better way to word this (or do you think it should be removed entirely)?
• On the fourth point, I agree that it's poorly worded, but I'm not sure whether it's biased or just bad writing. Can you expand on your concerns?

Thanks for your patience. GirthSummit _(blether) 19:47, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

The undue weight wasn't the first point, although it was the first bulleted. The first point, whose importance for me outweighs the rest, is dealt with in the paragraph preceding the bulleted points; the (since we're assuming good faith) inexplicable spatial and temporal focus of the section. For me, this problem dwarfs the others. Konli17 (talk) 20:10, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

That is a very good point if i understand you correctly Konli17, going down the path of who lived where and when should not be accepted in this article. Maybe if things settle down it would be a good idea to figure out how to do that? fiveby(zero) 23:19, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@Fiveby: I think what Konli is saying is that at present this article is focused on just the former al-Jazira province and tries very hard to demonstrate that because that province was thinly populated and largely nomadic when records began there can only have been Arabs living there, which is a claim put about by the Arab Nationalist Ba'ath Party regime from the 1960s in order to delegitimize the entire Kurdish population of Syria as foreign interlopers. Konli suggests that the other territories of Syrian Kurdistan need at least the same or greater prominence to those of the Jazira region. (i.e., the "island" on the left bank of the Euphrates and the right bank of the Tigris, especially as we know that there has been larger, long-standing and more populous permanent Kurdish settlements in the areas of Kobane and Jarabulus, not to mention the "Kurd Mountains" enclave.

Yes, that's a fair summary, but the temporal focus is also important. Konli17 (talk) 15:12, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: This is the source for the number of villages "at most 45" and the word "encouragement". Jordi Tejel, an author pro-Kurdish editors like to cite often. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 20:48, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

• Or a source one could describe as "often deliberately ignored and deliberately misconstrued by anti-Kurdish editors". For example, the example that torpedoes the whole denialist position that Kurds were post Mandate immgrants in Syria: "The left bank of the Euphrates around Kobane and some strips of land on the right bank had been settled by the Kurds at the beginning of the seventeenth century, following forced migrations as a result of the Sultans’ decisions. Kurdish population of Jazira increased with the arrival of Kurdish refugees from Turkey and Iraq during the 1920s–1930s. Before 1927, there were only 47 Kurdish villages in this region, whereas by 1939, the number of villages with Kurdish majority reached 700–800." Tejel, Jordi (2020), Cimino, Matthieu (ed.), "The Complex and Dynamic Relationship of Syria's Kurds with Syrian Borders: Continuities and Changes", Syria: Borders, Boundaries, and the State, Mobility & Politics, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 243–267, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-44877-6_11, ISBN 978-3-030-44877-6 Further (unsourced and prima facie wrong) denial of these facts and of the existence of a Kurdish population in Syrian Kurdistan should be met with immediate administrative sanction. So too should any editor that continues to claim, against all evidence, that the areas of Syrian Kurdistan were not largely Kurdish at the time of the imposition of the Syria–Turkey border, since this too is utterly refuted by the statement of Tejel (among many others') that Kurdish populations placed under the French Mandate occupied three narrow zones isolated from each other along the Turkish frontier: the Upper Jazira, Jarabulus, and Kurd Dagh. These three Kurdish enclaves constituted nevertheless a natural extension of Kurdish territory into Turkey and Iraq. In other words, Syrian Kurdistan was from the outset demographically similar to the Kurdish territory in Turkey and Iraq, a fact long denied on this talkpage. This denial must not be allowed to continue further. GPinkerton (talk) 21:39, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Misc.

• Girth Summit, The main problem with the article right now was introduced by user GPinkerton here:[1], and the article right now is locked in the wrong version for a month (forced edit warring wins apparently), a version which has no consensus and they edit warred it into the article. So it first needs to be restored back to the previous version, before GPinkertons massive undiscussed pov changes. Then GPinkerton and others should use the talkpage with you as a moderator to ad more info to the article after consensus has been established. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 17:35, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

  Supreme Deliciousness, I have no intention of editing material I don't know anything about through full protection without a clear consensus that I do so, which will have to be arrived at by discussion. You have not explained what is wrong with this content, or why it should be reverted. You might want to start a different thread on that - this one is about the Demographic background section, it would be good to keep it focussed on that. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:46, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to my world GirthSummit, and thanks for taking on these empty complaints and personal attacks from Konli17. This user complains about the difference s between this article and Kurds in Syria article. Well that difference is in the scope. One talks about a specific part in northeastern Syria (this one) while the other one talks about Kurds that have lived in Damascus, Hama or Aleppo, sometimes for centuries. I would like to hear about the specific pieces of information they disagree with from an accuracy/reliability standpoint. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 20:07, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

عمرو بن كلثوم, I've asked that people stop commenting on each other, and start talking about content. Nothing in your post does that - it's entirely about another editor, with nothing about content. This process will not work unless we focus it propeprly. GirthSummit _(blether) 21:11, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi Girth Summit, thank you that you entering the discussion. What Supreme Deliciousness (SD) refers to is a good example of the conflict. SD removed 9000+ bytes for terminology, explaining at the talk page that it referred to Syrian Kurdistan, the name of the article. SD removed 9000+ sourced bytes for the words Syrian Kurdistan. We brought numerous academic sources for the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan. Just check the lead where Syrian Kurdistan is sourced with an WP:OVERKILL of more than 10 sources, which aren't even all I and GPinkerton have brought into the article and also the discussion. I the suggested SD looks up -stan#region where there are numerous -stans, like Kurdistan, Kabulistan, Turkistan, Uyghuristan, Tabaristan etc. All these -stans exist in the academic literature, but not one of these -stans has as many sources as Syrian Kurdistan. A Kurdistan (be it Syrian Kurdistan, Turkish Kurdistan, Iranian Kurdistan, or Iraqi Kurdistan is the common name in academic literature and sources for an area were the Kurds live in each of the countries Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. SD literally denies the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan in this discussion in opposition to 10+ academic sources. Amr Ibn once only removed the academic sources, which were sourcing a Syrian Kurdistan. This edit might clarify Girth Summit a bit the discussion. There is a party which wants to edit according to the academic sources, and an other one which doesn't want the academic sources. WP:OR. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:23, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Academic sources? Like http://sahipkiran.org/ https://thekurdishproject.org/kurdistan-map/syrian-kurdistan/ and https://en.zamanalwsl.net/ ? Also, you can find academic sources using the term "Land of Israel" (between the Nile and the Euphrates), this doesn't mean we can say that "Palmyra is a city in the Land of Israel" --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 21:45, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

This is typical. None of the sources SD brought forward are presently sourcing a Syrian Kurdistan. Having been confronted with a variety of reliable sources, SD just keeps on denying. I/We use Jordi Tejel, Michael Gunter, and Basil Nikitin, all well known and often cited authorities on the Kurds or the Encyclopedia Britannica and other scholars to source a Syrian Kurdistan.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 11:01, 23 November 2020 (UTC)22:16, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

@Supreme Deliciousness: I challenge you to provide a single academic source that meets WP:RS and states without qualification that Genesis 15 is literally true. I'll wait. GPinkerton (talk) 03:41, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

What we are debating here is the same as the RfC opened above by @Sixula:, and have developed three options to choose from/comment on. That is who uses the term Syrian Kurdistan. Here are some books that talk about Kurdistan but do not refer to a "Syrian Kurdistan":

• David McDowall, 1997. A Modern History of the Kurds
• Denise Natali, 2005. The Kurds and the State: Evolving National Identity in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran.
• Edgar O'Ballance, 2004. The Kurdish Struggle

Obviously, user Pinkerton found some references to "Syrian Kurdistan" in other books. If you look at the authors/publisher (Zionist agency, Izady, etc.) you'd wonder about the credibility of those authors. May be it's OK to use those and say some authors/people refer to some areas by this name, but it's not OK to say this is a fact that is not disputed. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 05:54, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

"Some other books" not only including Oxford University Press books, State University of New York Press books, edited volumes in Springer, all without exception using the term "Syrian Kurdistan" extensively. It is not disputed that the concept of Syrian Kurdistan exists and refers to a real place. Whether or not you imagine this constitutes a "fact" or "truth" in your view is really immaterial. The fact is that Syrian Kurdistan is verifiable and notable subject of encyclopaedic treatment, and is moreover the common English language name of the place referred to by that name. The RfC is malformed and does not contain the most straightforward and normal practice, which would be to use the words the way reliable sources and media do, and the way Wikipedia articles normal do, which is to define the meaning in the lead and continue using it thereafter. The idea that we should not use a term or put it in scare quotes because some authors writing tangentially potentially relevant books more than a decade ago chanced not to use the term is not ustainable. Maybe they had good reason for doing so. Maybe they thought it was wrong to characterize that part of Kurdistan as Syrian, who cares, the argument here is a specious argumentum ex silentio, which is nearly the oldest logical fallacy (not) in the book. As for Izady, the source is a an OUP-published volume which was used for a statement about the climate! Surely one can't be so obstinate as to argue against the weather. GPinkerton (talk) 06:37, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Here is an excerpt from Jordi Tejel (Tejel J. (2020) The Complex and Dynamic Relationship of Syria’s Kurds with Syrian Borders: Continuities and Changes. In: Cimino M. (eds) Syria: Borders, Boundaries, and the State. Mobility & Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.) that you and other pri-Kurdish editors love to cite here: Nevertheless, Kurdish political parties have never set out to challenge Syrian national borders. In the 1920s, Kurdish activists turned their eyes toward Turkish Kurdistan, their region of origin. As a result, Kurdish intellectuals did not even attempt to represent the boundaries of the Kurdish regions in Syria in the textbooks printed during the French Mandate. Between the 1970s and 1990s, Syrian Kurds took part in a proxy Kurdish struggle as guerrilla fighters or simply by supporting the PKK, KDP or PUK in Turkey and Iraq, respectively. Turkish and Iraqi Kurdish parties, on their side, helped make Kurdish enclaves in Syria even more marginal within the Kurdish nationalist discourse. One more: As a consequence, with the complicity of the Kurdish ‘clients’ (KDP, PUK and PKK), the Syrian regime steered Kurdish activists toward the ‘true Kurdistans,’ that is, Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq. Furthermore, Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the PKK, even declared that there was no ‘Kurdish problem’ in Syria; he denied the legitimacy of a Syrian Kurdish movement or dismissed it as a small-scale movement that distracted from the ‘real struggle’ for (Turkish) Kurdistan (McDowall 1998: 69–70). Although this type of statement can be easily understood in light of the pressure from the Syrian ‘boss,’ it nevertheless created discomfort in Syria resulting in the alienation of some PKK sympathizers after Öcalan’s speech. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 06:47, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

The words "Syrian Kurdistan" appear countless times throughout the book, in each case without scare quotes. All the quoted extracts prove is that the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq are 1.) much more numerous and thereby necessarily less important in any project to unify Kurdistan - marginal within the Kurdish nationalist discourse (NB not "non-existent"), and 2.) at the time less involved in active attempt to resist genocide in their respective countries (i.e. less persecuted in Syria than in Saddam's Iraq, the dictators' Turkey). This is clutching at straws. GPinkerton (talk) 06:56, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

I'll zoom in for you: *"Kurdish activists turned their eyes toward Turkish Kurdistan, their region of origin"

• "Kurdish enclaves in Syria"
• "true Kurdistans, that is, Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq.

Kurdish-region, Kurdish-inhabited, Kurdish enclave, etc. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 07:58, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Also pay special attention to: "Kurdish activists turned their eyes toward Turkish Kurdistan, their region of origin". Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 08:02, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that proves your nonsense theory about how all Kurds in Syrian are immigrants? This is sheer incompetence. In English, the words "Kurdish enclaves in Syria" means "discontinuous territories that are Kurdish". This is precisely the meaning of the phrase "Syrian Kurdistan" that the author, and the other authors in the volume, all use to refer to the same three enclaves of Kurdish regions that were separated from the rest of Kurdistan by the imposition of borders after the First World War. You appear to be arguing that a discussion of the motivations and activities of activist refugees from Turkish Kurdistan in the late 20th century in an academic text is somehow stating as fact your odd faith that all Syrian Kurds are immigrants from Turkey. Kobane has been populated by Kurds settled in the Euphrates valley in the 18th century. The fact that the authors refer to Syrian Kurdistan as "Kurdish enclaves" that are both "Kurdish-inhabited" and constitute a "Kurdish-region" in the authors' reliable and academic peer-reviewed opinion. Syrian Kurdistan is tiny and it is no surprise to anyone that the swathes of Kurdish country outwith modern Syria were of greater import to the Kurdish nationalist cause. To suggest this means that no part of Syria has ever been considered in any way part of a Kurdistan is frankly severe misunderstanding, at best. GPinkerton (talk) 08:33, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Amr Ibn, could you please answer on topic? You should be able to read and see that we are not using the sources you claim we use but we use the sources that specifically mention a Syrian Kurdistan or depict a map which includes a Syrian Part adjacent to a Turkish Kurdistan and/or a Iraqi Kurdistan to source a Syrian Kurdistan. Then Kurd Dagh, (adjacent to Turkish Kurdistan) which is within present day Syria is an area where Kurds live since centuries. Not a single denier of a Syrian Kurdistan has answered to [[-stan#Regions] yet. They just kept on denying. I raise the argument again, Syrian Kurdistan refers to a region were Kurds live in. It is not an officially recognized country, but it is the name of a geo-cultural region where Kurds live in, and in which yes, a movement for independence or autonomy was active for a while and which can be confirmed in numerous academic sources. The very most sources who refer to a larger Kurdistan which has parts in. Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Some might focus on one part and leave an other one out, but if they really focus on the whole Kurdistan, thy usually have also a part of Syria included. You can either call it Kurdistan in Syria or Syrian Kurdistan, but since the sources usually use Syrian Kurdistan, we use it on Wikipedia as well as per WP:COMMONNAME. I will not list all the sources again and again and again, you or an admin need to read and watch them.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 11:38, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Paradise, I quote your statement above "I/We use Jordi Tejel, Michael Gunter, and Basil Nikitin, all well known and often cited authorities on the Kurds". 11:01, 23 November 2020

I provided excerpts from a Jordi Tejel chapter published in 2020. Your claim Kurd Dagh is adjacent to Turkish Kurdistan is a bluntly false or ignorant. Look at a map. Here is the CIA map. Kurds live in Germany, so there will be a German Kurdistan? Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 20:09, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

No part of Kurdistan is in Germany so, no, that is not happening. However, the part of Kurdistan that is in Syria is called Syrian Kurdistan, the subject of this article. Your attempt at distorting and misrepresenting the source is transparently tendentious, so you are still left without a single reliable source that backs your particular perspective. GPinkerton (talk) 20:14, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Tejel, Jordi (2020), Cimino, Matthieu (ed.), "The Complex and Dynamic Relationship of Syria's Kurds with Syrian Borders: Continuities and Changes", Syria: Borders, Boundaries, and the State, Mobility & Politics, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 243–267, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-44877-6_11, ISBN 978-3-030-44877-6, retrieved 2020-11-21, Kurdish populations placed under the French Mandate occupied three narrow zones isolated from each other along the Turkish frontier: the Upper Jazira, Jarabulus, and Kurd Dagh. These three Kurdish enclaves constituted nevertheless a natural extension of Kurdish territory into Turkey and Iraq. The majority of Syrian Kurds spoke Kurmanji and were Sunni Muslims, ... GPinkerton (talk) 20:23, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Amr Ibn, that the Kurd Dagh is in a region adjacent to Turkish Kurdistan is what the sources say. Did the Kurds grow out of nowhere in the Kurd Dagh? Check the article about the Kurdish Emirate of Kilis which is an article about an emirate which span over some parts of present day North-west Syria where the Kurd Dagh is located. Has User:Girth Summit any questions he'd like to have clarified so far? We can continue to bring on 20s of sources more which source a Syrian Kurdistan.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:14, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Historical falsehoods (Mediation with admin Girth Summit)

Girth Summit, in this edit: [2] GPinkerton added:

• "By the time of the Treaty of Lausanne after the Turkish War of Independence, no such state had been set up, and besides the changed status of French Hatay State to Turkish Hatay Province, the border between Turkey and Syria was thereafter fixed, with the Syrian part of Kurdistan consisting of discontinuous areas in the extreme north and northeast of first the State of Aleppo and then the First Syrian Republic, whose borders are largely coterminous with the modern Syrian Arab Republic, and which succeeded the short-lived State of Syria and Syrian Federation."

