Some in another post were complaining about a lack of knowledge of history.
Well if "we let the Kurds down", we are just another in a long line of guilty countries.
"fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me"
"Throughout history, the plight of the Kurdish people—often described as the largest ethnic group without a state of their own—has been primarily shaped by the policies of the four nations where their ancestral lands are located, as well as by colonial powers that redrew the region's borders after World War I.
r a long history of suالمركز الكردي للدراسات
المركز الكردي للدراسات
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Primary Regional Actors
The four modern nation-states that currently encompass most Kurdish territory have historically engaged in varying degrees of political and ethnic persecution:
The Washington Institute
The Washington Institute
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Turkey: Responsible f
oppression, including the Dersim massacre (1937–38), where an official report noted over 13,000 deaths. Turkish policy for decades included the "Turkification" of Kurdish regions, which involved banning the Kurdish language, dress, and names, and labeling Kurds as "Mountain Turks" to deny their distinct identity.
Iraq: Under the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein, Kurds faced genocidal campaigns. The Anfal campaign (late 1980s) resulted in 50,000 to 182,000 deaths, including the infamous chemical weapons attack on Halabja that killed 5,000 people in a single day.
Iran: Has a history of marginalizing its Kurdish population and suppressing autonomy movements. The Iranian government used military force to crush a Kurdish rebellion in 1979 and has periodically carried out executions of Kurdish political activists.
Syria: Long engaged in the "Arabisation" of its northern regions, stripping many Kurds of citizenship and banning their language and cultural expressions.
Middle East Research and Information Project
Middle East Research and Information Project
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Colonial and International Powers
Key international players have b
een identified as responsible for the lack of a Kurdish state and for tactical betrayals during conflicts:
Great Britain & France: Following World War I, these powers drafted the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), which carved the region into spheres of influence without regard for ethnic boundaries. While they initially proposed a Kurdish state in the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), they ultimately abandoned this in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) to secure peace with the new Republic of Turkey.
United States: Frequently criticized for a cycle of support and abandonment. Notable instances include withdrawing support in 1975 after the Algiers Accord between Iraq and Iran, and the 2019 withdrawal of troops from northern Syria, which left Kurdish allies vulnerable to Turkish military incursions.
search (ECPR)
European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR)
Soviet Union: Provided intermittent support for Kurdish movements to further its own regional interests, only to withdraw aid when geopolitical priorities shifted, such as the dissolution of the short-lived Republic of Mahabad in 1946.
Middle East Research and Information Project
Middle East Research and Information Project
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Other Noted Historical Actors
The Ottoman and Safavid Empires: In earlier centuries, these empires used the Kurdish regions as a buffer zone, often leading to destructive wars on Kurdish soil.
Regional Complicity: More recent reports mention countries like Qatar, Kuwait, and Pakistan as having been complicit in "ethnic cleansing" by funding residential settlements for non-Kurds in Turkish-occupied areas of northern Syria.
European Consortium for Political R
e"
and not taking names. The militant islamists body count should be major.☠
