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Kurdish soldiers in Urumia, 1918

Kurdish soldiers in Urumia, 1918
By #Rojin Mukriyan#
After the First World War, the Kurds, like other non-Turkish nationalities in the Ottoman empire, were presented with what seemed like a golden opportunity to establish their own nation-state. Articles 62 to 64 of the Treaty of Sèvres, signed on 10 -08-1920, called for the establishment of an independent Kurdish state. However, these articles were dropped in the Treaty of Lausanne signed on 24-07-1923. The usual interpretation of these events is the Kurds missed their opportunity for independence. However, this lead us to ask some important questions: was Sèvres really such a golden opportunity? If it was, why did the Kurds miss it? To answer these questions, one first needs to understand why the Treaty of Sèvres was not implemented. One would need to discern what was actually offered to the Kurds. There were many factors that prevented the implementation of the Treaty of Sèvres.
The dominant narrative focuses on the fact that it was the victorious Allies who divided Kurdistan to achieve their imperial ambitions and to contain Bolshevik Russia. By looking back to the trajectory of the events between 1919 to 1923, we can also find evidence that Bolshevik Russia aided Mustafa Kemal and so played an essential role in leaving the Treaty of Sèvres unimplementable. The lack of a unifying alliance within Kurdish society among its many tribal and political groups also hindered the Kurds’ ability to organise themselves under definitive leadership. While important factors, I will argue that the main reason that Sèvres failed was that it was designed based on a conception of nation-statehood that necessities the centralisation of power so as to create a monolithic national identity, something for which the Kurds and Kurdish society showed very little interest or propensity. The process of the centralisation of power itself presupposes strong leadership, something which the very nature of Kurdish society disavowed.
The war of empires that is called World War I (WWI) started in the Balkans and ended in the Middle East.(3) Prior to the end of the war, the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot (Britain and France) agreement provided the road map for the execution of the war in the Middle Eastern Front. This agreement transformed the Middle East from the periphery to the centre of the war. It was also designed to contain the rivalry between France and Britain by decreasing their mutual distrust.(4)The Sykes-Picot agreement divided the Kurdish territories, which were under Ottoman rule, between several different spheres.(5) A part of Kurdistan fell under British influence, another under French influence, a third area under direct French rule and another part awarded to Russia.
The territory of the Ottoman empire was gradually occupied by Allied Powers, especially after the invasion of Baghdad by British forces on 19 March 1917. While the November Armistice of 1918 ended the land war in Europe, the war continued in the Middle Eastern Front. British and French forces entered Istanbul after the 1918 Armistice of Mudros. They established their military administration. Following this, Greece, which was encouraged by the Allies, attacked Smyrna hoping to achieve its share of the Sykes-Picot treaty in May 1919. The war of Smyrna signified the start of the end of the settlement of the war in the Middle East.(6)The Greek occupation then motivated and fortified the Turkish nationalists attempt to block the implementation of the Sèvres. Italy also landed its forces at Antalya. The Eastern section of Turkey was placed under Armenian rule.(7)
The Treaty of Sèvres was thus signed between the victorious Allied Powers of World War I and the defeated Ottoman government on 10 August 1920. It divided the ‘empire’s lands’ into various European spheres of influence, just as it was designed in the 1916 secret Sykes-Picot agreement. Articles 62 to 64 of the Treaty promised the establishment of an independent Kurdistan in southeastern Anatolia under the influence of Britain, which northern Iraqi Kurds were free to join. However, the boundaries of this Kurdistan did not include the entire Kurdish region. For example, Wan (Van) was not part of Kurdistan based on the Sèvres boundaries. The Turkish National Movement (a group of Turkish nationalists who unified under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha in 1919) rebelled against partitioning and the Treaty of Sèvres. The Turkish War of Independence, which was a series of military campaigns conducted by the Turkish National movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, lasted from 19 -05-1919 to 24 -07-1923.
