In the s the PKK rolled back on its demand for independence, calling instead for greater cultural and political autonomy, but continued to fight. In , a ceasefire was agreed after secret talks were held. The ceasefire collapsed in July , after a suicide bombing blamed on IS killed 33 young activists in the mainly Kurdish town of Suruc, near the Syrian border.
The PKK accused the authorities of complicity and attacked Turkish soldiers and police. Since then, several thousand people - including hundreds of civilians - have been killed in clashes in south-eastern Turkey. Turkey has maintained a military presence in northern Syria since August , when it sent troops and tanks over the border to support a Syrian rebel offensive against IS.
Those forces captured the key border town of Jarablus, preventing the YPG-led SDF from seizing the territory itself and linking up with the Kurdish enclave of Afrin to the west.
Dozens of civilians were killed and tens of thousands displaced. Turkey's government says the YPG and the PYD are extensions of the PKK, share its goal of secession through armed struggle, and are terrorist organisations that must be eliminated. Turkey's fear of a reignited Kurdish flame. Profile: The PKK. Before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in most lived in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo, and in three, non-contiguous areas around Kobane, Afrin, and the north-eastern city of Qamishli.
Syria's Kurds have long been suppressed and denied basic rights. Some , have been denied citizenship since the s, and Kurdish land has been confiscated and redistributed to Arabs in an attempt to "Arabize" Kurdish regions. When the uprising evolved into a civil war, the main Kurdish parties publicly avoided taking sides.
In mid, government forces withdrew to concentrate on fighting the rebels elsewhere, and Kurdish groups took control in their wake. In March , they announced the establishment of a "federal system" that included mainly Arab and Turkmen areas captured from IS. The PYD says it is not seeking independence, but insists that any political settlement to end the conflict in Syria must include legal guarantees for Kurdish rights and recognition of Kurdish autonomy.
President Assad has vowed to retake "every inch" of Syrian territory, whether by negotiations or military force. His government has also rejected Kurdish demands for autonomy, saying that "nobody in Syria accepts talk about independent entities or federalism".
They have historically enjoyed more national rights than Kurds living in neighbouring states, but also faced brutal repression. But it was not until that he launched a full armed struggle. In the late s, the government began settling Arabs in areas with Kurdish majorities, particularly around the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and forcibly relocating Kurds.
The policy was accelerated in the s during the Iran-Iraq War, in which the Kurds backed the Islamic republic. In , Saddam Hussein unleashed a campaign of vengeance on the Kurds that included the chemical attack on Halabja. Its violent suppression prompted the US and its allies to impose a no-fly zone in the north that allowed Kurds to enjoy self-rule.
The parties co-operated with the US-led invasion in that toppled Saddam and governed in coalition in the Kurdistan Regional Government KRG , created two years later to administer Dohuk, Irbil and Sulaimaniya provinces.
Massoud Barzani was appointed the region's president, while Jalal Talabani became Iraq's first non-Arab head of state. In September , a referendum on independence was held in both the Kurdistan Region and the disputed areas seized by the Peshmerga in , including Kirkuk. The vote was opposed by the Iraqi central government, which insisted it was illegal. The Kurdish region is eventually divided among several countries. When the uprising is defeated, Barzani and his forces retreat to Kurdish areas in Iran and align with nationalist fighters under the leadership of Qazi Muhammad.
It is blamed on Arab nationalists. Within two weeks, the Iraqi government dissolves the Kurdish Democratic Party. Kurdish is recognized as an official language, and an amendment to the constitution states: "the Iraqi people is made up of two nationalities: the Arab nationality and the Kurdish nationality. Iraq gives up claims to the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, while Iran agrees to end its support of the independence seeking Kurds.
The following year, PUK takes up an armed campaign against the Iraqi government. Into the s, Kurds are forcibly removed from the Iranian border as Kurds are suspected of aiding Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War. The conflict eventually spreads to Iran, Iraq and Syria. Iraqi forces destroy more than 4, villages in Kurdistan. It is believed that some , Kurds were killed.
Thousands of people are believed to have died in the attack. There is a mass exodus of Kurds out of Iraq as more than a million flee into Turkey and Iran. After allied support to the Kurds is denied, Iraq crushes the uprising. Two million Kurds flee, but are forced to hide out in the mountains as Turkey closes its border. Iraqi forces are barred from operating within the region, and Kurds begin autonomous rule, with KDP leading the north and PUK leading the south.
This is brokered by the United States, and the accord is signed in Washington. Turkish forces still combat PKK, including military incursions into northern Iraq. Kurds demonstrate throughout the city, and unrest spreads to nearby towns in the following days, after security forces open fire at the funerals. During the heyday of Arab nationalism from to , Kurds came under increasing repression, partly because of their close identity with the Syrian Communist Party.
Many Kurds were arrested, imprisoned and tortured. In a census in Jazira discounted , Kurds as foreigners. In the following year the government announced a major population transfer, intended to settle Arabs all along the Turkish border. Although never fully implemented, 60, Kurds left the area for Damascus.
Repression lessened, but continued under Hafez al-Assad. In March police fired on thousands of Kurds in traditional dress gathered in Damascus to celebrate a spring festival, killing one. Syria supported the Kurdish movement in Turkey and Iraq at the time, and in politically active and nationalist Kurds were elected to the Syrian Parliament. Yet domestic repression of Kurds continued. Government pressure on Kurdish land rights, exacerbated by drought in the second half of the s, accelerated Kurdish urbanization.