• "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 widespread in Syrian Kurdistan, as it did in Turkish Kurdistan."

• "By the 1960s, after the eventual settlement of the borders of the successor states after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Kurdistan was frequently divided into four regions corresponding to the Kurdish-majority areas of four adjacent modern states: Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. Syrian Kurdistan appeared alongside Persian (or Iranian), Iraqi, and Turkish Kurdistan as one of the principal regional divisions of Kurdish-inhabited territory in the Middle East."

These texts straight out claims that during the French mandate of Syria there was a "Syrian part of Kurdistan" or a "Kurdistan" in Syria. Please take a look at these sources of the French mandate of Syria and Ottoman Syria: [3] p14 and p20: [4]. You can clearly see that in the 1920s and Ottoman Syria, there was no "Syrian Kurdistan" or "Kurdistan". It was the French Mandate of Syria and more precisely, State of Aleppo, or State of Deir-ez Zor, or Vilayets of Aleppo/Deir ez Zor in Ottoman Syria. No mention of a "Syrian Kurdistan" or "Kurdistan". If we go even further back: 1916 map "Map of Eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria and Western Persia" - No mention of a "Kurdistan". Here is a Cedid Atlas map from 1803 showing "Kurdistan" in blue and clearly no part of it is in Syria:[5]. This is all historical documentation, not some cherry picked authors or journalists own personal pov. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 06:11, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

So, from a complete outsider's perspective, what you appear to be doing here Supreme Deliciousness is saying that this content cannot stand because the entity it's talking about doesn't appear in the sources you cite. That doesn't seem reasonable to me however - one particular source's failure to mention a subject does not prove that the subject does not exist. Syrian Kurdistan does seem to be discussed in detail in the sources that GP cited when he added that content - including, for example, the book 'Turmoil in the Middle East', published by a reputable academic publisher, and written by someone who appears to be a reputable academic working in a relevant field. We can't simply dismiss this content and sourcing because other sources don't say the same things - we can discuss how other sources differ, or how the content should be worded, but you can't just say 'it might be in source X, but it's not in source Y, so we can't include it.' Have you read GP's sources? Do you feel that they are mischaracterising them? GirthSummit _(blether) 07:02, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Girth Summit you are right that "one particular source's failure to mention a subject does not prove that the subject does not exist.", the problem here is that there are NO historical evidence that a "Syrian Kurdistan" exists, or a "Kurdistan" in Syria. Nothing! ZERO! 0%. Its all cherry-picked modern authors, zero historical documentation, while I have shown historical evidence on that very same land area that clearly does not show any "kurdistan" entity. Why should we disregard all real historical proof? And the first point in my TS that GPinkerton added has no source whatsoever. If it is true that "Syrian Kurdistan" existed in the French Mandate of Syria, why doesn't GPinkerton provide a source for it? Also please read this quote posted above: [6] "In the 1920s, Kurdish activists turned their eyes toward Turkish Kurdistan, their region of origin." "As a consequence, with the complicity of the Kurdish ‘clients’ (KDP, PUK and PKK), the Syrian regime steered Kurdish activists toward the ‘true Kurdistans,’ that is, Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq." --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 07:38, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, we can't get into OR analysis of modern sources. If serious modern scholarship talks about something, it can be challenged by other serious modern scholarship, but not by arguments based on historical documents and old maps. Otherwise you will need to show which sections are not supported by the existing sources. GirthSummit _(blether) 08:17, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Girth Summit, I brought 3 points in my TS. The first one has no source at all. The third one doesn't have any source supporting the claim "after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Kurdistan was frequently divided into four regions" --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 09:17, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, OK, understood - this is something we can talk about. GPinkerton - the content above has been challenged. By the time of the Treaty of Lausanne... ...short-lived State of Syria and Syrian Federation. This is currently uncited, can you confirm which source supports it? Also after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Kurdistan was frequently divided into four regions - which source supports this please? Thanks GirthSummit _(blether) 18:49, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: O'Shea, Maria T. (2004). Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan. New York and London: Routledge. pp. 10–11, 52. ISBN 978-0-415-94766-4. Perhaps more interesting is the recurring theme that an independent state of Kurdistan, as well as Armenia, was justified in international law by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, which allowed for the formation of such a state. It was widely believed that only the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne prevented this coming to pass. However, it can be seen from the relevant articles of the Treaty of Sevres and the accompanying map that the area designated as Kurdistan in no way corresponds to any conceptualization of Kurdistan, and appears to be simply a postscript to independent Armenia. (Fig. 10.9)" and "Unification in the 1920s was as unlikely as it is in the 1990s. Many of the reasons for the failure to create a Kurdish state then still exist now. The scattering of the Kurds among at least four different states ..." (pp. 10-11) and (p. 52) "Communications across the international boundaries dividing Kurdistan are practically non-existent for reasons of topography as well as state security; the boundaries run for the most part through inhospitable mountain chains. However, even within the portion of Kurdistan in one state, travel from one place to another may involve a circuitous route, for reasons not entirely topographical. For strategic reasons the provincial capitals throughout Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria are linked to the capital rather than each other. and see the usages, for example, of:

• Ghassemlou, Abdul Rahman (1965). Kurdistan and the Kurds. Publishing House of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. p. 21. (i.e. the present-day Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan)
• In the Dispersion. Jersualem: World Zionist Organization, Organization Department, Research Section. 1962. p. 147. This book tells the tale of the Kurdish Jews who lived in the one hundred and ninety towns in what is now Iraqi, Persian, Turkish and Syrian Kurdistan
• Gotlieb, Yosef (1995). Development, Environment, and Global Dysfunction: Toward Sustainable Recovery. Delray Beach, FL: St Lucie Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-1-57444-012-6. The situation in Turkish Kurdistan is consistent with that of Iranian, Iraqi, and Syrian Kurdistan.
• 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. ... these three regions - Kurd-Dagh, Ain-Arab, and Northern Jezireh...
• Mirawdeli, Kamal M. (1993). Kurdistan: Toward a Cultural-historical Definition. Badlisy Center for Kurdish Studies. p. 4. Turkish Kurdistan, an Iraqi Kurdistan, an Iranian Kurdistan, and a Syrian Kurdistan
• Gotlieb, Yosef (1982). Self-determination in the Middle East. Praeger. ISBN 978-0-03-062408-7. While the Kurds in Turkish, Soviet, Syrian, and Persian Kurdistan were held in place with and iron fist, the Iraqi Kurds fought virtually alone throughout the 1960s.
• 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.

It's great you highlighted the -I shall refer to these parts as Turkish, Persian, Iraqi, and Syrian Kurdistan.- part, clearly indicating a personal opinion (NOT an established fact) from a scholar working at the Center for Kurdish Studies (sounds very neutral). Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 05:15, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Interesting. What happened in the past 22 hours to change your mind? The professor was reliable source when you were citing him ... [7]. Perhaps you can try to explain yourself? GPinkerton (talk) 05:43, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

All of these sources are already in the article anyway, and have been consistently ignored repeatedly when adduced in discussions. The sources either side of the statement say very much the same thing as well. Syrian Kurdistan is also mentioned on page 48 of the first work cited, O'Shea, 2004. The claim there are NO historical evidence that a "Syrian Kurdistan" exists, or a "Kurdistan" in Syria. Nothing! ZERO! 0%. Its all cherry-picked modern authors, zero historical documentation ... is just outrageously and demonstrably untrue, as is the claim that the idea of a syrian Kurdistan is new and is the baby of PYD. As you can see, several of these sources were published long before the PYD was formed. GPinkerton (talk) 20:03, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you GPinkerton for providing these references. Supreme Deliciousness it seems like there are sources to support these assertions. Does that assuage your concerns about them? I will be happy to edit through to protection to add these sources to each of the assertions if everyone involved in this discussion is happy for me to do so. That is not to say that I am personally endorsing the content and sourcing - I haven't read the sources themselves, and am just taking this on trust from GP - but at least SD's concern that they are unsourced would be addressed; we'd then know what source supports each assertion, and would be in a better position to proceed to discussing the reliability of the sources for the content. Best GirthSummit _(blether) 20:19, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Girth Summit, The first source by O'Shea, Maria does not mention a "Syrian part of Kurdistan" or "Syrian Kurdistan" existing in 1920s, and it doesn't mention the French Mandate of Syria, Hatay State or the State of Aleppo. By phrasing it as it is in the article GPinkerton is giving unsupported legitimacy to a "Syrian part of Kurdistan" by mentioning these real historical geographical states together with a made up "Syrian part of Kurdistan". Later the O'Shea, Maria source says: "Unification in the 1920s was as unlikely as it is in the 1990s. Many of the reasons for the failure to create a Kurdish state then still exist now. The scattering of the Kurds among at least four different states ..." (pp. 10-11) and (p. 52) "Communications across the international boundaries dividing Kurdistan are practically non-existent for reasons of topography as well as state security; the boundaries run for the most part through inhospitable mountain chains. However, even within the portion of Kurdistan in one state, travel from one place to another may involve a circuitous route, for reasons not entirely topographical. For strategic reasons the provincial capitals throughout Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria are linked to the capital rather than each other." - She is now talking in the modern era. The "In the Dispersion" source says "in what is now Iraqi, Persian, Turkish and Syrian Kurdistan" - meaning it is not a historical name. The "Bruinessen, Martin van" source says: "I shall refer to these parts as Turkish, Persian, Iraqi, and Syrian Kurdistan." - this confirms that its just an opinion by the author, the author himself basically confirms that this is not real names.

What GPinkerton has done throughout this entire article is to cherry pick sources that use kurdish nationalist names and narrative and she tries to disregard other sources. And in some cases she is not even following her sources in regards to history as seen above. Lets look at other sources: Jordi Tejel (Tejel J. (2020) The Complex and Dynamic Relationship of Syria’s Kurds with Syrian Borders: Continuities and Changes. In: Cimino M. (eds) Syria: Borders, Boundaries, and the State. Mobility & Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.): "Nevertheless, Kurdish political parties have never set out to challenge Syrian national borders. In the 1920s, Kurdish activists turned their eyes toward Turkish Kurdistan, their region of origin. As a result, Kurdish intellectuals did not even attempt to represent the boundaries of the Kurdish regions in Syria in the textbooks printed during the French Mandate. Between the 1970s and 1990s, Syrian Kurds took part in a proxy Kurdish struggle as guerrilla fighters or simply by supporting the PKK, KDP or PUK in Turkey and Iraq, respectively. Turkish and Iraqi Kurdish parties, on their side, helped make Kurdish enclaves in Syria even more marginal within the Kurdish nationalist discourse." "As a consequence, with the complicity of the Kurdish ‘clients’ (KDP, PUK and PKK), the Syrian regime steered Kurdish activists toward the ‘true Kurdistans,’ that is, Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq. Furthermore, Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the PKK, even declared that there was no ‘Kurdish problem’ in Syria; he denied the legitimacy of a Syrian Kurdish movement or dismissed it as a small-scale movement that distracted from the ‘real struggle’ for (Turkish) Kurdistan (McDowall 1998: 69–70). Although this type of statement can be easily understood in light of the pressure from the Syrian ‘boss,’ it nevertheless created discomfort in Syria resulting in the alienation of some PKK sympathizers after Öcalan’s speech." - This author confirms that kurdish-inhabited regions in Syria are not a real "Kurdistan".

Other sources: Chambers's Encyclopædia. VI: Humber to Malta (New ed.). London and Edinburgh: William & Robert Chambers. 1890. p. 197 says "West Kurdistan" is bordering Iran - i.e. not in Syria as both Iraq and Turkey are between. Programm des Gymnasiums zu Sorau: 1875/76 . 1876. describes Diyarbakır as being "on the upper Tigris, in West Kurdistan" - i.e in Turkey, not Syria.

More sources: The Issue of the Kurds in Syria: Facts, History and Myth. Hamza Mustapha JSTOR "the history of the Kurds in Syria, beginning with the first major Kurdish immigration taking place between 1925 and 1939. It explains how the “Syrian” Kurdish issue was historically a “Turkish” problem whose effects shifted into Syria." "As a result, the Kurds in Turkey launched 17 uprisings against Ataturk’s policy, all of which failed – crushed and quelled by Ataturk. Each revolution followed with a mass flow of Kurdish migration, with hundreds and thousands heading to Mandate Syria, a migration that was concentrated in Upper Mesopotamia." One more: [8] "In an interview with a Syrian journalist, Öcalan himself denied the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan, claiming that the Kurds in Syria were only political refugees from Turkey." --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 08:44, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

This has been discussed to death, your interpretation of these quotemined sentences is simply worng. Nowhere does Tejel say all the Syrian Kurds are immingrants, and states precisely the opposite numerous time. To say you're misunderstanding the sources is charitable. GPinkerton (talk) 08:49, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the adding the content and the sources provided by GPinkteron and also removing the "some" regional experts from the lead. As to me there doesn't exist a regional "expert" who denies the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan. If! there is found a reliable source which denies the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan, it can be added to a section on the issue, like "denial of Syrian Kurdistan" or "controversies". That it is called Rojava by Kurds can be added to the Etymology section.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:10, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: All the books are at least partly available through Google Books (search: "syrian kurdistan"), and as I say, the footnotes for most if not all of these references are already in the article somewhere. The sequence of constitutional events dealing with the various French colonial entities and Syrian republics and the status of Hatay is not dealt with in these sources specifically, but I'm not sure the fact that the State of Aleppo and Syrian Federation was followed by the State of Syria (1925–1930) and the First Syrian Republic can really be controversial: they're just there to furnish links to the relevant periods in the territories' history and explain how the place got from being in the Ottoman empire to being in the post-1963 Syrian Arab Republic. GPinkerton (talk) 21:17, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

This looks like merely phrasing causing confusion: "By the 1960s, after the eventual settlement of the borders of the successor states after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire,..." Do not see why this statement is an issue, but perhaps 'by' and double 'after' causing a misunderstanding? Could you rephrase, maybe i am misunderstanding. fiveby(zero) 22:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

In addition to the evidence above by SD, the authoritative book "Modern History of the Kurds" by David McDowall, does not mention even once a "Syrian Kurdistan", although the author does name "Appendix 2 The Kurds of Syria", "Appendix 3 The Kurds of Lebanon", "Appendix 4 The Kurds of the Caucasus", and does dedicate full chapters to Kurds in Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The importance of this authoritative book on Kurdish history is witnessed by the Washington Post Book World review: Here what the best single narrative history of the Kurds ... it certainly belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in the Middle East. (in the preface). Here is a full list of its content/chapters.

