The international community must not neglect the continued violation of the rights of Kurds under President Erdogan’s regime and utilise the opportunity of Turkiye’s elections to ensure that the Kurds get what they truly deserve.
Kurds are an ethnic community having their own cultural and linguistic traditions that have lasted for thousands of years. After World War I, the Western governments promised them their own homeland but that has not materialised even after seven decades. Today, approximately 30 million Kurds are spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran with almost half of them living in Turkey. Among these, Iraq has an autonomous Kurdistan province known as Iraqi Kurdistan.
Turkiye’s Persecution of Kurds
Turkiye has been involved in the criminal persecution of Kurds for years and has a policy of ‘assimilating’ the Kurds into Turkish ethnic identity, denying their culture and traditions. According to The Kurdish Project, the persecution has increased under President Erdogan, whose “iron hand” policy against Kurds has suppressed them using all means, neglecting their unique identity and forcibly assimilating them into Turkish identity. Such has been the scenario under President Erdogan that Kurds in Turkey are ‘free’ to be Kurds only when they accept that they are Turkish citizens.
Relations between ethnic Kurds and Turks have been remarkably strained in recent history. Turkey’s modern borders run right through Kurdistan. Kurdistan, a historically Kurdish region that is not a state, includes areas in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Since the founding of Turkey, Kurdish culture, language, and expressions of identity have been heavily suppressed, and tensions have increased significantly over the past 40 years.
Retired US diplomat Fred Lundahl says, “What the Kurds have had to deal with in order to get anything done, to get any sense of respect, has always been hard”. The Turkish government has suppressed Kurdish culture to the extent where Kurdish families cannot even choose the names they give their children. In 2003, Turkish authorities passed a reform law aimed at restricting the use of names that use the letters x, q, and w, which are traditionally found in Kurdish names. “Because they [the Kurds] were immediately recognised by their names […] they were basically suppressed during this time”, claims Lundahl. Around the same time, in a criminal case, authorities in the southern Turkish city of Diyarbakir tried to prosecute seven parents who gave their children Kurdish names. The prosecutor claimed that the names were secret codes for a plot by Kurdish terrorists against the Turkish government. Although the judge ultimately dismissed the case, state opposition to Kurdish expression continued.
The role of the US, NATO and Russia
The USA’s engagement in eastern Syria has been challenging for Washington as continued instability caused by the Islamic State has hampered USA’s presence in the region. Moreover, the United States needed a reason for its presence, and thus, amid all this, in 2015, the United States tried to partner with Kurds and later formed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The USA and its allies like France, and the UK continues to arm Kurds fighters, which served many purposes for Washington as it was a direct answer by Washington to the Islamic state. Moreover, it can also act as the proxy for the USA in the region. But the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces was opposed by President Erdogan, as this brought him a dual continental problem, causing problems for Turkey both within and outside. Turkiye had long-standing differences with the Kurdish Workers Party, also known as the PKK, an organisation that Turkiye consider a terrorist organisation. Amid this, the added external problem of the SDF and its continued buildup by Western-aided support brought them closer to the Turkiye border, raising problems for Turkiye. Erdogan sees the Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria as terrorists linked to the PKK.
Several geopolitical experts are of the opinion that there is no real nationalist anger against ISIS, but there is nationalist anger against the PKK. They opine that PKK is an internal challenge for Erdogan, but the Islamic State is not a direct challenge for Turkey and Erdogan.
Turkiye hosts Syrian refugees who have migrated from war-torn Syria, but the conditions in which these refugees live are questionable as Turkiye’s faltering economy and recent earthquake have made it worse. As a result, President Erdogan has decided to relocate these refugees back to Syria. But relocating them back to Syria requires the removal of Kurdish militias from northeastern Syria. President Erdogan has pledged to create a safe zone in Syria so the refugees can return to their homeland. However, this decision by President Erdogan has raised several humanitarian questions. Many say that President Erdogan wants to get rid of the refugees at any cost.
In recent years, Turkish operations inside Syria have increased. One of these was “Operation Dragon” which was a counter to the explosions reportedly caused by PKK inside Turkey. But the Turkish offensive in Syria further destabilized the region and the major impact has been on the SDF. Ever since President Erdogan came to power, the SDF presence around Turkiye in Syria has reduced. The SDF entered into an agreement with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad with mediation from Russia. Since Russia has been an outright supporter of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime and rejects the American presence in the region, it has been an opportunity for Russia to not only act as a stable agent but also reduce the presence of the US in the region.
The recent problem with Sweden’s accession to NATO has been due to the opposition by Turkiye, which says that Sweden has long supported the PKK terrorist group and that Turkiye in return needed the extradition of PKK affiliates from Sweden. Though on April 4, 2023, Finland became a member of NATO, the Turkish position was the same. Many say that Turkiye’s opposition to Sweden is part of Erdogan’s agenda to politicise and this would weaken NATO amid the Ukrainian war. Many members have demanded that Turkiye be expelled from NATO.
Impact of the Kurds on the Elections
A leader of the Kurdish-led Halkların Demokratik Partisi (HDP) says that if there is an open, honest, and sincere debate, the HDP can support Klçdarolu within the bounds of certain principles. Instead of joining the Nation alliance (“Table of Six“), HDP is getting ready to run in the elections under the Labour and Freedom alliance, which has been developed with other left-wing democratic parties and platforms. The Kurdish-led party is thinking about engaging in negotiations within the parameters of the HDP’s “Justice, Democracy, and Peace Proclamation” in exchange for Klçdarolu’s support. The main components of this declaration are Strong democratic institutions, an independent court, adherence to popular opinion, and a democratic resolution.
With the Turkish presidential election right around the corner and Kurds trying to be the kingmakers in the new government, President Erdogan’s policies against Kurds matter. The international community must not neglect the continued violation of the rights of Kurds under President Erdogan’s regime and utilise the opportunity of Turkiye’s elections to ensure that the Kurds get what they truly deserve.
(The author is a post-graduate student in International Relations at Kalinga University, Raipur. The opinions expressed are the author’s own)
Dr. Niranjan B Poojar 
Bhagyashree Gupta 
Balaji Subramanian