1995-10-01a- CIA Conference Report: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN THE 1990S GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES 01-Oct-95

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Iraq exemplify this situation, in spite of claims made Kurdish people and the lifting of some of the restric-
on behalf of autonomy for them by Assyrian immi- tions on the use of the Kurdish language.
grant groups in the United States. Nor have the Arabs
of southeastern Turkey or in the Khuzistan Province Kurds have adopted different strategies for promotion
of Iran posed a serious threat to Turkish or Iranian of their cause, depending on opportunities available in
authority. Indeed, when the Iraqis invaded Iran in the countries where they reside. They have seldom
1980 they expected the Arabic-speakers of Khuzistan expressed enthusiasm for the benefits of Iranian, Iraqi,
to welcome liberation from Iranian rule. Instead, as or Turkish citizenship. It is Kurdish citizenship that
Shiites, the Arabs in this part of Iran had good reason they desire or at least autonomy as a transitional stage
to see benefit in the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini and en route to independence. The frustration of Kurdish
danger for them in the Sunni or secular bias of the nationalism has been a consequence of its collision
government of Saddam Husayn. The same religious with Iranian, Iraqi, and Turkish nationalism. The loca-
bond explains why the Azeri of northern Iran rejected tion of the Kirkuk oilfield in northern Iraq is an addi-
the prospect of merger with the neighboring Soviet tional complication. Kurdish successional aims in Iraq
Republic of Azerbaijan during World War II. have been supported by Iran and, to a lesser extent, by
Turkey, while Kurdish nationalism in both these coun-
tries has been suppressed. Because assimilation is
The Problem of Kurdistan rejected by Kurdish leaders, Kurdistan is and doubt-
less will remain a nonstate nation.
Estimates of the number of Kurds vary widely, from
less than 15 million to more than 30 million. In the Kurdish nationalism is an even more intractable prob-
negotiations that accompanied the division of the lem than Palestinian nationalism. Although the latter
Ottoman Empire after World War I, various prospects problem has a large international dimension, it relates
were suggested for the Kurds, ranging from local essentially to the relationship between two nonassimi-
autonomy to independence. In fact, they became a lable peoples: Arabs and Jews. The nonstate status of
shadow nation in northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and Kurdistan derives from a more complicated relation-
southeastern Turkey. During World War II, when ship among Kurds and Arabs, Turks, and Iranians. In
Soviet troops occupied northern Iran, Kurds enjoyed each case they have been or can be regarded as candi-
some autonomy and, under the Mahabad Republic of dates for absorption. Although autonomy may be a
1946, even a brief period of nominal independence. In realizable aspiration, independence within a territory
1974, after several years of civil war, Kurds in north- relinquished by three states is difficult to imagine.
ern Iraq were granted a high degree of autonomy, Kurdistan is best described, therefore, as a cultural
including recognition of the coequal status of Kurdish geographic reality that happens coincidentally to be a
and Arabic as official languages of the region. Most of political geographic impossibility.
the provisions of this agreement were never imple-
mented, and Kurdish autonomy became a dead issue
when the Iran-Iraq war began in 1980. In Turkey, Lebanon in Retrospect
Kurds, often called "Mountain Turks," have sought to
achieve recognition and hence to resist assimilation. The disastrous conflict in Lebanon offers a useful
Kurdish nationalism in Turkey developed in response focus for examination of the circumstances that can
to denial of such recognition 4nd the enforcement of transform instability, present in many Middle Eastern
laws inspired by Article 57 of the Turkish constitu- countries, into warfare. For three decades Lebanon
tion, which forbids "activities that aim at destroying seemed to be functioning not only as a plural society
the ethnic unity of the Turkish people." In response to but, more remarkably, also as the world's only plural-
the Gulf war and some pressure from the European istic theocracy. We now know that it was only an
Community, the Turkish Government is now enter- unsuccessful experiment.
taining thoughts of at least qualified recognition of the
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