• Another book that describes social life in Kurdistan is "Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan" by Martin Dr Martin van Bruinessen (Fellow of the Kurdish Institute in Paris). The book preface reads: " Exacerbated by the Gulf War, the plight of the Kurds is one of the most urgent problems facing the international community. This authoritative study of the Kurdish people provides a deep and varied insight into one of the largest primarily tribal communities in the world. It covers the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the great Kurdish revolt against republican Turkey, the birth of Kurdish nationalism and the situation of the Kurdish people in Iraq, Turkey and Iran today. Add to this, the absence of any pre-Syrian civil war maps showing "Syrian Kurdistan". May be Kurdish region in Syria, Kurdish-inhabited regions, etc., but no Syrian Kurdistan. The trivial references added by user pinkerton are simply WP:UNDUE and from biased sources/opinion books. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 07:08, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Girth Summit, I had typed my comments above before I noticed your response to SD's input above, so I am adding my response here. The problem is that Pinkerton is presenting their opinion as undisputed facts, when this is not the case. Likewise, Pinkerton removed another reference saying "Syrian Kurdistan" is an invention of nationalist Kurds under a false pretext about the authorship of the book (by Azmi Bishara et al.), without even bothering to read the discussion we had on this Talk page for weeks before they showed up a week or so ago. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 07:16, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

عمرو بن كلثوم, the source you mention in your latter post, which GPinkerton removed, is something which might be worth discussing, since you say it directly criticised the idea of a Syrian Kurdistand (rather than omitting to mention it). In their edit summary when they removed it, GP implied that the source is not RS. This might be a good starting point - has there been a discussion about it at RSN? GirthSummit _(blether) 07:45, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Girth Summit above, van Bruinessen's work is adduced as though it supports the argument that 1.) Syrian Kurdistan does not exist and 2.) Syrian Kurdistan, while not existing, was invented by the PYD. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, I in fact added to the article van Bruinessen, who, as do most authors, divides Kurdistan into four regions in the book based on his PhD thesis: 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. when this work came to be published again, Professor van Bruinessen also chose to use the term "Syrian Kurdistan" for the region: Bruinessen, Martin Van (1992). Agha, Shaikh, and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan. London: Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-85649-018-4.. GPinkerton (talk) 20:18, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

The "source" is a book review of an Arabic language work published in Doha for the explicit purpose of advocating the continued unity of the Syrian Arab Republic of the al-Assad dynasty, whose purpose is largely to argue for that failed state's position on its ongoing war and its French- and Turkish-established 1920s borders are perfect and inviolable. It is quite tendentious to suggest this book, which no-one is actually citing, could overturn the decades of common practice of calling, in English, the Syrian part of Kurdistan Syrian Kurdistan. The opposing view is rather like claiming that Northern Ireland cannot exist because no map shows that territory in the year 1920. Bafflingly illogical. The suggestion the Cedid Atlas shows Kurdistan in blue is also just flat out wrong; reading the map demonstrates the blue area is labelled as the province of Mosul. This has been pointed out already and is sheer incompetence. The short-lived administrative district of Kurdistan was carved out and then swiftly reabsorbed many decades after the map was made and could never be argued to be indicative of anything like the extent of modern-day Kurdistan, or the majority-Kurdish regions of the 19th century. GPinkerton (talk) 10:22, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Also @Girth Summit:, yes there has. Predictably it went nowhere. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_317#Is a book by the PhD candidate Mustafa Hamza a reliable source for a denial of a Syrian Kurdistan? NB the PhD candidate was author of the review of the book, not the author. GPinkerton (talk) 10:27, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton, your argument above about Doha etc. is WP:OR at best and meritless. If you had read a single line about the Syrian civil war you would know that Qatar was the first country to support the opposition to Assad. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 14:48, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Second, the main author of the book is Azmi Bishara, a well known thinker/politician/author in the Arab World. The RSN was hijacked by you and this is how you got involved in this article. Your northern Ireland comparison is ridiculous. We are talking about getting a map from 20 years ago, not 1920. If you were implying the Kurdish immigration into Syria happened only in the 1920s, you are wrong. Read McDowall to see the 27% jump in the Jazira population in the late 1940's due to the continuous inflow of Kurdish immigrants hopeful of getting a land in Syria. That is a discussion for another time. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 14:57, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

This is yet the best evidence denying a Syrian Kurdistan. In an interview with a Syrian journalist, Öcalan himself denied the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan, claiming that the Kurds in Syria were only political refugees from Turkey. Source The story is also mentioned in McDowall. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 15:41, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

@عمرو بن كلثوم: are you really suggesting we throw out all our reliable academic sources and believe the throwaway political comment (which you are misrepresenting and shearing of its necessary context from decades ago) of one Kurdish nationalist against all more recent and more reliable. For one that oh-so strenuously objected to "Kurdish nationalists' opinions" before (a professor in an OUP book, no less) this is certainly a massive volte-face! I wonder if it could be motivated by desperation and the inability to find literally a shred of evidence for your peculiar world view? The idea that Azmi Bishara is somehow an authoritative source on topics even remotely relating to history or the Syrian civil war is ridiculous. Here is a man who is well known to sympathize with Hezbollah, a close ally of al-Assad's regime and also known to have a Turkish affiliate whose main responsibility is pursue the types of suppression of Kurds in Turkey that even the Turkish government is too ashamed to employ itself. That you're presenting this activist as anything even close to academic history is yet another absurd hill for you choose to die on. GPinkerton (talk) 16:22, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Have you even read the source? It's a communist journalist (writing under what is almost certainly a pseudonym) writing for a tiny communist audience, and whose main thrust is that the formation of borders is antithetical to the inevitabiliuty of historical progress, or somesuch Marxist revolutonary imperative. Are you really admitting this stuff is the best you can muster? Becuase this is weak, so weak. GPinkerton (talk) 16:50, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Pinkerton,if I were you I would only focus on the content, especially given all the trouble you are in right now with your agressive personal attack behavior. The communist site didn't invent the OCalan story which is well known and mentioned in McDowall, but you chose to ignore it. Well, as you say, it is from decades ago and that exactly proves our point; that the idea of a syrian Kurdistan is new and is the baby of PYD. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 17:52, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I will repeat: no matter how much you desire to the contrary, the concept of Syrian Kurdistan has existed long before the PYD existed, as you have repeatedly refused to acknowledge, dispute the repeated supply of sources that utterly refute your bizarre assertions. If Syrian Kurdistan were invented by the (apparently time-travelling) PYD, then why would their founder state otherwise. No, you will not convince reasonable people of this patently false claim you're repeatedly making. It really is not worth your time you keep pursuing this failed quest. GPinkerton (talk) 18:26, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

You can go visit Ocalan and ask him why he said that. Fortunately, we have a moderator here and it's not up to you to decide whether syrian Kurdistan is an established or disputed concept. I have presented several pieces of evidence here, and the authoritative books not mentioning that term when comprehensively covering Kurdistan is further evidence. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 18:44, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton Sorry to be multi-pinging you here. Can I ask you to cut out the personalised rhetoric altogether please, it's really not helping, in fact it's making your posts longer and more difficult to parse. If we could stick to the content/sourcing entirely, and avoid personal commentary about others' motivations or desires, it really would help move this discussion along. For clarity, I'm talking about comments such as this is certainly a massive volte-face! I wonder if it could be motivated by desperation, or no matter how much you desire to the contrary - they are adding nothing, it's just point-scoring. Thanks in advance. GirthSummit _(blether) 18:56, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

One more recent book (The Kurds of Northern Syria Governance, Diversity and Conflicts By Harriet Allsopp, Wladimir van Wilgenburg · 2019) that talks EXCLUSIVELY about Syrian Kurds without even mentioning the "Syrian Kurdistan" thing. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 04:10, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Repeating a logical fallacy will not make it less fallacious. Argumentum ex silentio will get you nowhere, especially a malformed one, as this book refers to Western Kurdistan on page 89. GPinkerton (talk) 04:28, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Since you seem to not read what you are adding, here is an excerpt from the massive text you introduced in the History section of the page: The late 19th-century Chambers's Encyclopaedia referred to "west Kurdistan" as bordering Iran in its entry on that country.[19] A German gymnasium text book from Sorau (modern Żary) describes Diyarbakır as being "on the upper Tigris, in West Kurdistan" .[20] Amand von Schweiger-Lerchenfeld [de], who travelled over much of the Ottoman Empire, also referred to "West Kurdistan" in his Der Orient of 1882,[21] while Daniel Völter [de], in his Allgemeine Erdbeschreibung, also mentioned "West Kurdistan" in 1848.[22] "West Kurdistan" was referred to by Mark Sykes in his 1908 paper in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute as being in part of Kurdistan conquered by Selim I (r. 1512–1520).[23]:470 Sykes, having undertaken a 7,500-mile (12,100 km) journey through the Ottoman Empire, published one of first surveys in English on the Kurdish tribes.[23]:451 In 1907, he had written in The Geographical Journal that "the Kurds are a very little understood people, whose history has yet to be written, and even whose distribution is at present but little known".[24]:251 If you don't know where Diyarbakir is, hint, it's in a country NORTH of the Syrian border, so Western Kurdistan "per your claim" is NOT Syrian Kurdistan. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 05:08, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

In the 19th century Kurdistan was divided into two, a West Kurdistan in the Ottoman Empire, and an East Kurdistan in the Iranian Empire. Diyarbakir is in the now-Turkish part of West Kurdistan. Kobane is in the now-Syrian part of West Kurdistan. It shouldn't be too hard for someone to see that it is quite unreasonable to imagine that people would have separate names for territories that had yet to be separated. None of your repeating my sources is going any distance towards proving that "Syrian Kurdistan" is not the WP:COMMONNAME for the Syrian part of Kurdistan. So far you've brought precisely no sources evidencing this view. GPinkerton (talk) 05:37, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

This is another historical falsehood by SD (and Amr Ibn), which has a similar subject as the one here (the existence of Syrian Kurdistan), I'd like an admin to look into. In a move discussion in 2015 SD wanted to move the Syrian Kurdistan article to Kurdish occupied regions of Syria in the midst of the Siege of Kobane by ISIL (better known in the media as ISIS). ISIS is probably the most classified terror organization in the world and the Kurds defending themselves during the siege are supported by Global coalition of 83 countries. This is blatant POV, (if one reads the news they should have known about ISIS, liberation of Kobane, Tell Abyad, Raqqa etc.) and is sure not supported by any means in the academic field and the denial of a Syrian Kurdistan is also not supported by the academic field. Amr Ibn supported SD at the time, though they also suggested the tilte "PYD controlled areas"(PYD is a Pro-Kurdish party) but this is really just slightly better. The regions liberated from ISIS are sure not seen as occupied by any academic just as the French resistance are not the occupiers of French regions formerly occupied by the NAZIS. SD still views the regions liberated from ISIS or the Jihadists as Kurdish-occupied as of the 18 November 2020. This even after I mentioned this discussion on 2015 on the 12 November 2020. Amr Ibn called ISIS liberated areas so many times Kurdish occupied, I don't even bother to show it in a diff. The SDF mainly (ca.98%) gained control over localities and territories formerly controlled by Al Qaeda-like Jihadists or ISIS and held multiple peace negotiations with Assad and also Turkey. I'd say this is a weird POV to phrase it out diplomatically and mildly and I'd like to know what an Admin like User:Girth Summit thinks of this. I suggest admins should be aware of the POV by SD and Amr Ibn in relation to Syrian KurdistanParadise Chronicle (talk) 05:46, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton, if all the evidence we presented did not convinced you, nothing will, and that's your problem. Before you showed up here with your editing behavior editors here had a consensus that this term is used by some and disputed by others. Again, as usual, you make arguments and jump to conclusions before doing your homework. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 16:45, 25 November 2020 (UTC) User:عمرو بن كلثوم There was no consensus at all and this is why I filed two discussions at the noticeboards, where I was given a way twice, and then Aram opened an RfC because he didn't like the outcome, WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Now GPinkerton has expanded the article really significantly instead of just edit warring like we are used it by others. And عمرو بن كلثوم (Amr Ibn) just wants to go on denying, misrepresent the sources and claim that if an author writes about the history, population or other events concerning of Kurds in Syria or Syrian Kurdistan it means there does not exist a Syrian Kurdistan. By the way, still no answer by anyone on the -stan#regions argument by me.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 17:01, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Proposed edit

For the following text:

Events in Iraqi Kurdistan and the discovery of oil in Syrian Kurdistan in the 1960s coincided with a marked worsening for the Kurdish population. 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. 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. Oil had been discovered at Qaratchok, and the desire the control the Kurdish region's resources was connected with the policy. The Kurdish situation worsened again when, in March 1963, Ba'ath Party of Michel Aflaq took power in Damascus. 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. An Arab nationalist, Hilal claimed to use "anthropological" reasoning to "prove scientifically" Kurds "do not constitute a nation". 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". 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." Hilal produced a twelvefold strategy to achieve the Arabization of the al-Jazira Province. The steps were:

• (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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Proceeding slowly to avoid international criticism, the Syrian government suppressed Kurdish culture and harassed Kurdish people, and Kurdish literature and music was confiscated. Members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria were given lengthy prison sentences for "anti-Arabist" crimes. 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.

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. 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. 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.

References

Naturally the references will not be objected to this time, since others here have already cited this particular book as authoritative, so no-one should have qualms about referencing. GPinkerton (talk) 01:23, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Excellent work. This text would also be a good addition to the Arab Belt article, which is need of some work. Konli17 (talk) 01:35, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

What then distinguishes this article from Kurds in Syria? What content is appropriate for that article, and what content appropriate for this? fiveby(zero) 02:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Fiveby: Kurds are significant minority all over Syria, in Aleppo, Damascus, etc. This is specifically about the three Kurdish majority areas of Syria bordering Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkish Kurdistan, a specific artefact of the careless imposition of temporary borders in the early 1920s that have since become entrenched. This area is usually included in maps of "Greater Kurdistan" or of Kurdish-populated regions generally, but includes populations and history that is also non-Kurd (Arabs, Armenians, Turks, Assyrians, etc.). GPinkerton (talk) 06:00, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Oppose. This is scandalous attempt to convert Wikipedia into a Kurdish propaganda blog and completely adopting the Kurdish nationalist rhetoric. This text is cherry-picking and completely ignores all the demographic changes that have been happening since the establishment of the French mandate and it's welcoming strategy to immigrants from Turkey (Kurds and Christian) but benefited mostly Kurds in terms of numbers. According to French geographer Etienne de Vaumas, the population of Jazira Province increased six folds from 40,000 in 1929 to 234,000 in 1954. Furthermore, David McDowall states the following: Arab nationalists had good reason to be paranoid about internal and external enemies. Nowhere was the Syrian Arab cause less assured than in the north where so many non-Arab communities lived, particularly in al-Hasaka governorate. The population had grown rapidly, and it was the growth since 1945 that gave cause for Arab concern. In its own words, the government believed that 'At the beginning of 1945, the Kurds began to infiltrate into al-Hasakeh governorate. They came singly and in groups from neighbouring countries, especially Turkey, crossing illegally along the border from Ras al'Ain to al-Malikiyya. Gradually and illegally, they settled down in the region along the border in major population centres such as Dirbasiyya, Amuda and Malikiyya. Many of these Kurds were able to register themselves illegally in the Syrian civil registers. They were also able to obtain Syrian identity cards through a variety of means, with the help of their relatives and members if their tribes. They did so with the intent of settling down and acquiring property, especially after the issue of the agricultural reform law, so as to benefit from land redistribution.' Official figures available in 1961 showed that in a mere seven year period, between 1954 and 1961, the population of al-Hasakah governorate had increased from 240,000 to 305,000, an increase of 27 per cent which could not possibly be explained merely by natural increase. The government was sufficiently worried by the apparent influx that it carried out a sample census in June 1962 which indicated the real population was probably closer to 340,000. Although these figures may have been exaggerated, they were credible given the actual circumstances. From being lawless and virtually empty prior to 1914, the Jazira had proved to be astonishingly fertile once order was imposed by the French mandate and farming undertaken by the largely Kurdish population.... A strong suspicion that many migrants were entering Syria was inevitable. In Turkey the rapid mechanisation of farming had created huge unemployment and massive labour migration from the 1950s onwards. The fertile but not yet cultivated lands of northern Jazira must have been a strong enticement and the affected frontier was too long feasibly to police it. The government in Damascus felt it had good grounds to fear that many of those entering al-Hasaka governorate were neither Syrian nor Arab, and that presented a security problem. Indeed, in the view of the British embassy: 'It seems doubtful if the Damascus government could easily control the area if Kurdish dissidence from within Syria's borders, or an irruption by Kurdish tribesmen from without, should disturb the uneasy tranquility' Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 03:35, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Furthermore, this problematic, POV-screaming edit suggested by Pinkerton is designed to draw our attention away from the most important thing we are discussing right now, which is the name of the page/territory, and whether that is universal or not. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 04:14, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• Are you suggesting something in this quotation somehow contradicts the facts stated by the source above? Because it does not. Indeed, thanks for being prepared to quote a source that agrees with all the others that the area was largely Kurdish even before the First World War! GPinkerton (talk) 04:17, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