In , after US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Iraqi Kurds rapidly consolidated their power in northern Iraq, Syrian relations with Turkey improved markedly — borne of a common fear of a Kurdish state that could make territorial claims on the two countries.
The situation for Syrian Kurds took a decided turn for the worse in Clashes between Arab and Kurdish fans after a football match in March led to Syrian security forces in Qamishli opening fire on crowds for two days running. Kurdish anti-government riots spread to other cities, and security forces killed 38 people, injured hundreds and detained over 1, more.
In April , a year-old Kurd was reportedly tortured to death in prison in Afreen. Although the government released most of the Kurds detained in March over the following months, in June it banned political activities by Kurdish parties.
In May , Sheikh Mohammed Mashouq al-Khaznawi, a cleric who had been outspoken regarding discrimination against Kurds, disappeared. Authorities told his family the following month that his body had been found. He had been tortured.
Following his funeral, some 10, Kurds took to the streets in Qamishli but were beaten, and Kurdish shops were raided. On several occasions, Syrian security forces opened fire on crowds of Kurds celebrating Kurdish New Year Newroz in Qamishli, killing 3 people in March and one person in March In October , the Syrian government issued Decree 49, which aimed to evict the inhabitants of border areas in Syria from their lands.
This particularly affected the Kurdish minority who, under Syrian law, were forbidden to buy and sell property or bequeath it to their heirs. At the same time, the impact of drought on Kurdish farming forced many Kurds to leave their villages and cities, heading for Damascus in search of jobs.
Police violently prevented an October rally in Damascus in support of the approximately , Kurds who were stateless as a result of the s government scheme. Instability in Iraq indirectly led to more violence between Syrian Kurds and state authorities in As Turkish anger over cross-border Kurdish rebel incursions from northern Iraq increased over the course of the year and Turkey massed troops at the frontier, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited Turkey to express his support.
With the crisis mounting, in early November around Syrian Kurds took to the streets in the north-eastern town of Qamishli, near the Turkish and Iraqi borders, to express their support for Iraqi Kurds. Government security forces broke up the rally with bullets and teargas, killing one young Kurd and injuring four others.
Thousands of Kurds attended the funeral of the Kurdish youth the following day. In April , shortly after the start of the uprising, the Assad government sought to placate minorities in Syria by issuing Decree No.
However, as the citizenship process included an interview with the state security apparatus and possible military conscription, many Kurds declined to go through with it. Kurdish areas initially did not witness many protests for two reasons. But some Kurds did participate in the uprising.
Beginning in March , Kurdish activists were arrested due to their participation in the opposition local coordination committees. Leading Kurdish activist Mashaal Tammu was killed on 7 October, when armed men forced him out of a house during a meeting with activists and shot him dead.
His funeral, which turned into the biggest demonstration in the Kurdish areas since the uprising began, was attended by 50, people. State security forces fired on protesters, killing six and wounding several others. The lack of government presence in the Kurdish areas during the early stages of the civil war gave them more freedoms and they started teaching the Kurdish language, which was forbidden before the March uprising. In July , Kurdish forces launched a campaign to gain control over towns and villages controlled by al-Qaeda affiliated militias in Kurdish-inhabited enclaves in the north.
Following military victories, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party announced steps towards self-rule of the Kurdish dominated regions in November. Their security forces presented themselves as a pan-ethnic organization defending all the communities in the region, including local Christian communities such as the Syriacs. In May of the same year, the group kidnapped nearly Kurdish civilians from the village of Qabasin. Beginning in September , ISIS besieged the Kurdish city of Kobane, cutting off food supplies, water and electricity from the city and causing over , people to flee.
The autonomous administration, known as Rojava in Kurdish, has introduced positive practices of respect for the rights of linguistic and religious minorities and uses three official languages Kurdish, Arabic and Aramaic. In March , Kurdish leaders declared Rojava to be a federal region. In December of the same year, a constitutional blueprint was approved for the region, which was renamed the Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria.
Neither the Syrian government nor the opposition Syrian National Coalition recognize the legitimacy of the northern federal region. Despite this worrying global situation, we reaffirm our commitment to safeguarding the rights of minority and indigenous communities and implementing indivisible human rights for all. Sign up to Minority rights Group International's newsletter to stay up to date with the latest news and publications.
Since August, MRG has been assisting Afghan minority activists and staff from our partner organizations as their lives and their work came under threat with the return of the Taliban. We need your help. For the last three years, we at MRG have run projects promoting freedom of religion and belief across Asia. In Afghanistan we have fostered strong partnerships with amazing local organizations representing ethnic and religious minorities.
They were doing outstanding work, educating minority community members about their rights, collecting evidence of discrimination and human rights abuses, and carrying out advocacy. Not all have been able to flee. Many had no option but to go into hiding. Some did not have a valid passport.
Activists can no longer carry out the work they had embarked on. They can no longer draw a salary, which means they cannot feed their families. With a season of failed crops and a cold winter ahead, the future is bleak for too many. We refuse to leave Afghanistan behind. We are asking you today to stand by us as we stand by them. We will also use your donations to support our Afghan partners to pay their staff until they can regroup and make new plans, to use their networks to gather and send out information when it is safe to do so, and to seek passports and travel options for those who are most vulnerable and who have no option but to flee to safety.
Azadeh worked for a global organization offering family planning services. Standing for everything the Taliban systematically reject, Azadeh had no option but to flee to Pakistan.
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