The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey. According to various estimates, they compose between 15% and 25% of the population of Turkey.; ; Sandra Mackey, "The reckoning: Iraq and the legacy of Saddam", W.W. Norton and Company, 2002. Excerpt from pg 350: "As much as 25% of Turkey is Kurdish." UNICEF Children in the Population There are Kurds living in various provinces of Turkey, but they are primarily concentrated in the east and southeast of the country within the region viewed by Kurds as Turkish Kurdistan.
During the violent suppressions of numerous Kurdish rebellions since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, such as the Sheikh Said Rebellion, the Ararat rebellion, and the Dersim Rebellion, massacres have periodically been committed against the Kurds, with one prominent incident being the Zilan Massacre. The Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" until 1991,Turkey - Linguistic and Ethnic Groups - U.S. Library of CongressBartkus, Viva Ona, The Dynamic of Secession, (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 90–91. and denied the existence of Kurds. The words "Kurds" or "Kurdistan" were banned in any language by the Turkish government, though "Kurdish" was allowed in census reports. Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish languages were officially prohibited in public and private life.Toumani, Meline. Minority Rules, New York Times, 17 February 2008 Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. In Turkey, it is illegal to use Kurdish as a language of instruction in both public and private schools. The Kurdish language is only allowed as a subject in some schools.
Since the 1980s, Kurdish movements have included both peaceful political activities for basic civil rights for Kurds in Turkey as well as armed rebellion and guerrilla warfare, including military attacks aimed mainly at Turkish military bases, demanding first a separate Kurdish state and later self-determination for the Kurds. According to a state-sponsored Turkish opinion poll, 59% of self-identified Kurds in Turkey think that Kurds in Turkey do not seek a separate state (while 71.3% of self-identified Turks think they do).Some Kurdish movements, such as Kurdistan Freedom Hawks have targeted also Kurdish and Turkish civilians.
During the Kurdish–Turkish conflict, food embargoes were placed on Kurdish villages and towns. There were many instances of Kurds being forcibly expelled from their villages by Turkish security forces. Many villages were reportedly set on fire or destroyed. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, political parties that represented Kurdish interests were banned. In 2013, a ceasefire effectively ended the violence until June 2015, when hostilities renewed between the PKK and the Turkish government over Turkish involvement in the Syrian civil war. Violence was widely reported against ordinary Kurdish citizens and the headquarters and branches of the pro-Kurdish rights Peoples' Democratic Party were attacked by mobs.
History
Middle Ages and early modern period The Marwanid dynasty, which was of Kurdish origin, ruled a territory from Diyarbakir that included parts of Syria and Iraq from 984 to 1083. The Ayyubid dynasty, also of Kurdish origin (but identifying first and foremost as Muslims), ruled parts of Anatolia in the 12th and 13th centuries.
According to Ahmet Nezihî Turan the first Kurdish settlement in Central Anatolia was named Kürtler ("Kurds"), founded in Yaban Âbâd (present-day Kızılcahamam-Çamlıdere near Ankara) in 1463.Ahmet Nezili Turan, Yaninâbâd Tarihini Ararken, Kızılcahamam Belediye Yayınları, 1999. According to Mark Sykes, the earliest population transfer (or exile) of Kurds to Central Anatolia was carried out during the reign of Selim I (1512–20).Mark Sykes, "The Kurdish Tribes of the Ottoman Empire", The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. XXXVIII, 1908.
The enacted in 1540 recognizes ethnic and social differences of the Muslim communities under the Ottoman rule, which characterizes the Turkmen nomadic tribes as Boz Ulus (grey nation) and the Kurdish nomadic tribes as Kara Ulus (black nation).
The Mahmudi or "Pinyanişi" was an Ottoman-Kurdish tribe in the Lake Van region, who according to Evliya Çelebi had 60,000 warriors. Their chief, Sarı Süleyman Bey, strengthened the Hoşap Castle in the Lake Van region, in 1643.
19th century
After ca. 1800, the Cihanbeyli, Reşwan and Şêxbizin tribes migrated into central Anatolia from the east and southeast. The total Kurdish population in Turkey was estimated at 1.5 million in the 1880s, many of whom were nomadic or pastoral.