This is another one of your comments that confirm that you don't read before jumping to conclusions. The quote clearly says: From being lawless and virtually empty prior to 1914,. This is before/beginning of WWI. The large Kurdish population during the French mandate. This is another evidence of the origin of this Kurdish population. As Jordi Tejel said: Kurdish political parties have never set out to challenge Syrian national borders. In the 1920s, Kurdish activists turned their eyes toward Turkish Kurdistan, their region of origin. I hope this is clear enough where the Jazira Kurdish population came from!!! Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 06:11, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

It is clear from Tejel that the exiled Kurdish nationalists in Syria originated in Turkey, because that is what Tejel says. He most certainly does not refer to all Kurds in Syria being immigrants, that's just woeful misinterpretation combined with quotemining. Look, Tejel also says, and you should have no trouble with the source since you are misquoting the same chapter as I am quoting here: The left bank of the Euphrates around Kobane and some strips of land on the right bank had been settled by the Kurds at the beginning of the seventeenth century, following forced migrations as a result of the Sultans’ decisions. Kurdish population of Jazira increased with the arrival of Kurdish refugees from Turkey and Iraq during the 1920s–1930s. What part of Kurds living in Syria in the 17th century on both banks of the Euphrates do you have difficulty understanding? Al-Jazira is the left bank. If the numbers of Kurds increased in the 1920s, it cannot have been nothing beforehand. Indeed, the French mandate was established only in 1920, but the French army was fighting resident Kurdish tribesmen in Kurd Dagh and al-Jazira in the autumn of 1919. It was not until 1925 that the Kurdish refugees from Turkey were allowed, let alone encouraged, settle in al-Jazira, where Tejel says, the local population of Jazira, which included both Kurdish and Arab nomads, was deemed insufficiently large and ‘unprepared’ to assume a potential increase in arable lands. The Kurds cannot be written out of the history of Syrian Kurdistan like that. GPinkerton (talk) 06:53, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Further support for the facts cited above includes:

• Allsopp, Harriet (2019). The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p. 33. doi:10.5040/9781788315944.0010. ISBN 978-1-78831-483-1. … punitive exclusion of groups and individuals from benefits accruing from state employment, health care and even citizenship, created underclasses not linked to either social or labour relations. Within Kurdish society, an estimated 120,000 Kurds were denaturalized by the Syrian government as a result of the 1962 Hasakah census. These Kurds were registered individually as 'ajnabi al-Hasakah or "a foreigner of Hasakah province", while those who were left unregistered were known collectively as the maktumiin. By 2011 their combined number was estimated by some to be more than 300,000. A unique underclass of Kurds was formed that crossed formal class and tribal structures. Until the beginning of the civil protests in Syria in 2011, these Kurds were denied even the conditional rights to representation, services and property that other Kurds in Syria could claim as Syrian Arab citizens.

GPinkerton (talk) 04:35, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

What you say above It is clear from Tejel that the exiled Kurdish nationalists in Syria originated in Turkey, because that is what Tejel says. He most certainly does not refer to all Kurds in Syria being immigrants, that's just woeful misinterpretation combined with quotemining. is WP:OR and a pathetic attempt at rewording what Tejel clearly says to twist facts to suit your POV-pushing narrative. We have evidence from de Vaumas, Gibert and Fevret, McDowall and Tejel indicating that the origins of Jazira's Kurds are from Turkey and that this immigration has happened after WWI and into the late 1950's. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 18:21, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

This desperate attempt at an opinion of yours is just too tendentious to credit that this is not just nationalist trolling. It would only be creditable if you wilfully ignore Tejel's quite unambiguous statement that: The left bank of the Euphrates around Kobane and some strips of land on the right bank had been settled by the Kurds at the beginning of the seventeenth century, following forced migrations as a result of the Sultans’ decisions. Kurdish population of Jazira increased with the arrival of Kurdish refugees from Turkey and Iraq during the 1920s–1930s. The idea that Jazira's Kurds are all immigrants from Turkey is simply a Ba'ath Party lie which is clearly refuted by anyone that reads any of the sources without bigotry. The POV-pushing comes from the denialsits here, not from the reliable sources, which clearly stste the opposite of all your have claimed. It is obvious you are unable to discuss this further, and can present no sources to support your view. GPinkerton (talk) 18:41, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

You just keep repeating yourself, and mostly your personal attacks, adding nothing new and nothing concrete. Did you see all the names I provided above. Did you even read my comment? Did you read any of the content there? Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 20:00, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't need to supply anything more. You have lost what was never even an argument, and your denials have achieved nothing. Neither will they. Desist. GPinkerton (talk) 01:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Common name of the area and proposed move

Per WP:COMMONNAME policy, I propose renaming this page to "Kurdish region (or regions) of Syria". This is based on the Google search results below:

• "Kurdish region" and "Syria": About 211,000 results
• "Kurdish area" and "Syria": About 30,500 results
• "Kurdish inhabited" and "Syria": About 9420 results
• "Syrian Kurdistan": About 85,500 results

Also, below are some major news outlets and the term they use for the area with examples:

• CNN: Kurdish region. Syria grants citizenship to thousands in the Kurdish region
• BBC: Kurdish region. On our way to Qamishli, the largest Kurdish city in northern Syria, we see a US military convoy escorted by fighter jets heading east towards the Iraqi border. They are leaving the Kurdish region.
• Reuters: Border between Iraqi Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdish region closed...
• NYT: A recent trip by a reporter through the Kurdish area of Syria revealed ...
• WP: The Kurdish area of Syria is relatively secure ...
• WSJ: The Kurdish region of Syria ...
• Al-Jazeera: Kurdish areas of Syria ...

Obviously there is more, but this is only a start. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 05:51, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• oppose. There already exists the article Kurds in Syria. This article is about the Syrian part of Kurdistan, Syrian Kurdistan which lies adjacent to Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 06:05, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

No, Kurds is Syria is about Kurds in Syria (Kurdish region and elsewhere (Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, etc.). Kurdish region is the geographical location where Kurds live in a relatively larger concentration (30-70% according to McDowall) compared to other areas. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 06:16, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: What do you think? Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 06:17, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• Only one of the terms "Kurdish region" and "Kurdish inhabited" and "Syrian Kurdistan" is a name. The other two are not names. One can see clearly, if one is inclined, that the BBC uses "Syrian Kurdistan" to refer to this place. Indeed, it is often quite specific that that is the English language name, and the Kurdish language name is Rojava.

• BBC Syrian Kurdistan
• BBC Syrian Kurdistan
• BBC "Rojava is the term Kurds use to refer to western or Syrian Kurdistan"
• BBC ""When I discovered Rojava [the term Kurds use to refer to northern or Syrian Kurdistan I felt I had to go there," he told the BBC."]
• BBC "Harry described the feeling of taking the Islamic State's main camp for Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) as "quite symbolic"."
• BBC ""President Erdogan," Prof Landis told me, "is convinced that if 'Rojava' (the term Kurds use to refer to western or Syrian Kurdistan, and the name of a new federal region they want to create) comes into being, Turkey's Kurds will have a rear base from which to make a drive for their own independence."
• BBC ["Quite deliberately choosing to describe the region of northern Syria as "West Kurdistan" the PYD leader said most people in the region stood with the movement and supported their aims."]

If one reads WP:COMMONNAME, one'll see it says quite plainly how useless a basic Google search is in determining the primary name in reliable sources. No alternative name has been proposed. If one were to compare "Western Kurdistan" with "Syrian Kurdistan", one would see that Syrian Kurdistan is far more common in reliable media. GPinkerton (talk) 06:29, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@عمرو بن كلثوم: We can start new discussions about the same topic as many as we like, and we have opened at least 5 discussions about the existence of Syrian Kurdistan within in only a few weeks with the outcome of an admin protected page. I suggest we let the foregoing discussions come to an end (some actually came to an end, but their results were not accepted by the denial faction of which you are part of) first, before opening new discussions.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 06:47, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Welcome to the light, Amr. You may have forgotten where you've argued against WP:COMMONNAME previously, but that's OK, I'm just glad you're on board with it now. Now you can revisit Talk:Al-Malikiyah, Talk:Al-Muabbada, Talk:Al-Jawadiyah, and the talk pages of all the other Syrian settlements that still have to be moved and state your new position. Good for you, well done. Konli17 (talk) 15:41, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Yet more proof, if proof were needed

I've noticed editors' difficulties with this topic are centred around a misunderstanding of English. In English, according the unimpeachable Oxford English Dictionary's 3rd edition, from 2018, Kurdistan is defined as the following:

Kurdistan, n. (Kurdish Kurdistan, lit. 'land of the Kurds'), the name of any of various (current or historical) regions inhabited by Kurdish people, now chiefly located in parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. The place name is attested in English contexts from at least the 16th cent. (initially as Curdistan).

Now let us turn to some other claims, such as that Syrian Kurdistan was "invented by the PYD". This can be shown to be a fable by consulting the maps produced by interested parties long before the PYD was born. So hopefully we can all agree to put this nonsense aside and abandon claims about the PYD and the Civil War which through pure chronological logic cannot possibly be true. Along which all the rest of the evidence presented, and nothing but spurious misrepresentation of the very same sources, this should really be enough to quell any non-tendentious editing for good. GPinkerton (talk) 09:47, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

And 'Syrian Kurdistan' has other meanings, implied and explicit, notably Kurdish nationalism#Syria. From your added content, you are writing an article not about that portion of Kurdistan in Syria, but through bludgeoning and equivocal use of sources an article about a multi-ethnic region from the perspective of one ethnic group. The ambiguous title and scope of the article allows a selection of content from Kurdistan, Kurds in Syria, Kurdish Nationalism, Rojava, Syrian civil war, etc. to form the article implied by this title: a Kurdish only nation of Northern Syria. fiveby(zero) 15:31, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Fiveby: I'm curious - what about the title implies either of those things? What about "Syrian Kurdistan" implies either Kurdish only or nation? There's not a suggestion of anything of the kind anywhere from my perspective. What about the title is ambiguous? It's simply a territory like American Samoa or Welsh Bicknor. Is Samoa only for Americans? GPinkerton (talk) 18:08, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton are you purposefully obtuse? If not you can look at the index from Tejel here under "Syrian Kurdistan, terminology" and view those pages, or Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria#Polity names and translations. fiveby(zero) 19:13, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Per the Kurdish language lesson from Pinkerton above: "Kurdistan" means "Land of Kurds". Where does that leave the original, native population of northeastern Syria per this British map? Intruders on the land of Kurds? Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 18:26, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

The lesson was given by GP citing the Oxford English Dictionary. And Kurds ARE the native population of North East Syria. Just check Kurds in Syria. After the Ottoman turmoils there came more Kurds and also Christians, both were welcomed by the French. But the Kurds are the native population of North East Syria. You just need to look at also the map of Mark Sykes of the Kurdish tribes. You knew that map as we have discussed this before. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:44, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I did look, and they are all north of the border (i.e., in Turkey). As for Arab pinar (what Kurds call kobani), that's right ON the border, so "around" might mean anything; east or north would be in Turkey. West is The Euphrates, across which is Jarabulus, a predominantly Arab area. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 19:06, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Ok, that's it, I give up reasoning with you. There are enough sources and maps that show there lived Kurds in the area and that there exists a Syrian Kurdistan. An admin has to rule here.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:06, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Let's consult a source which Amr should again have no trouble accepting as repudiating his claims, since he has cited it already as though is did the opposite. See:

The settlement of the Djézireh. - An aerial and ground reconnaissance, carried out in May 1925 by A. Poidebard who also benefited from the documentation gathered by the Service de Renseignement de Hassetché, allows to get a precise idea of ​​the human occupation in Djézireh on the eve of pacification [i.e. on the eve of French occupation in late 1919]. In the North, apart from the Muslim Circassians (Tchatchans tribe) established in 1876 near Ras el Aïn (villages of Saf eh and Tell Rouman), the area of ​​villages or fixed camps forming villages stretched from Arreda (east of Ras el Aïn) to the vicinity of the Tigris out of 130 km long and 15 to 20 km wide. It was stuck along the railroad, that is to say the border, and inhabited by Kurds whose tribes occupied territories perpendicular to this border and straddling them. They cultivated the northern part of Djézireh and pushed their herds in winter to Djebel Sindjar and Djebel Abd el Aziz. Jebel Sindjar was held by the Yazidis, a population of Kurdish dialect and a strange religion. Their villages were in the mountain in the south of which they nomadized in winter, ... The pattern of the occupation was therefore relatively simple: Kurds along the border, Arabs on the riversides, semi-nomads and nomads everywhere.

De Vaumas, Étienne (1956). "Le peuplement de la Djézireh". Annales de Géographie. 65 (347): 70–72. Le peuplement de la Djézireh. — Une reconnaissance aérienne et au sol, menée en mai 1925 par A. Poidebard qui a bénéficié en outre de la documentation rassemblée par le Service de Renseignement de Hassetché, permet de se faire une idée précise de l'occupation humaine en Djézireh à la veille de la pacification. Au Nord, à part des Circassiens musulmans (tribu des Tchatchans) établis en 1876 près de Ras el Aïn (villages de Saf eh et de Tell Rouman) , la zone des villages ou des campements fixes formant villages s'étendait d'Arreda (à l'Est de Ras el Aïn) jusqu'aux environs du Tigre sur 130 km de longueur et 15 à 20 km de largeur. Elle était plaquée le long du chemin de fer, c'est-à-dire de la frontière, et habitée par des Kurdes dont les tribus occupaient des territoires perpendiculaires sur cette frontière et à cheval sur elles. Ils cultivaient la partie septentrionale de la Djézireh et poussaient leurs troupeaux en hiver jusqu'au Djebel Sindjar et au Djebel Abd el Aziz. Le Djebel Sindjar était tenu par les Yézidis, population de dialecte kurde et à l'étrange religion. Leurs villages étaient dans la montagne au Sud de laquelle ils nomadisaient l'hiver, payant le Khaoua (impôt de fraternité) aux Chammar. Les vallées du Khabour et du Jagh Jagh, de même que les environs du lac de Khatouniyé et de la source ďel Hol, étaient aux mains des Arabes semi-sédentaires qui utilisaient pour leurs troupeaux les grands espaces nus qui séparaient les vallées. Les grands nomades enfin (les Chammar des Zors) avaient pour terrain de parcours toute la zone située entre Tigre et Sindjar à l'Est, Euphrate et Khabour à l'Ouest, se déplaçant d'une ligne Anah-Bagdad au Sud jusqu'aux approches de la voie ferrée au Nord. Le schéma de l'occupation était donc relativement simple : Kurdes le long de la frontière, Arabes sur le bord des rivières, semi-nomades et nomades partout. The area of ​​villages or fixed camps forming villages ... inhabited by Kurds ... They cultivated the northern part of Djézireh ... Djebel Sindjar and Djebel Abd el Aziz .... This is quite unambiguous and states that Kurds inhabited the areas straddling the border in 1919 before the border was established, which has already been proven beyond doubt long before. GPinkerton (talk) 21:04, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

The WP:OR sentence YOU ADDED to the text above [i.e. on the eve of French occupation in late 1919]. explains it all. You are deliberately mischaracterizing the source, which explicitly mentions 1925 as the date of the survey, and you tried to make it 1919. A lot happened between the two dates, and after. Sir John Simpson says the following: The number of Kurds settled in the Jazira province during the 1920's was estimated at 20,000 people. (side note, other sources mention 25,000 as the number of Kurdish refugees flowing into Syria). Jazira's population in 1929 was estimated at 40,000, meaning this Kurdish immigration doubled the existing population, and the flow even intensified after that. You also stopped short from quoting the next two paragraphs, especially the quote from the French geographer R. Montagne about the Kurds descending from the mountains:

We are seeing an increase in village establishment that are either constructed by the Kurds descending from the mountains to cultivate or as a sign of increasing settlement of Arab groups with the help of their Armenian and Yezidi farmers.

