Turkey continued its attacks against Kurds in northern Syria on Monday after Kurdish militia killed two people in cross-border mortar attacks. It marked an escalation of retaliatory attacks following Turkish air offensives over the weekend – which reportedly killed 11 civilians – and a fatal bomb attack in Istanbul last week.
Ankara has launched fatal air strikes against Kurds in northern Syria and Iraq, while Tehran has mounted missile attacks on dissident Iranian Kurds in northwestern Iraq while staging a deadly crackdown in Kurdistan province.
Turkey attacked fighters from the outlawed Turkish Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and allied Syrian Kurdish Protection Units (YPG) which Ankara has blamed for the November 13th bombing in central Istanbul which killed six people and wounded 81.
The PKK has mounted a 40-year armed insurgency in Turkey which has killed 40,000 people, while the US-backed YPG has assumed control of enclaves along the Syrian-Turkish border as well as a wide wedge of territory in northeastern Syria. The PKK has been branded a “terrorist” movement by the US and EU, but the YPG has provided ground forces in Syria which defeated Islamic State (also known as Isis) and continues to battle fugitive fighters from this movement.
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Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose approval rating has been volatile ahead of June’s general election, expects an electoral boost from tough action against the Kurds. This has in the past improved his standing with ethnic Turkish voters but not with Kurdish electors who dominate the country’s southeast. Although he has been told by Washington not to strike Syrian Kurds, he could mount a proposed offensive in the run-up to the election.
Iran has targeted Kurds in eastern Iraq to punish civilians in that country’s Kurdish province for launching 10 weeks of nationwide anti-regime protests led by women and girls. Unrest was precipitated by the death in mid-September in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini (22), a Kurdish woman, for “improper” wearing of the hijab and failing to cover her hair.
The Kurds were promised a state after the dissolution of the Ottoman empire following the first World War. But this did not materialise when Britain and France carved up the region and set the boundaries of modern Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Since then Iraqi and Syrian Kurds have staged rebellions and established autonomous regions. Turkish Kurds initially fought for political and cultural rights before shifting to independence or autonomy, while a minority of Iranian Kurds have been converted to separatism.
Kurds have made no secret of seeking to establish an independent state in northwest Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey and west Iran. They are oft-persecuted outsiders. By ethnicity they are Indo-Aryans rather than Turks, Arabs or Persians. They speak regional dialects of Kurdish rather than Turkish, Arabic or Farsi. In some regions Kurds differ in religion from the majority.
Many Kurds in Turkey are Alevis, members of a 13th century non-Muslim sect. While a majority of Iraqi Kurds are Sunnis, a minority are Yezidi, an ancient monotheistic faith. Most Kurds in Shia-majority Iran are Sunnis or belong to small esoteric faiths.
Turkish and Iranian Kurdish separatists have long-established offices and bases in Iraq’s Kurdish region. While Turkey has routinely bombed Kurdish paramilitary posts there, Iran has not followed suit although it rejects Kurdish separatism.