20th century
Before the foundation of Turkey, the Kurds were recognized as their own nation. The Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal also recognized the Kurds as a nation at the time and stated that provinces in which the Kurds lived shall be granted autonomy. After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, which ended the caliphates and sultanate in Turkey, there have been several Kurdish rebellions since the 1920s: Koçkiri Rebellion,Hans-Lukas Kieser, Iskalanmış barış: Doğu Vilayetleri'nde misyonerlik, etnik kimlik ve devlet 1839–1938, , (original: Der verpasste Friede: Mission, Ethnie und Staat in den Ostprovinzen der Türkei 1839–1938, Chronos, 2000, ) Beytüşşebab rebellion, Sheikh Said Rebellion, Dersim Rebellion, Ararat rebellion. The policy towards the Kurds changed most prominently in 1924, as the new constitution denied the Kurds autonomy. The Kurdish people and their language were soon oppressed by the Turkish Government, as the Turkish Constitution of 1924 prohibited the use of Kurdish in public places, and a law was issued which enabled the expropriation of the Kurdish landowners and the delivery of the land to Turkish speaking people. Through the Turkish History Thesis, Kurds were classified as being of Turanian origin, having migrated from Central Asia 5000 years ago. Hence, a Kurdish nation was denied and Kurds were called Mountain Turks. From 1927 on, a General Inspector ruled over the First Inspectorate General through the implementation of emergency decrees and martial law. The areas around Hakkari, Mardin, Siirt, Urfa, Van, Elaziğ and Diyarbakır were under his rule until 1952, when the government of the Democratic Party brought a new approach towards the Kurds and closed the General Inspectorates.
Referring to the main policy document in this context, the 1934 law on resettlement, a policy targeting the region of Dersim as one of its first test cases, with disastrous consequences for the local population. The aim or the law was to spread the population with non-Turkish culture in to different areas than their origin, and to settle people who were willing to adhere to the Turkish culture in the formerly non-Turkish areas. The Fourth Inspectorate General was created in January 1936 in the Dersim region and the Kurdish language and culture were forbidden. The Dersim massacre is often confused with the Dersim Rebellion that took place during these events. In 1937–38, approximately 10,000-15,000 Alevis and KurdsDavid McDowall, A modern history of the Kurds, I.B.Tauris, Mayıs 2004, s.209 were killed and thousands went into exile. A key component of the Turkification process was the policy of massive population resettlement.
After the 1960 coup, the State Planning Organization (, DPT) was established under the Prime Ministry to solve the problem of Kurdish separatism and underdevelopment. In 1961, the DPT prepared a report titled "The principles of the state's development plan for the east and southeast" (), shortened to "Eastern Report". It proposed to defuse separatism by encouraging ethnic mixing through migration (to and from the Southeast). This was not unlike the policies pursued by the Committee of Union and Progress under the Ottoman Empire. The Minister of Labor of the time, Bülent Ecevit of partial Kurdish ancestry,Ercan Yavuz, "Kürt kökenli olabilirim", Akşam, August 4, 2004. Mahmut Çetin, Çinli Hoca'nın torunu Ecevit, Emre Yayınları, 2006, p. 18. was critical of the report. From the establishment of the Inspectorate Generals until 1965, South East Turkey, was a forbidden area for foreigners.
During the 1970s, the separatist movement coalesced into the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. From 1984 to 1999, the Turkish military was embroiled in a conflict with the PKK. The village guard system was set up and armed by the Turkish state around 1984 to combat the PKK. The militia comprises local Kurds and it has around 58,000 members. Some of the village guards are fiercely loyal to the Turkish state, leading to infighting among Kurdish militants.
Due to the clashes between Turkish Army and the PKK the countryside in the southeast was depopulated, with Kurdish civilians moving to local defensible centers such as Diyarbakır, Van, and Şırnak, as well as to the cities of western Turkey and even to western Europe. The causes of the depopulation included the Turkish state's military operations against Kurdish population, some PKK atrocities against Kurdish clans they could not control and the poverty of the southeast. In the 1990s, hope for an end to the conflict emerged, as the PKK has declared several ceasefires and the political society has organized several campaigns to facilitate a reconciliation.
"Evacuations were unlawful and violent. Security forces would surround a village using helicopters, armored vehicles, troops, and village guards, and burn stored produce, agricultural equipment, crops, orchards, forests, and livestock. They set fire to houses, often giving the inhabitants no opportunity to retrieve their possessions. During the course of such operations, security forces frequently abused and humiliated villagers, stole their property and cash, and ill-treated or tortured them before herding them onto the roads and away from their former homes. The operations were marked by scores of "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions. By the mid-1990s, more than 3,000 villages had been virtually wiped from the map, and, according to official figures, 378,335 Kurdish villagers had been displaced and left homeless."
21st century In 2009, under the lead of Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, a short-lived peace process was started, but was not supported by the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) over concerns over the ethnic and national unity of the state. It ended in December 2009, following an attack on Turkish soldiers by the Kurdistan Workers' Party on the 7 December and the ban of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) on the 11 December 2009. In 2010, after clashes between the PKK and the government forces in eastern and southeastern Turkey, several locations in Iraqi Kurdistan were attacked by the Turkish Air Force early in June 2010. The air attack was reported 4 days later in a news article released immediately after the attack.Turkish air force bombs Kurdish rebels in Iraq: TV report The tense condition has continued on the border since 2007, with both sides responding to each other's every offensive move.
Following Turkey's electoral board decision to bar prominent Kurdish candidates who had allegedly outstanding warrants or were part of ongoing investigations for PKK-links from standing in upcoming elections, violent Kurdish protests erupted on April 19, 2011, resulting in at least one casualty.