More info. on this Kurdish descendance form the Anatolian mountains is given in Rondot 1936. Le massif montagneux de l'Arménie et du Kurdistan tombe assez brusquement au sud, au delà de Mardine, Nissibin, et Djéziret ibn Omar, vers les steppes de la Djézireh , domaine du nomade arabe. C'est la frontière de deux mondes : tandis que les Arabes, grands nomades dont l'existence est liée à celle du chameau, ne sauraient pénétrer dans la montagne rocailleuse, les Kurdes considèrent avec envie la bordure du steppe, relativement bien arrosé et plus facile à cultiver que la montagne, où ils pourraient pousser leurs moutons et installer quelques cultures. Dès que la sécurité le permet, c'est- à-dire dès que le gouvernement - ou le sédentaire arme- est asses fort pour imposer au Bédouin le respect des cultures, le Kurde descend dans la plaine. Mais la sécurité ne règne pas longtemps, les récoltes ne sont pas toujours bonnes, le climat débilite le montagnard; la plaine "manges" les Kurdes, et il y a flux et reflux. Google translation: The mountain range of Armenia and Kurdistan falls rather sharply to the south, beyond Mardine, Nissibin, and Djéziret ibn Omar, towards the steppes of Djézireh, domain of the Arab nomad. It is the border of two worlds: while the Arabs, great nomads whose existence is linked to that of the camel, could not enter the rocky mountain, the Kurds envy the edge of the steppe, relatively well watered and more easy to cultivate than the mountain, where they could push their sheep and install some crops. As soon as security permits, that is to say as soon as the government - or the sedentary armed - is strong enough to impose respect for cultures on the Bedouin, the Kurd descends into the plain. But security does not reign for long, the harvests are not always good, the climate debilitates the mountain dweller; the plain "eats" the Kurds, and there is ebb and flow. I guess this is PLAIN and ADEQUATE evidence about the origin of Jazira' Kurds (or at least the vast majority of them). May be you are happy with this going on for ever to divert us from the MAIN ISSUE, which is the name, but unfortunately I have to pass on the opportunity to entertain you here any further. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 01:06, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

References

You're showing your ignorance again. You haven't provided a single source for your absurd POV that Kurds living in Syrian Kurdistan in the 17th century magically disappeared the minute the French appeared only to reappear later. Why aren't you capable of reading sources? Plenty of evidence has already been adduced that Kurdish migration to Jazira before 1925 was minimal and that the Kurdish population was already predominant. But I don't know why you bother continuing to reply in reality-based encyclopaedia. This fantasy project of yours will not gain traction here. This project is built on the use of reliable sources, not the strenuousness of your denialism. Your source says nothing a about majority of Kurds anywhere, and as I have quoted from the relevant section (which you wrongly deny) which states that the opposite of what your claim. It will not be necessary for you to comment further. Your views have already been repeated enough times, and each time with less evidence. Your quotation of this document is specious misinterpretation, which is either wilful or incompetent, and I am not inclined to listen further to your griping. The extract you have quoted nails the final nail in the coffin of your ideology. If the Kurds have long been living at the edge of the steppe, they can hardly have only just arrived there within the past five years. Chrono-logical fallacy. Again. GPinkerton (talk) 01:40, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton, this comment is uncivil. Had you held back on the personal commentary about another editor, it would have been half as long, easier to read, and much more helpful. I've already asked you to stop this, please do so. GirthSummit _(blether) 06:58, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Girth Summit Well, the whole dispute is not about what civil or uncivil is. It is about if a Syrian Kurdistan exists and well, we provide source after source and we would like to have an actual ruling. The denier faction is currently denying it with simple WP:OR and a misrepresentation of sources against well over 50 academic sources explicitly mentioning a Syrian Kurdistan. Is refusing to edit according to academic sources also worth a comment? I repeat my willingness to provide an additional 50 academic sources for the claim that Syrian Kurdistan exists.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:15, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Paradise Chronicle, I am not here to adjudicate on which side of this dispute is correct - that is not the role of the administrator. I have started watching this discussion because I am concerned that over a period of time, civility (one of our five pillars) has gone out of the window. I intend to do what I can to encourage civil discussion, and to encourage the use of our dispute resolution processes; if people believe that there is bad faith editing going on, along the lines of WP:CRUSH and WP:TE, then by all means follow the normal channels; I am no sort of barrier to that, but nor am I going to act as the adjudicator on such matters in a subject I know so little about. GirthSummit _(blether) 19:21, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: You don't need any special knowledge to look at the sources and see one interpretation of them is tendentious and ideological, and one only. You can easily comment on the source quoted above, and see how an editor would have to contort it dishonestly to reach any conclusion at variance with what I have said. GPinkerton (talk) 21:34, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

For background, a basic summary of the history of Syrian Kurdistan can be found, for example, in a review of the 2015 work The Kurds: A Modern History by Michael M. Gunter. The review summarizes Gunter's whole chapter on the Kurds of Syria as follows, including a mention of this very ideological talking point, namely, that Kurds do not belong in what is now Syria:

Under the French mandate after World War I, Syria became an important center for Kurdish political and cultural activism until its independence in 1946. In addition to the Kurds in major urban centers and Kurdish enclaves in northern Syria, Kurdish refugees also arrived from Turkey. A Kurdish nationalist organization, Khoybun, operated in Syria and Lebanon and spearheaded the Ararat Re-bellion (1928-31) against Turkey. Exiled Kurdish nationalists from Turkey played a major role in Syria and Lebanon. The Jaladet, Sureya and Kamuran brothers from the princely Bedirkhan family, for example, led a Kurdish cultural movement. The end of the French mandate and the eventual rise of the Baath regime in Syria created a serious backlash for the Kurds. Gunter indicates that the Baath regime came to view Kurds as a foreign threat to the Arab nation, and it repressed them after the early 1960s. Kurds in Syria, as a result, came to be less known in the West, as compared to their compatriots in Iraq, Turkey and Iran. Some Kurds were stripped of their citizenship in 1962 on the grounds that they supposedly all came from Turkey. Moreover, the state tried to Arabize the Kurdish territories in northern Syria. Gunter adds that the fractured Kurdish political-party system is another reason for the invisibility of the Syrian Kurds until the early 2000s.
— Akturk, Ahmet Serdar (assistant professor of history, Georgia Southern University) (2016). "Review: The Kurds: A Modern History, by Michael M. Gunter. Markus Wiener Publishers, 2015. 256 pages. $26.95, paperback". Middle East Policy. 23 (3): 152–156. doi:10.1111/mepo.12225. ISSN 1475-4967.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

We can therefore see that there is no merit to the bigoted claim that Syrian Kurdistan does not exist, and we can see both why this claim exists and who pushes it and why, and how it is antithetical to the purposes of Wikipedia to continue to allow such partisan claims. GPinkerton (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Dear Girth Summit, concerning civility. Amr Ibn is the only one who accuses others of vandalism in the edit summaries in this article.

See here, here herehere. At least in the last few weeks.

here I am supposedly "sabotaging" the page,

here I am "hijacking" the page, we can find numerous more, like calling the from ISIS (the best known terrorist organization in the world) liberated areas occupied by the "Kurds". What I write is mainly sourced well, specially in such a disputed article. I'd never edit-war a non-notable PhD source back into the article like Amr Ibn did. And sorry, to deny a whole cultural region which is often mentioned I academic sources and edit war academic sources out of the article is now also not very civil. Then Amr ibn also accuses Konli as a previously blocked editor, and refers to a block that was caused through Amr Ibn after a complaint where Amr Ibn reverted once more than Konli17, while both weren't breaking any rules at the time. I adverted the blocking Admin EdJohnston of it, but to no avail.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:41, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Paradise Chronicle, once again, I recognise that there has been a history of incivility on this talk page, and that it has not been one-sided. It was allowed to continue for too long. I am trying to stop it, but that does not extend to going back and blocking accounts retrospectively. GirthSummit _(blether) 08:02, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

As with GS, I'm here to stop the ongoing incivility, which I agree has come from multiple editors. I am not going to get involved in the content disputes; that would make me involved, and I'd not be able to help with the behavior issues. And the point is, I don't need to understand the content dispute in order to understand and help deal with the behavior issues going forward.

I strongly recommend you all stop with the walls of text. Very few editors will read anything more than a few sentences long, so learn to write short. Draft, then edit down mercilessly to only what you really need to say. It takes longer to write short, but it's a valuable skill for persuading other editors. —valereee (talk) 13:14, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: Can we acknowledge now that the "Kurds are from Turkey" stuff had no place in Wikipedia besides objective treatment as a nationalist propaganda exercise no different to the Turkish nationalist claim that Kurds are just "Mountain Turks"? Please affirm that this is a correct and reasonable interpretation of all the sources I've quoted until this point? GPinkerton (talk) 13:16, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton, as I explained just above, if GS became involved in the content dispute, they'd no longer be able to help here in an administrative capacity. We need WP:UNINVOLVED admins here to help with ongoing behavior issues. Neither GS nor I are going to get involved in the content dispute. —valereee (talk) 14:27, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

@Valereee: Well someone needs to, because the ongoing behavioural issue is tendentious use and abuse of sources and a WP:AGENDA with a blithely carefree approach to uncritically repeating 20th-century propaganda claims as though appropriate for deciding content. Incivility is just a by-product of stonewalling; the content dispute is the behavioural issue. GPinkerton (talk) 15:57, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

24 hour block for abuse of sources and a WP:AGENDA with a blithely carefree approach to uncritically repeating 20th-century propaganda claims —valereee (talk) 16:24, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Proposed edit nov28

I suggest the following material be copied in to expand the lead:

Syrian Kurdistan is one of the Lesser Kurdistans that comprise Greater Kurdistan and is also known as Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojava Kurdistanê, lit. 'Kurdistan where the sun sets'). As such, Syrian Kurdistan is one of the four territories into which Kurdistan is divided by the boundaries of sovereign states, alongside Iranian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojhilatê Kurdistanê, lit. 'Kurdistan where the sun rises') and the neighbouring Turkish Kurdistan (Bakurê Kurdistanê, 'Northern Kurdistan') and Iraqi Kurdistan (Başûrê Kurdistanê, 'Southern Kurdistan').

The territory consists of three discontinuous areas on the northern border of Syria, in the Aleppo and al-Hasakah Governorates of Syria. In the extreme east of Syrian Upper Mesopotamia (Arabic: الجزيرة, romanized: al-Jazira, lit. 'the island'), al-Hasakah Governorate (historically al-Jazira Province) is adjacent to Iraq's Sinjar District, part of Iraqi Kurdistan, and has been Kurdish-majority "since official records began". Ayn al-Arab District in the Aleppo Governorate is centred on Kobanî (Arabic: عَيْن الْعَرَب, romanized: ʿAyn al-ʿArab), which like the nearby town of Jarabulus is on the border with Turkey's Şanlıurfa Province, part of Turkish Kurdistan. The Afrin District, also in the Aleppo Governorate, includes the town of Afrin (Kurdish: Efrîn) and the Kurd Mountains (Turkish: Kurd Dagh) at the north-eastern corner of Syria's border with Turkey's Hatay Province.

Al-Hasakah, the seat of the governorate of the same name, stands at the confluence of the Jaghjagh River and the Khabur, two tributaries of the Euphrates, while Ras al-Ayn lies upstream of the Khabur at the point where the Syria–Turkey border intersects the river. Jarabulus, in the Jarabulus Subdistrict, stands on the border with Turkey where the Euphrates enters Syrian territory, while Kobanî, likewise on the border, stands between the Euphrates valley and the Balikh River. The Kurd Mountains, outside the Euphrates–Tigris Basin, constitute a detached extension of the Anatolian Plateau on the edge of the Anatolian Plate.

References

GPinkerton (talk) 15:37, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Oppose: we have an open rfc for exactly this. The word CONTESTED is the key here. This proposed edit gives all the weight to one side. I would be okay with it if the other side gets the same prominent place, and in the first paragraph as well.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 16:13, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Oppose: cherry picked sources that further pushes the debunked "Syrian kurdistan" fraud. Completely agree with Attar-Aram syria here, its very one sided. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 16:47, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

blocked for one hour for cherry picked sources that further pushes the debunked "Syrian kurdistan" fraud —valereee (talk) 17:25, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Oppose: the lead needs to be balanced, presenting sources on both sides. We have many sources and statistics describing the population of the different discontigious areas under the scope of this article, and they are very different from what is suggested above. We also have Abdullah Ocalan who denies the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan but that is left out. On top of that, this text presents the name as the "official name" while so many other sources use names such as "Kurdish-inhabited region in Syria" or "Kurdish enclaves in Syria". Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 20:39, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Strong support the lead is probably one the best and extensively sourced on wikipedia. I've never seen a better sourced one at least. What Abdullah Öcalan mentioned can be added, too, but probably not in the lead. I don't know, if you really believe he is a reliable source. If so we could source multiple sections with his books on Syrian Kurdistan. But this not even the pro-Kurdish editors would attempt. And don't misinterpret the text Amr Ibn, it is clearly mentioned in the lead that Syrian Kurdistan is a part of a sovereign state.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:27, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Paradise Chronicle, please stop this: But this not even the pro-Kurdish editors would attempt. And don't misinterpret the text Amr Ibn as it talks about editors, not edits. —valereee (talk) 01:42, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions

1. Read I.C. Vanly here(pseudonymous, see his article) for what 'Syrian Kurdistan' meant in 1992. This is misused as a citation in the article, try and read for understanding, not as a means to push a POV.
2. Think about the difference between "are Kurd-Dagh, Ain-Arab, and Northern Jezireh Syrian Kurdistan?" and "Afrin, Jazira, and Kobanî are Syrian Kurdistan"
3. Use modern sources, don't use older ones to push a POV.
4. Describe Syrian Kurdistan without trying to define a boundary. Where, when, and how predominately Kurdish an area should be in the Kurds in Syria article.
5. Editing here while really arguing Turkish occupation of northern Syria should earn a page ban.

fiveby(zero) 16:38, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

blocked 1 hour for not as a means to push a POV, don't use older ones to push a POV —valereee (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

User:Konli17 is blocked for sockpuppetry

His comments should be not used for consensus. Shadow4dark (talk) 17:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Compromise time?

I hope that now, the editors, from both camps, have come to the conclusion that a compromise should be reached. Those who refuse the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan, based on historic arguments , are not Nazis!(yes, this is not a historic cultural region, and no source till now has been able to prove otherwise i.e. these regions were considered part of Kurdistan by lets say Western travellers of the 18th and 19th centuries, or Ottoman historians.. etc). Those editors who wish to see an unqualified usage of the term Syrian Kurdistan are also not zealot nationalists. I would say that both camps deserve a voice. So, please vote on this formula, and please keep in mind that no one party will overcome the other! This is not how things go here. I suggest retaining the second (with reservations concerning that Kurds have been the majority since official records began, which is not what the French records show) and third paragraphs GP wrote in a section earlier, and I changed the first one (and it will be sourced using the same sources I used in the rfc):

Syrian Kurdistan, also known as Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojava Kurdistanê‎, lit. 'Kurdistan where the sun sets'), is an area of three Kurdish-inhabited regions in Northern Syria. The concept of a Syrian Kurdistan gained prominence during the Syrian Civil War, as, before the war, Syrian Kurdish political factions usually chose to remain within a Syrian national framework. On the other hand, the Syrian government, and most Sunni Arabs of Syria, are opposed to the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan.