The isolated Turks, through their National Movement to gain what they saw as their territory, were ready to cooperate and make a strategic alliance with the Bolshevik regime of Russia.(8) Post-1917 Russia was also to gain international recognition and spread its revolutionary ideas in the Middle and Near East. It established relations with the National Movement of Turkey. This relationship was an exit from both Russia and Turkey’s international isolation. Both governments sought to preserve their very existence against a common enemy. The Entente then came to the logical decision for cooperation, which could be mutually beneficial.(9)However, they were different in the essence from each other. While geostrategic factors of the region and historical periods made them strategic allies, their ideological goals were quite distinct. For example, Mustafa Kemal, in a speech in the Turkey Grand National Assembly, underlined that the struggle he was leading was never on the same line with the principles of the Bolsheviks: “Our thoughts and principles, as known by everyone, were not the principles of the Bolsheviks and we did not impose the principles of Bolsheviks to our nation.”(10)
In a letter to Lenin written by the Soviet Foreign Affairs Public Commissioner, Chicherin, dated 27 September 1920, we see how the Bolsheviks perceived Turkey as an important tactical ally:
According to the western radio, Kemalists were in poor conditions due to inadequacy of their military materials. Defeat of the Kemalists would result in the victory of the Muslim fanaticism…. Therefore, the continuation of the presence of the Kemalists was highly important for us, and weapons had to be sent them.”(11)
The first unofficial contact between the Nationalists and Bolsheviks was on 25 May, 1919 in Havza, where Mustafa Kemal met personally with the Bolshevik delegation.(12) By autumn 1919, Mustafa Kemal was receiving support from Bolshevik Russia. Thereafter, Kemal successfully affirmed his position amongst his Kemalists, who demanded complete independence for Turkey and which claimed a right to all non-Arab Ottoman territories, including Kurdistan, beyond the armistice line.(13) British forces also faced difficulties at this time as the government was under internal domestic pressures to end the war. It was also facing the prospect of the Irish War of Independence (1919-21). These events turned the tide more in favour of Mustafa Kemal.
The signing of the Treaty of Sèvres occurred within the context of the Turkish War of Independence and coincided with massacres committed by Kemalist troops in the Caucasus. It is estimated that by winter of 1920, 50,000 Armenians had been killed. Kemalist forces used terror tactics, entered Smyrna, burnt all not-Turkish neighborhoods, recaptured the city, and eliminated non-Turks, in the process changed the name of the city to Izmir. Burning cities to the ground proved an effective way for the Kemalists to interrupt the resettlement of Armenians and reclaim Allied occupied territory in Anatolia. While the French faced defeat in Cilicia at Marash, the British had their own difficulties attempting to secure a foothold in the Caucasus. The Italians were also unable to make inroads against the Kemalists. The diplomatic crisis over the Treaty of Sèvres paralleled the humanitarian crisis in the Ottoman Empire that only continued to worsen. This was followed by 1921 Angora (Ankara) agreement between France and the Turkish nationalist government, which led to the withdrawal of 70,000 French troops from Anatolia. The secret Franklin-Bouillon agreement between France and the Kemalists in October 1921 put pressure on Anglo-French relations. This led to a conference in Paris in March 1922, where the Allies decided to abandon the implementation of the Treaty of Sèvres.(14)
The outcome of the Turkish War of Independence, especially with victories over Greek forces, put the new Kemalist government in a powerful position. It soon replaced the allied-backed government in Constantinople. The pro-Greek policy of David Lloyd George’s British government, in 1921-22, had created distrust between Britain and Mustafa Kemal. The British saw this distrust as needing to be rectified before Bolshevik Russia could make any effective use of it to extend its influence in Turkey. As Churchill maintained, peace with Turkey was of “utmost importance” both for the British government to reduce its costs in Iraq and to contain Russia’s southward advance towards the Persian Gulf. The appeasement of Turkey therefore was essential for the preservation of British imperial interests in the Middle East. Lord Curzon, the British representative in the Lausanne negotiations, told the Turks that the British were ready to drop articles 62 to 65 of the Treaty of Sèvres. By doing this, he hoped that this would eliminate a conviction held by Mustafa Kemal that it was still an aim of Britain to dismember Turkey by establishing a Kurdish state in Anatolia and northern Iraq. In return for this concession, Turkey was asked to join the League of Nations to complete the isolation of Bolshevik Russia. For this reason, the fate of the Kurds was subordinated at Lausanne to the Anglo-Russian struggle for influence in the Middle East. Kemal manipulated Bolshevik Russia as leverage against Western imperialism to turn the tide in favour of Turkish nationalism. Kurdish historians often seem to either miss or underplay this strategic dynamic when explaining the sources and outcomes of the transition from the Treaty of Sèvres to the Treaty of Lausanne, which is an analytic mistake considering Turkey continues to play a very similar game to this day as it aims to leverage and balance its relationship with both Russia and NATO.