Please give me your thoughts, and don’t focus on me. Try to accommodate your "opponents" instead of aiming at total victory, which neither parties will attain. Sad that Im talking about fights and victories, but this is what this page turned to. Ofcourse, compromise isnt the way to go when it comes to delivering an accurate information, but in this case it is, as the truth lies in the middle.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 17:40, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

• It would help if you sources existed for these claims. Per WP:FALSEBALANCE, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity. There are many such beliefs in the world, some popular and some little-known: claims that the Earth is flat, that the Knights Templar possessed the Holy Grail, that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax, and similar ones. GPinkerton (talk) 17:46, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

The sources are in the rfc Talk:Syrian_Kurdistan#Support_A. I will add them if this formula finds consensus, otherwise, I wont do the effort. P.S, the view of the rest of Syria is not minority, and the mainstream scholarship do not deny that the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan is not universally accepted. Anyway, these discussion have expired. We conducted them earlier, a lot. I’m looking here for a middle way, and I hope that what happened earlier have shown that its only the middle way that will work.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 17:50, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Even the whole of Syria is a tiny minority compared with the reliable sources of the English-speaking world. There is no reason to privilege some conjectural Syrian attitude to geography; this is the English language Wikipedia and takes a global perspective. GPinkerton (talk) 18:28, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

When it come to geography, most English academic sources will call those regions northern Syria, not Kurdistan. I will argue no further, as I meant to have some sort of compromise, which I see will not happen here.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 18:34, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Attar-Aram Syria, what do you think about the current first line "Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê‎), often shortened to Rojava, is regarded by some Kurds and some regional experts as the part of Kurdistan in Syria." why does it need to be changed? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:45, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Compromise is why it should be changed, but maybe I made a mistake, as no editor is willing to let go and everyone wants to force their version on everyone.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 19:49, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Attar-Aram syria, your version says that the name of kurdish-inhabited areas in Syria is "Syrian Kurdistan". We all now very well that is not the areas real name. And it can not be presented as such. It can be presented as a kurdish belief only. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:54, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Attar-Aram syria, per MOS:FIRST, the first sentence should define the subject of the article. It explicitly advises against using phrases like 'refers to', because we need to define the subject rather than the subject's name. Given that WP:INVOLVED explicitly allows me to suggest possible wording, I would suggest that this might be better phrased along the lines of 'Syrian Kurdistan, also known as Western Kurdistan... ...is an area of Kurdish-inhabited regions in Northern Syria.' Note please that I am not advocating for the specifics of that definition - it's the semantics I'm aiming at. The subject of the article is not a noun phrase, it's a geographic region (whether or not it is contested).

I have no comment on the rest of your proposal at present. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:57, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Girth Summit. I edited my paragraph and inserted your wording.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 17:59, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

• I further object based on the fact that two out of three sentences are both irrelevant and untrue. The concept of a Syrian Kurdistan gained prominence during the Syrian Civil War is incorrect, as many sources has already been adduced for the region's prominence in the 1920s, when Syrian Kurdistan was established by the Mandatory borders. GPinkerton (talk) 18:25, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

So no compromise. Lets see if a consensus will emerge when the other editors comment.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 18:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd further suggest that, if the content in the body of the article is contested, that should be agreed upon before discussing the lead (which merely summarises that content). We're doing this in the wrong order. GirthSummit _(blether) 18:35, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. We need to decide the scope of this article, and Fiveby summarized the issues with the scope.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 18:37, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Is there something you'd like to add to the article body? GPinkerton (talk) 18:44, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

On the proposed edit: Which notable Kurdish faction involved in the Syrian Civil War (like PYD) has advocated for the creation of Syrian Kurdistan that was not part of a Syrian national Framework? The PYD has declared numerous times that the area it governed is a part of Syria. To this I agree though:Syrian Kurdistan, also known as Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojava Kurdistanê‎, lit. 'Kurdistan where the sun sets'), is an area of three Kurdish-inhabited regions in Northern Syria.

Nothing about the "Syrian national framework" is really relevant here, and neither is the politics. This is just geography. Syrian Kurdistan does need advocates for its creation, it was created a century ago by the establishment of the border. The PYD has nothing to do with anything, and in any case the Kurds are reliably said to prefer "western" and not "Syrian" as the name. GPinkerton (talk) 18:51, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Then also as the threads name is compromise time: Can we agree to edit ourselves and replace/exchange the two three words we don't like instead of just reverting edits of several hundreds/thousands bytes? I mean that we just revert for a word or two, edits of more than 100 bytes is not really helpful, specially in a contested and protected article like this one.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:45, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

PC: Im using Appolodion's words when it comes to the Syrian framework. Kurdistan as a term does not merely have a cultural meaning, but a political one as well. Therefore, calling for a Kurdistan will indicate aspirations of independence, a Kurdish nation...etc The term itself, the land of the Kurds, indicates that other ethnicities are guests there, or migrants. Hence, the wording: Syrian framework. Ofcourse, everything can be agreed on, as long as both point of views are represented. You agreed to the first part, which satesfy one party, so what about the other?--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 18:49, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

What Applodion[ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syrian_Kurdistan&type=revision&diff=988424466&oldid=988173771&diffmode=source wrote] about the Syrian Framework was not in the lead and also mentioned that the idea of independence stemmed from before the Syrian Civil War if you refer to this version. I don't know which notable Kurdish party during the Syrian Civil War advocated for the creation of such a political entity. Of course, Kurdish was allowed to be taught in schools and used as an official regional language but this is about Governance (in Syria) and not about a creation of an independent Syrian Kurdistan. How about: Syrian Kurdistan, also known as Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojava Kurdistanê‎, lit. 'Kurdistan where the sun sets'), is an area of (three) Kurdish-inhabited regions in Northern Syria. The Syrian government, and most Sunni Arabs of Syria, are opposed to the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan.

The authoritative dictionary definition I have quoted above mentions no such definition and we should be using reliable sources, so there's no need to worry about that idea, especially as "Kurdistan" has been used in English for 500 years. GPinkerton (talk) 18:53, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Not about an area in Syria.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:43, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I have already demonstrated to contrary. GPinkerton (talk) 19:45, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I haven't seen it. Can you show me it? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:50, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

In the Oxford English Dictionary's 3rd edition, from 2018, Kurdistan is defined as the following:

Kurdistan, n. (Kurdish Kurdistan, lit. 'land of the Kurds'), the name of any of various (current or historical) regions inhabited by Kurdish people, now chiefly located in parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. The place name is attested in English contexts from at least the 16th cent. (initially as Curdistan).

GPinkerton (talk) 19:55, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Notice the following: "the name of any of various (current or historical) regions" "now chiefly located in" this doesnt proof that areas in Syria has been part of Kurdistan for 500 years.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:01, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Who cares? We know already the Kurds have lived there for centuries. What does it matter? The name Syrian Kurdistan is only relevant after the area became part of modern Syria 100 years ago. It's been part of Kurdistan far longer. GPinkerton (talk) 20:03, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I care. The Oxford source did not confirm what you claimed. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:10, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes it does, and it has refuted your claims. GPinkerton (talk) 20:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

"It's been part of Kurdistan far longer". Here where sourcing fails. No contemporary account, from before the establishment of Syria, of a traveller, a historian..etc mentions this. No account says: I travelled to Ras al-ayn, in Kurdistan. No account says: the Shammar graze their herds in Kurdistan near Jaghjagh, or that Jarablus is in Kurdistan. If that will be available, where those Syrian regions are specifically mentioned, then things will change here, at least for me.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 20:15, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

See: argumentum ex silentio. What is the relevance of this? What sources say this is part of Syria in those days? It's usually described as just "Kurdistan" and "Upper Mesopotamia", north Jazira, etc. GPinkerton (talk) 20:39, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I asked for a source for your assertion that "It's been part of Kurdistan far longer". You used this as an argument, so you need to prove it. Where were these regions described as Kurdistan before the establishment of Syria, as you claimed?--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 20:48, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I gave you a source and I have proven it. We know the Kurds have lived in the now-Syrian Jazira for centuries, we know they were elsewhere in the Khabour and Jagh Jagh and Euphrates valleys in the 17th century in what is now Syria, and we know that since the 16th century the name of any of various (current or historical) regions inhabited by Kurdish people is Kurdistan. GPinkerton (talk) 20:56, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Actually you didnt give me. What you are doing is original research, a synth. You are making your own conclusions here. If no source mentions these regions as part of Kurdistan, which is a historic region many ancient travelers and historians described, then you cant say these regions are Kurdistan. Kurds live in many places, and not all of them are Kurdistan.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 20:59, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

It is an acknowledged fact that reliable sources treat the area as Syrian Kurdistan. You say: Kurdistan, which is a historic region many ancient travelers and historians described and the Oxford English Dictionary agrees, saying this region is: now chiefly located in parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. So there is no need to continue disputing this fact. GPinkerton (talk) 21:04, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

"It's been part of Kurdistan far longer". This is a claim unsourced, which you made based on original research. If you wish not to continue, Im happy to do so, but when making any historic claims, then please make sure to source them properly.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 21:09, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I can only repeat that what you are saying is incorrect and I have provided ample sources for this. GPinkerton (talk) 21:32, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

"It's been part of Kurdistan far longer". The only sources that can support this are those that mentions it directly.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 21:38, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Leaving aside that incorrect claim, you have not explained what relevance you imagine that is. In order of Kurdistan to be divided between the four modern states, it is necessarily the case that the part of Kurdistan now called Syrian Kurdistan must have existed beforehand. It did not simply spring up out of the ground the day the French arrived, so unless you're arguing that's what happened there's really no reason to continue discussion on this point. We know there were plenty of Kurdish majority regions in Syria long before WWI, and we know Kurds have referred to Kurdistan since the 17th century as extending from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, so there is really no point in continuing to quibble on this issue. GPinkerton (talk) 22:10, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Imagine? Restrain yourself and dont go into that road again. I am not imagining anything. When you claim something, provide evidence for it that is not your own logical conlusions that may not be logical for someone else. Not every place Kurds migrate to or inhabit becomes a Kurdistan. Just stick to source and do not use any original research.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 22:33, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

The source says historical Kurdistan is part in Syria. Nothing further needs discussion. There is no OR besides arguing with the dictionary. GPinkerton (talk) 22:40, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

This discussion was about a claim you made (the regions are part of Kurdistan long before Syria) based on your own conclusions. Its over now. As for "historical Kurdistan" being part in Syria, Im sure any reliable source claiming this will have a historical document cited to prove the claim, otherwise, that source will be unreliable.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 22:52, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

If you think the OED is unreliable I am afraid you will not find support for that view and it will be fruitless to pursue it further. It is a reliable source and it says Kurdistan is part in Syria. QED. GPinkerton (talk) 22:56, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I dont think. I know how academic works are done, so even the OED, if not basing their claims on evidence, can be discredited. Even great scholars lose their reputation when they make claims that cant be proven. I just need the evidence for claims: if it does not exist, then the claim is false.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 22:59, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Anyway, Kurdistan today exists, but "historical" needs historic evidence, and this is what we were discussing. I believe we are done if evidence cannot be provided.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 23:02, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

As I say, the evidence has been provided. We are done. GPinkerton (talk) 23:15, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

And as I say, no evidence have been provided, only conclusions based on original research.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 23:17, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

• As the first sentence to this article, I like Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê, lit 'Kurdistan where the sun sets'‎), often shortened to Rojava, are the Kurdish-inhabited regions of Northern Syria. I don't think "three" is important enough of a detail to include in the first sentence but "...are three Kurdish-inhabited regions..." also works for me. Levivich ^harass/_hound 19:08, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: "Syrian Kurdistan ... are ..."? The grammar is wrong. Also why capitalize "northern"? GPinkerton (talk) 19:14, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

No problem for me Levivich. But what about the rest. This article will not know peace if every editor insist on having it his way. As I expected, pro-Kurdistan editors (I dont mean you) are happy with the first sentence and dont want the rest, and I believe the anti-Kurdistan will do the opposite. So how will this article ever develop?--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 19:18, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I have opinions about the rest, too, but I wonder if we can first come to consensus on the first sentence and proceed from there. Personally, I like this latest version (below) better than either what's in the article currently, or any of the choices in the open RFC above. What about: Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê, lit. 'Kurdistan where the sun sets'‎), often shortened to Rojava, is the Kurdish-inhabited region of northern Syria.? Levivich ^harass/_hound 19:27, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Your suggestion is factually incorrect, the name of the Kurdish-inhabited region of northern Syria is not "Syrian Kurdistan", no part of Syria has this name. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:37, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Yup, fine with me, as long as the contested nature of this region will be illuminated in the first paragraph as well.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 19:33, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

That would be fine Alright except possibly change "region" to "area" or "territory", otherwise OK; though I think the second sentence should begin as I proposed in the section above. I think that does a good job of explaining the basics of the geography and after saying its the Kurdish bit of Syria we should say its the Syrian bit of Kurdistan, and explain what that means. The articles United States Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands deal with it a similar way; both say they are part of the Virgin Islands and both mentions the other in the lead. GPinkerton (talk) 19:40, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

There is no "Kurdish bit of Syria" that would imply that it belongs to kurds. There are only kurdish-inhabited areas of Syria. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:48, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I've demonstrated before that it implies no such thing and the reliable sources do not support this claim. GPinkerton (talk) 20:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to Atta, GP and SD for weighing in on my suggestions. @عمرو بن كلثوم, HistoryofIran, Thepharoah17, and Paradise Chronicle: as editors who have !voted in the RFC about the lead sentence, would you mind giving me your opinion about whether this first sentence is better or worse than the options in the RFC: Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê, lit. 'Kurdistan where the sun sets'‎), often shortened to Rojava, is the Kurdish-inhabited area of northern Syria. Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:04, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

The current first line is the the most neutral and accurate and better represents the factual situation. "Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê‎), often shortened to Rojava, is regarded by some Kurds and some regional experts as the part of Kurdistan in Syria." It doesn't need to be changed.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:31, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

As SD says, it took us weeks to reach the first line in the current version (developed mostly by Applodion following intesive discussions on the Talk page) to reflect the current status of the term, used by some although most sources/media outlets use "Kurdish-inhabited region(s) in Syria". The difference between here and Iraqi/Iranian or Turkish Kurdistan is that the overwhelming majority there is Kurdish. While here it is not and has never been (See statistics from French mandate authorities) despite having some very small pockets (i.e. cluster of villages) such as Ain al-Arab or Kurd Dagh having an overwhelming Kurdish majority. How big is the area or the population? Does that justify saying this is a Syrian Kurdistan? To be concise, I am fine with the wording that Applodion had introduced, that you can see in this version. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 20:18, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Speaking only from the perspective of compliance with the MOS, it does need to be changed. The current sentence fails to define the subject - '...is regarded by some...' is descriptive, not definitive. We need to define what the subject is in the first sentence - we can mention in later sentences that the land, or indeed the existence of the place as an entity, is contested - but the first sentence needs to set out in simple English what/where we're talking about. GirthSummit _(blether) 20:23, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Reading the sentence: "regarded by some Kurds and some regional experts as the part of Kurdistan in Syria." - the subject is clear: This is an area that some people believe is "Syrian Kurdistan".--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:30, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Grammatically-speaking, the problem with any lead sentence like X is regarded by some as Y... is that it implies X is regarded by others as Z. In the current lead sentence, "X" is "Syrian Kurdistan", and "Y" is "the part of Kurdistan in Syria", but there is no Z. There is no one who thinks "Syrian Kurdistan" is, say, the part of Kurdistan in Turkey, or that "Syrian Kurdistan" refers to the southwestern part of Syria, or that it's a type of sandwich or something. Some people might say "Syrian Kurdistan" doesn't exist at all, or should be called by a different name, but no one thinks the two words "Syrian Kurdistan" might refer to anything other than the parts of northern Syria where Kurds live. Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:38, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Correct. GPinkerton (talk) 20:45, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Levivich I agree to your version. And there was no consensus as Amr Ibn claimes, but the RfC was opened on the 12 November 2020 [9] after GPinkerton brought in the many sources for an existence of a Syrian Kurdistan at the NPOV noticeboard on the 10 November 2020.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:50, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Levivich: first for taking the initiative to help with this article. I am fine with the sentence if we precede it by "According to Kurdish nationalists" (or something along these lines) and be more specific about the extent (per I.C. Vanly here or David McDowall here, page 466). According to Kurdish nationalists, Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê, lit. 'Kurdistan where the sun sets'‎), often shortened to Rojava, refers to three non-contiguous Kurdish-inhabited areas of northern Syria. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 20:47, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

It is clearly untrue that Syrian Kurdistan is used "According to Kurdish nationalists". They don't call any part of Kurdistan "Syrian"; why would they? Reliable sources however, all treat Syrian Kurdistan as the normal English name for the place, as they have done for many decades. GPinkerton (talk) 20:59, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

عمرو بن كلثوم, respectfully, I don't think that this is a reasonable suggestion. It has already been shown that the term is used in mainstream academic sources, its use is clearly not entirely restricted to Kurdish Nationalists. That is not to say that we cannot/should not discuss the dispute over the region in the article, but to say in the definitive first sentence of the lead that its use is restricted in this way seems unsupportable. GirthSummit _(blether) 22:32, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Correct. GPinkerton (talk) 23:16, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Then the current wording works, "is regarded by some Kurds and some regional experts as the part of Kurdistan in Syria" (or something like that). The problem with the suggested wording is that it presents this name as a fact, when it is very clearly contested. Again, according to google search, "Kurdish region in Syria" is WAY more commonly used than "Syrian Kurdistan", especially when it comes to international credible sources (organizations, media outlets, etc.), rather than opinion monographs and nationalist websites. As other users have pointed out, there is hardly any credible map (outside the Kurdish claims) that says Syrian Kurdistan on it. When you have Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish historical leader, Jalal Talabani and Masud Barazani denying the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan, I think that has a considerable weight that cannot be ignored in the lead. Jordi Tejel says: Therefore, as David McDowall asserts, the Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani (PUK), Abdullah Ocalan (PKK), and probably Masud Barzani (KDP) either denied the legitimacy of a Syrian Kurdish movement or dismissed it as a small-scale movement that distracted from the "real struggle" for Kurdistan (McDowall 1998: 69-70

I hate to repeat myself, but you have prominent authors such as the Kurdish activist Vanly (mentioned above by Fiveby) and David McDowall who have talked about Kurdish areas (or communities) in Syria, but not Syrian Kurdistan. As Fiveby mentioned above, the wording here has to be careful as not to present that this ethnically and culturally mixed area is not presented here from a Kurdish nationalist standpoint. If you still want to do so, then make it clear that this is the angle we are writing from. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 23:20, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

No it does not work because it does not met the criteria of WP:FIRST and is deeply WP:UNDUE as has already been explained. The point about David McDowall is a regrettable logical fallacy, once again, of argumentum ex silentio, and failing the test of logic, ought never to be considered in deliberation. Jordi Tejel repeatedly uses the term "Syrian Kurdistan" and the idea that anything quoted above is of any relevance or of WP:DUE importance or even interpreted correctly is wholly wrong. Ocalan, a person from Turkish Kurdistan, has repeatedly referred to the existence of a "Western Kurdistan", and the quotation of what he once told a Syrian journalist while a refugee in Syria more than four decades ago cannot be interpreted as a statement about reality. Given that Mehrdad Izady has been rejected as an authority for the climate of northern eastern Syria, because editors decided he was too Kurdish nationalist, that Abdullah Öcalan should now be cited as an authoritative source about far more controversial matters is really quite a surprise and to my mind quite unjeustifiable! GPinkerton (talk) 23:35, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Elapsed time does not change historical facts, whether they are 5 years old or a century old. I never said that Ocalan is a neutral person, he certainly is not. But when you have three prominent Kurdish nationalists (THREE, not only Ocalan) denying the idea of a Syrian Kurdistan, then saying there is a Syrian Kurdistan would sound like "More royal than the king". Trying to interpret "why X said this" and "why Y thinks that" is WP:OR. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 01:07, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: I'd like to draw your attention to two comments made above by Fiveby who was not part of the dispute. The comments here and here summarize the situation we are dealing with. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 01:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

We know why Ocalan said that, and to whom, and why. It is all explained in the article you keep quoting from and is utterly inconsequential to the purposes of an encyclopaedia. GPinkerton (talk) 15:17, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

What else should be in the lead?

Thanks again to everyone for chiming in about the proposed first sentences in the section above. I also wanted to gather opinions about what else should be in the lead beyond the first sentence. Below is a list of topics I think should be covered in the lead, in roughly the order I think they should be addressed. I think all of these items could be summarized in the first paragraph, or they could take up multiple paragraphs, but at this point I'm thinking more about what should be included, without worrying about exactly how to phrase it or how much space to spend on each item. I'm sure I've missed some important items, but here is my list:

1. Geographic description in relation to Syria (e.g., consists of three discontinuous areas on the northern border of Syria, and maybe the names/locations/descriptions of each of those three areas)
2. Geographic description in relation to Kurdistan (e.g. it's a "Lesser Kurdistan", brief description of the other Kurdistans)
3. That its boundaries are disputed and not clearly defined
4. Geographic size estimate (sq km)
5. Population size estimate and demographics (e.g. ethnicies, religions)
6. Government
7. Economy
8. History of the place
9. History of the name or concept "Syrian Kurdistan"
10. A summary of the controversy surrounding the name/concept of "Syrian Kurdisan"

I would be interested to hear what everyone else would put on their list and in what order. Levivich ^harass/_hound 23:00, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

• I believe you did a great job. For me, I think it is important for the first paragraph to have these elements, in order: 1-3-2-9-10- and then it does not matter which paragraph: 4-5-6-7-8. The important thing is not being biased to one pov. So sentences to avoid are, for example, "Syrian Kurdistan was split from Turkish Kurdistan", as if the regions in Syria were acknowledged as regions of Kurdistan prior to WWI and that this was a given fact. Ofcourse, such sentence will be no problem, but only if a contemporary source can be provided, dating to that period, mentioning the partition of Kurdistan between Turkey and France, when that partition happened. Anything else will be original research or modern scholarship that may be affected by current politics instead of historic realities.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 23:09, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The fact Kurdistan was divided between four states is undeniable and already well-established. Any suggestion that all academia may be affected by current politics instead of historic realities is a suggestion that would be WP:PROFRINGE the idea that we need to resort to WP:OR and WP:PRIMARY is incorrect. It is a given fact that regions in Syria and Turkey were considered Kurdistan prior to WWI, and this has already been proven numerous times, and not one iota of evidence has ben advanced in favour of the postulated contrary view. GPinkerton (talk) 23:22, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
    • Can you just leave my opinion alone? You dont have to reply to everything. There are no given facts without sources. Anything else would be simply OR. If its a given fact, then it can be proven by contemporary evidence.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 23:25, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
• 2,1,3, to begin with, including a rough description of its relation to real-world concepts like rivers and mountains. (As I have suggested in the section above.) Very soon is required a mention of the Partition of the Ottoman Empire, the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon, and the Treaty of Ankara (1921) which separated Syrian Kurdistan from Turkish Kurdistan; probably less significant is the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. Facts and figures of size and (pre-war) population can come second-last; 21st-century politics and post-2011 developments last. GPinkerton (talk) 23:12, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Gpinkerton, your comment about "which separated Syrian Kurdistan from Turkish Kurdistan" in regards to history, Ottoman Empire, French Mandate is not following real historical events. We already discussed this before. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 05:30, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

It is certainly true that you has said so before, though it is also true that nothing has been advanced in evidence of this claim. Other, more reliable sources take the opposite view, and none differ in this respect of reporting these basic historical facts.

Hassanpour, Amir (2005), Shelton, Dinah L. (ed.), "Kurds", Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, Macmillan Reference USA, pp. 632–637, retrieved 2020-11-30, The majority live in Kurdistan, a borderless homeland whose territory is divided among the neighboring countries of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. … The dismantling of the Ottoman empire in World War I led to the division of its Kurdish region and the incorporation of that territory into the newly created states of Iraq (under British occupation and mandate, 1918–1932), Syria (under French occupation and mandate, 1918–1946), and Turkey (Republic of Turkey since 1923). The formation of these modern nation-states entailed the forced assimilation of the Kurds into the official or dominant national languages and cultures: Turkish (Turkey), Persian (Iran), and Arabic (Syria, and, in a more limited scope, Iraq).

GPinkerton (talk) 14:49, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

"division of its Kurdish region" not "Syrian Kurdistan". Also, Amir Hassanpour is a kurdish writer. So its a kurdish pov. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 14:53, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Kurdistan, a borderless homeland whose territory is divided among the neighboring countries of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Are you going to claim the Oxford English Dictionary which says exactly the same thing, is also a kurdish writer. So its a kurdish pov? GPinkerton (talk) 14:58, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

In history no one has ever talked about a "Syrian Kurdistan". In modern times, some kurds, but also a few others that follow the kurdish pov have started to use the phrase, but as other sources show, its not an official name and it is very disputed, and therfor must be presented as disputed terminology throughout this article and wikipedia in general.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 15:06, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I believe such proposals contravene both WP:GEVAL and WP:COMMONNAME. The lead sentence already states that it is not always called Syrian Kurdistan and gives two alternatives, less used: "Western Kurdistan" and "Rojava". No more coverage of this so-called "dispute" is either necessary or important. GPinkerton (talk) 15:15, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I think it's more than "a few others that follow the kurdish pov" who use the phrase "Syrian Kurdistan" to refer to those areas of northern Syria. Usage of the term increased significantly since the civil war but even before that, Google NGrams shows the phrase used in English since mid-20th century (although of course I agree that mid-20th century is "modern"). Google Scholar has 978 hits for "Syrian Kurdistan", but only 47 before 2010. There's no disputing that the phrase was in use before the war, but there's also no disputing that the phrase has become much more prevalent since the war. IMO that's not surprising and is basically explained by the rise of AANES. Levivich ^harass/_hound 19:01, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

And besides that, Google Ngrams also shows "Kurdistan syrien" dates from the time of the French Mandate, at the latest. GPinkerton (talk) 19:27, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, as a policy point, the simple fact an academic is Kurdish does not make their pov a Kurdish pov. Macmillan Reference is a reputable publisher. It's fine to say an assertion should be attributed, but not to say it shouldn't be included simply because the author was Kurdish. —valereee (talk) 16:20, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Proposed illustration

I propose the following be added to the article. (The free use means it's needs to be added or will be deleted and is not even be allowed on the talk page.) This image: File:Kurdistan_on_the_1945_San_Francisco_Conference_map,_the_1946_Rizgari_United_Nations_memorandum_map,_and_the_1947_Cairo_map.png with the following caption: Maps of Kurdistan drawn in the 1940s, showing various definitions of Syrian Kurdistan. Top: map presented at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in 1945; Centre: map from the Rizgari Party's memorandum to the United Nations in 1946; Bottom: map drawn in Cairo in 1947. All are reproduced from O'Shea, Maria T. (2004). Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan. New York and London: Routledge. pp. 151, 154. ISBN 978-0-415-94766-4.

These maps have very vague "sources". 1. Who at the San Francisco Conference conference made it? 2. "drawn in Cairo in 1947" By whom? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:06, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

See the book. GPinkerton (talk) 20:07, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I cant access the book.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

According to O'Shea, they are from: 1.) Nikitine, Basile, Les Kurdes. Étude Sociologique et Historique (Impremerie Nationale, Libraire Klincksieck, Paris 1956), p. 205. "No further details available"; 2.) Rizgari Party map presented to the American Legation in Baghdad to be forwarded to the United Nations Organization in 1946; and 3.) "Notes Concerning the Map of Kurdistan (Elias Modern Press, Cairo 1947) "Unknown authors" . GPinkerton (talk) 20:25, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

No problem with it, as long as every map is ascribed to who made it, so that we dont have to open the book, but in the caption itself it should be clear who made it.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 20:17, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Attar-Aram syria, so long as the map source is properly cited and is verifiable, I don't see an issue with it being included in the article. Jurisdicta (talk) 23:30, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Jurisdicta, that ping broke. You have to get the username exactly correct, then also sign, all in the same post. You can't go back and fix it but instead if you break it, must start fresh with a new ping and signature. There's a script you can install at User:Enterprisey/reply-link that will help with this. —valereee (talk) 23:45, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, thank you for bringing this to my attention, I appreciate it. Jurisdicta (talk) 21:03, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure this would count as fair use unless there was sourced commentary in the body about the maps themselves. I don't think we can "fair use" a map just for the purpose of showing where a place is/was; we'd have to be talking about the map itself in the article. But that issue aside, because the image is tagged as fair use and is too big, a bot will come along and reduce the file size, and I think at that point the image will be too small to be readable and thus won't be useful at all. Levivich ^harass/_hound 00:09, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

• Just popping in with my NFCC hat on to say that you can justify a non-free image if "its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." Whether this particular map can meet this criteria, I am unsure. Black Kite (talk) 10:29, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

• @Black Kite:, Levivich perhaps you can advise on whether the file needs to be fair use at all? The maps themselves are from the 1940s, but are reproduced from a book from this century. There is information about the maps in the book, so that can be used, and as for "omission would be detrimental to that understanding", I think it is essential that contemporary images showing Kurdistan extending into French Syria are included, since it has previously been denied that such a concept existed prior to the late 20th century, or even prior to the civil war, so obviously some doubts exist which could easily be settled by a look at these three images. GPinkerton (talk) 14:18, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

  @GPinkerton: I'm not sure if these maps are public domain or otherwise covered by copyright (that is, if they need to be fair use at all); it would depend in the first place on exactly where, when, and how they were published. If they were first published in the 1940s in the US with a valid copyright statement, I believe they would still be in copyright and thus they'd have to be fair use. However, at least one of them is a UN map, and I have no idea about the copyright status of UN works. As yet another layer of complication, I'm unclear about whether the maps were entirely created in the 1940s, or did the authors of the map take a pre-existing map and shade in the areas of Kurdistan on it? Because if they took a public domain map and shaded in parts of it, that's probably not copyrightable. Sorry, I have more questions than answers when it comes to the copyright status of these maps!

  Maps are certainly key to this article, though Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:52, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

• What about a newly drawn map, faithfully representing the outlines on one of the older maps, uploaded to Commons as "attributed as 'after unknown authors'" cited to the Elias Modern Press source or whoever? —valereee (talk) 15:58, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Valereee: Certainly that would be ideal; there are quite a few such maps in that book and all would be useful in Wikipedia, particularly these three historical ones. I'm not the one to deal with .svg editing or anything though! GPinkerton (talk) 17:32, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton, yes, unfortunately neither am I. Perhaps someone here has the skills/tools? Or I think sometime in the past I've seen some sort of "ask for maps here" noticeboard. —valereee (talk) 17:43, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

17th floor, third door on the left passed the vending machines: Wikipedia:Requested pictures Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:53, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Levivich I added a request at the top but I'm not sure it's done right. GPinkerton (talk) 18:33, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! It looks right to me but then I don't think I've ever used that template. Levivich ^harass/_hound 18:53, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, (Mae West voice): you really know your way around this place. —valereee (talk) 20:49, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

"Kurdistan"

The article Kurdistan defines "Kurdistan" in the lead sentence as a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurdish people form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity have historically been based. Does anyone object to using that phrasing in this article, or this altered form: a roughly-defined geo-cultural area in Western Asia inhabited by Kurds? Levivich ^harass/_hound 22:06, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

The problem with having that quote about an area in Syria is that other sources show that to be heavily disputed, specially in regards to "historically been based". --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 05:01, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, would adding that it's disputed make it work for you? Something like "a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurdish people form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity are prominent; the historical implications are disputed." Implications isn't the right word, and that puts prominent in there twice, but I haven't had enough coffee yet. —valereee (talk) 13:13, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I think that the current lead is good and does not need to be changed.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 15:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

My support you have for such phrases. I have started a similar discussion called What reliable source opposes that there exists a Syrian Kurdistan. Maybe the discussion there can give you some insights what the possible answers could be.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 01:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, as you say, Kurdistan is "roughly defined", meaning every map will be different, different in space and time. The Treaty of Sevres map shows the proposed state of Kurdistan by the WWI allies. The demographics in Kurdistan have dramatically shifted/still shifting. See this book for a description of Diyarbakir province in the late 19th century. It talks about the demographic distribution of the across the different areas of the province My point is that that city (and province to a great extent), now considered by some as the capital of Kurdistan, had a three way population split, Armenians, Kurds and Arabs. One has to be careful when describing a specific geographical area from an ethnic standpoint (sorry, I might be echoing Fiveby here). Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 06:02, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

That it is about a geo-cultural region and not! of a political entity like the Kurdistan Eyalet or a hypothetical Kurdistan as portrayed in the Treaty of Sevres. This I tried to explain several times already arguing that -stan after Kurdi = Kurdistan simply denotes that it is the "land of Kurds". Lets just go with the hundreds (English, French etc.) of sources that describe a division of Kurdistan into 4 different countries out of which Syrian Kurdistan, Turkish Kurdistan, Iranian Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan arose.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 09:18, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

عمرو بن كلثوم, The Treaty of Sevres's Kurdish state was not a representation of Kurdistan but just the part of Turkish Kurdistan that would not be part of the big Armenian state that also never eventually existed. There is no relevance to Syrian Kurdistan because it was projected to be under French control just as Iraqi Kurdistan was under British, as eventually happened. East Kurdistan, being already part of Iran and no part of the partition of the Ottoman Empire, it also nowhere mentioned by the Sevres Treaty, which has, ultimately, very little to do with this subject. GPinkerton (talk) 13:54, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Exactly, the Treaty of Sevres didn't talk about a a Syrian Kurdistan because there was no such thing. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 17:30, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

عمرو بن كلثوم, Indeed, in those days it was just West Kurdistan. There was no Syria either. GPinkerton (talk) 17:35, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Per the text you added, West Kurdistan refers to Diyrabakir. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 17:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

عمرو بن كلثوم, Not true. The source (and the text I added) says Diyarbakir is in West Kurdistan. The idea "West Kurdistan" could ever be a synonym for a single city is logically impossible as well as linguistically and geographically absurd. GPinkerton (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Again asking for opinions, this time about this formulation:

1. Before the Syrian Civil War, "West Kurdistan", "Western Kurdistan", and "Rojava Kurdistanê‎" (lit. "Kurdistan where the sun sets"), shortened to "Rojava", referred to the western part of Kurdistan (a Kurdish-inhabited area in central Asia), including Kurdish-inhabited areas of Syria ("Syrian Kurdistan") as well as the western part of Kurdish-inhabited areas of Turkey ("Turkish Kurdistan"), as shown (roughly) on this map (originally published in 1993).
2. Since the Syrian Civil War, "West Kurdistan", "Western Kurdistan", "Rojava Kurdistanê‎", and "Rojava" refer to Kurdish-inhabited areas of Syria ("Syrian Kurdistan") (and not to Turkish Kurdistan) as shown (roughly) on these Syrian Kurdistan maps at Commons, including AANES as shown (roughly) on the lead map at that article.

I'm not proposing this for the lead, just wondering if editors agree or disagree that this is an accurate summary of what the RS say. Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, I think the "West" nomenclature is a confusing and imprecise distraction. I'm not wholly sure the map in 1.) is representative of the same divisions; I think the seven principal divisions there are linguistic boundaries distinct from the fourfold geopolitical division referred to in most of the literature. And, no the meaning of Syrian Kurdistan and "Western Kurdistan" has not changed since the previous century, except as to be interchangeable with the Kurdish-led administration of the area emerging since 2011. GPinkerton (talk) 21:05, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

@GPinkerton: Meaning, at all times, "Rojava" referred to Kurdish-inhabited areas of Syria, and not any areas of Turkey? Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:26, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, I can't answer on the usage in Kurdish in particular, but certainly "Western Kurdistan" has been synonymous with Syrian Kurdistan in English long before the war. The source above refers to our meaning of the names on p. 200 as the three fragments of Kurdistan along Syria's northern and northeastern borders with Turkey and Iraq and as "Syrian Kurdistan" on p. 17; I think the "western Kurdistan" Izady refers to is a different one which is off-topic and possibly his own classification. (But does include both Diyarbakir and Syrian Kurdistan!) GPinkerton (talk) 21:40, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton, what do you make of Ismet Cheriff Vanly, writing in 1993 (pp. 139-140), describing Iraqi Kurdistan: Kurdistan in Iraq is often referred to as Southern Kurdistan but in fact it occupies a more or less central position in the Kurdish territories. It is the link between what is variously known as Turkish, Northern or Western Kurdistan to the north and north-west, and so-called Eastern or Iranian Kurdistan to the east and south-east, and it also borders on the mainly Kurdish areas of the Syrian Jezireh. Vanly also seems to be referring to Turkish Kurdistan as part of Western Kurdistan? Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:56, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, technically that book is from the 1970s, the English translation was from the 1990s. On the face of it, it adds to the case that the "western" label is confusing and much more ambiguous that the "Syrian" option. It's also certainly true that most of Syrian Kurdistan is contiguous with the Turkish side so it would make sense that culturally it would be lumped together as one. (See my comments in the section below regarding Bin Xhet and Ser Xhet.) GPinkerton (talk) 22:05, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, the text you just quoted above clarifies exactly what we are advocating here. There are Kurdistan parts in Iraq, Turkey and Iran, but in Syria they are refered to "Kurdish-inhabited areas". Per Fiveby, saying Kurdish-inhabited areas in Syria has many ethno-nationalistic implications. The situation in Syria is and has always been different the the other three countries. Western Kurdistan is around Diyarbakir in Turkey. In Syria on the eve of WWI there was not enough Kurds to justify the use of Syrian Kurdistan, per Vanly above. Remember this is another Kurdish activist, same as Izady, and the maps presented by Izady go against all other ethnographic maps of the area (mostly British) or French mandate demographic description/statistics. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 22:07, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

عمرو بن كلثوم, No, there are contiguous "Kurdish-inhabited areas" in four states, and the areas in Syria are called "Syrian Kurdistan". GPinkerton (talk) 22:08, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

"-stan"

That -stan denotes a land and Kurdi before -stan gives Kurdistan I have tried to explain several times. More descriptive 5 times between the 13 and 25 of November. You can review the diffs here,

[here],

here,

here,

here on the 23rd and 25th November 2020, I added the comment that I haven't received an answer yet on this, and this stood this way. I am actually still waiting for an argument which refutes this -stan argument. Can I assume there is no opposition to this then on the Syrian Kurdistan article talk page and Kurdistan was therefore divided between Syrian, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran giving way to Syrian Kurdistan, Turkish Kurdistan, Iranian Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan which is actually described in multiple academic sources on the topic.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 09:18, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Paradise Chronicle, we are going around in circles and I am really fatigued of this right now. In 1939 the french census of the Jazira region showed the bulk of the population being Arabs/Assyrians/Armenians and a minority being Kurds. We have several sources describing how kurds came in waves after waves from Turkey to Syria. We have several sources saying "Syrian Kurdistan" is not real. How can Wikipedia then possibly claim that in the 1920s a "Syrian kurdistan" existed in Syria that was divided? This claim is only a belief held by some people. This is a kurdish narrative that some people go along with. And other do not. It is not a historical fact. It is highly disputed, and it must therefor be presented as a disputed belief in the article. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 09:39, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

That Kurd Dagh is Kurdish since centuries and not only after the French Mandate and that Bohtan span over parts of Northern Syria is stated here in the discussion it is so stated also in their respective articles. The Barazi Tribal confederation who wanted an autonomy for the Kurdish region around Jarabulus in Syria was also Kurdish. This denial comes from SD, who wanted to move the article Syrian Kurdistan to Kurdish occupied Regions in Syria in the midst of a the Siege of Kobane by ISIL (also known as ISIS) The Kurds have mainly (I don't know of any battle the YPG or SDF had against non-Jihadist factions in which they captured localities) captured localities from Jihadists and ISIS and haven't attacked the Syrian Governments positions which holds significant and tolerated enclaves within the Autonomous Administration. Call this attempted Move the POV you like, but sources for this can mainly be found in ISIS and other Jihadi outlets or Assadist or Turkish state propaganda.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:54, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, I am glad that you are tired of repeating this incorrect claim. We have already seen that it is contradicted by the reliable sources, so repeating it further is unlikely to be fruitful. We have already read that The northeastern corner of Syria ... has been Kurdish majority since official records began in the last century. (O’Leary, op. cit.) so unsourced claims to the contrary like these are not going to be considered, as it has already been proved it was a malicious fiction dreamt up by Arab nationalists to claim that there is no such thing as Syrian Kurdistan. As we have read, Kurds have been inhabiting northern Syria for centuries but their numbers were increased even more by refugees from the various wars waged against them in Turkey, this situation regarding the Turkish origin of some Syrian Kurds provided the Syrian rationale for the disenfranchisement of many of these Kurds in modern Syria, which began with the French mandate under the League of Nations following the First World War and the removal of the short-lived rule of Faisal as king. After much acrimony, a French-Turkish agreement arbitrarily made the Baghdad railway line that ran between Mosul in Iraq and Aleppo in Syria the present border between most of Turkey and Syria after it crossed the Iraqi-Syrian boundary. Indeed even today many Kurds in Turkey and Syria who live on either side of the border do not refer to themselves as coming from those states. Rather, for the Kurds of Turkey, Syria is Bin Xhet (below the line), and for the Kurds of Syria, Turkey is Ser Xhet (above the line). and The situation regarding the Turkish origin of some of the Syrian Kurds described in Chapter 1 provided the Syrian government’s rationale for the disenfranchisement of many of these Kurds in modern Syria. Never mind the fact that before the Sykes-Picot Agreement artificially separated the Kurds of the Ottoman Empire into three separate states after the First World War (Turkey, Iraq and Syria) all of these Kurds had lived within a single border. Gunter, Michael (2014). Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War. London: C. Hurst and Co. pp. 9, 19. ISBN 978-1-84904-531-5. GPinkerton (talk) 13:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Source for that kurds were a minority in 1939 French census is CADN, Cabinet Politique, Box 505, no. 204/DJ, from the High Commissariat de la République Française en Syrie et au Liban, Délégation de la Haute Djézireh to Monsieur le LT. Colonel Inspecteur Délégué, 8 February 1939 and can be accesed in Algun, S., 2011. Sectarianism in the Syrian Jazira: Community, land and violence in the memories of World War I and the French mandate (1915- 1939). Ph.D. Dissertation. Universiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands. Page 11 Link --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 14:59, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, actually the source says the opposite, so your comment is wholly mistaken. The totals are actually given on page 12. They state:

• Kurds: 53,315
• Kurdo-Christians: 2,181
• Yazidis: 1,602
• Arabs: 29,769
• Christians: 27,316
• Armenians: 4,200
• Assyrians: 8,767

As can clearly be seen, the Kurds (even when counted separately to Yazidis and "Kurdo-Christians") are by far the majority in the area, almost twice the size of any other surveyed group. It's obviously not necessary to discuss this irrelevant point any further, since it is clear that the claim: kurds were a minority in 1939 French census is both completely wrong and refuted utterly by the source alleged to support the claim. GPinkerton (talk) 16:53, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Kurds/Kurdo-Christian: 53.315 + 2181= 55,496 kurds. Arabs/Nomads/Christian/Armenian/Assyrian: 29.769 + 25.000 + 27.316 + 4200 + 8767 = 95.052 Non-kurds (Did not ad 1602 Yeezidis to either side as their origin is disputed). --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 18:33, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, Correct. As you can see, the Kurds are a clear majority. GPinkerton (talk) 18:36, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Non-kurds are the majority.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 18:40, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, "non-Kurds" is not a demographic. Kurds are the majority.

majority, n.
Being greater; the greater part.
- OED

Adding up all the minorities does not make the minorities a majority. The "greater part" of the population were Kurds, just as all the reliable sources say. GPinkerton (talk) 18:45, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

In 1939 kurds were the largest minority but they were not the majority. The majority, the greater part were Non-kurds. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 18:48, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, that's not how the word majority works. What you describe as "largest minority", without any group larger than itself, is in fact the majority, being the "greater part" of the population. QED. GPinkerton (talk) 19:11, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

SD, if you check the demographic info of each district (also on page 12) and not just the whole Governorate the Kurds are a large majority of almost 100% in at least two of the 4 districts.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 00:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

GPinkerton HEre is a more neutral account about northern Syria and Kurds, compared to the POV sources you cite. This is again, ANOTHER evidence about the origin of Kurds in northeastern Syria from a declassified CIA report in 1948.

The Kurds constitute a relatively small minority in Syria and Lebanon. Kurdish communities of long standing are located in the Kurd Dagh area of northwestern Syria, but the largest concentration is in the Jazirah section of northeastern Syria, where a considerable number of Kurdish immigrants settled after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Small but politically active Kurdish communities exist in Damascus and Beirut. The Kurds, along with other minorities, are accorded equal rights and privileges with the majority groups in Syria and Lebanon. They have parliamentary representation and generally concede that they have received fair treatment in such matters as road-building, construction of schools, and administration of justice. Nevertheless, many of them feel that their integrity as a group is in jeopardy. This feeling is most noticeable in Beirut and Damascus, which have become centers of Kurdish nationalist propaganda, and among the non-native immigrant Kurds, who have retained their traditional hatred of alien domination. The immigrant group has provided most of the leaders of the Syrian and Lebanese Kurds, notably the Badr Khan family, Dr. Ahmad Nazif, and Hassan Hajo Agha.

The intensive Kurdish immigration continued after the mandate authorities left. David McDowall states the following: Arab nationalists had good reason to be paranoid about internal and external enemies. Nowhere was the Syrian Arab cause less assured than in the north where so many non-Arab communities lived, particularly in al-Hasaka governorate. The population had grown rapidly, and it was the growth since 1945 that gave cause for Arab concern. In its own words, the government believed that 'At the beginning of 1945, the Kurds began to infiltrate into al-Hasakeh governorate. They came singly and in groups from neighbouring countries, especially Turkey, crossing illegally along the border from Ras al'Ain to al-Malikiyya. Gradually and illegally, they settled down in the region along the border in major population centres such as Dirbasiyya, Amuda and Malikiyya. Many of these Kurds were able to register themselves illegally in the Syrian civil registers. They were also able to obtain Syrian identity cards through a variety of means, with the help of their relatives and members if their tribes. They did so with the intent of settling down and acquiring property, especially after the issue of the agricultural reform law, so as to benefit from land redistribution.' Official figures available in 1961 showed that in a mere seven year period, between 1954 and 1961, the population of al-Hasakah governorate had increased from 240,000 to 305,000, an increase of 27 per cent which could not possibly be explained merely by natural increase. The government was sufficiently worried by the apparent influx that it carried out a sample census in June 1962 which indicated the real population was probably closer to 340,000. Although these figures may have been exaggerated, they were credible given the actual circumstances. From being lawless and virtually empty prior to 1914, the Jazira had proved to be astonishingly fertile once order was imposed by the French mandate and farming undertaken by the largely Kurdish population.... A strong suspicion that many migrants were entering Syria was inevitable. In Turkey the rapid mechanisation of farming had created huge unemployment and massive labour migration from the 1950s onwards. The fertile but not yet cultivated lands of northern Jazira must have been a strong enticement and the affected frontier was too long feasibly to police it.

In addition to McDowall (1998), McDowall (2004), de Vaumas, Gibert and Fevret, Sykes map (1907) (and many more) this should conclude our discussion about the origins of Kurds in northeastern Syria (i.e. the majority of them (if not all) immigrated from Turkey). When you claim these areas are "part of Kurdistan", what does that make of the native population (majority) living on their lands before Kurds arrived? Trespassers? Does that sound fair to you? Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 06:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Amr ibn Kulthoum, thank you for bringing this important and valuable information about kurds infiltrating from turkey into Syria. This must be added into the article. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 06:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)