Mustafa Kemal also successfully used propaganda to turn the Kurds, including various tribes, against the British. The Turks, one the one hand, provoked Kurdish apprehension against the Christian threat. On the other hand, they used the danger of Kurdish fanaticism and anti-Christian violence as grounds for closing the Kurdish clubs. In Kurdistan, there were fundamental conflicts concerning the very nature and function of governing and institutions. While there were officials elected based on their loyalty to the idea of either the state, administration, Crown, or so on; on the other hand, forms of personalised form of government based on religious and tribal strata remained predominant in Kurdistan.(15) Dynasticism and the feudal system in general dominated Kurdish politics during the era of the first World War. There were many different dynasties during the 19th and 20th centuries. Among these, two Kurdish dynasties played a major role in shaping Kurdish politics. The dynasty of Sayyids of Nihri and the Badr Khan.
The first one was religious and focused on autonomy, while the later one secular and focused on independence. During the first two decades of the 20th century, these two distinct tendencies developed often in conflict. Those seeking autonomy did not want to threaten the full socio-economic relationship between Kurdistan and the wider Ottoman Muslim community. They sought autonomy only within a broader Islamic community. The other tendency, toward independence, wanted full political separation and opted for ethnic independent nation-statehood. The tensions between these tendencies were nearly permanent and ubiquitous. Often these groups perceived each other as enemies. Dynastic, tribal, and now secular rivalries shaped Kurdish politics. Competition for leadership divided the chiefs, notables, and Sheikh s more than ever. As we see, the Kurds already were divided between the lines of secular/religious and autonomy/independence. These divisions deepened after British forces entered Baghdad in 1917. Now, the Kurds were also divided between pro-Turks (pro-Ottoman and Pro-Kemalist) and pro-British forces. It is from this angle that the British Political advisor, J.B. Hohler, in a letter from November 1919 from Istanbul, wrote to Curzon, claiming the Kurds “are like a rainbow of every shade of colour.”(16) In other words, there was no unified Kurdish opinion regarding what they wanted. As the British High Commissioner said in March 1919:
There exists much doubt whether independence or autonomy of Kurdistan is a proposition at all and in any case no such thing as ‘Kurdish opinion’ in the sense of coherent public opinion can be said to exist …. Few [Kurds] look higher than tribal aghas or religious Sheikh s amongst whom there is little common ground…. [The] few educated Kurds outside Kurdistan holding separatist ideas are very apt to exaggerate their own influence and importance (McDowall, p.132).
By the spring of 1919, there were three strands of political thinking among the Kurds: pro-Turkish (either pro-Kemalist or pro-Ottoman), pro-Allies (British), and among the Dersim Kurds, a desire for full independence from external interference. Contrary to the Turkish nationalists who could unify under Mustafa Kemal’s leadership, the sphere of influence of and support for Kurdish notables or tribal leaders and Sheikh s were territorially limited. It was hard to the point of impossible to claim or announce the leadership of one Kurdish leader. Also, any claims of leadership outside of their territory was viewed with scepticism. And it often deepened the already existing divisions among the chiefs in Kurdistan.
For example, Sheikh Mahmoud Barzinji had claimed his leadership of all Kurdistan, yet even neighbouring towns like Kifri, Jaf, and Khaniqin did not accept him as their leader. There was Sheikh Taha of Nihri, the grandson of Sheikh Ubaydulla of Nihri, the nephew of Abd al Qadir of Nihri, who was in Russia’s custody for most of the war. Sheikh Taha, through marriage, had good relations with Ismail Agha Simku. He approached authorities in Baghdad in April 1919 and hoped that he might be the leader of the Kurds. He was also urged by the idea of united Kurdistan, including Rojhilat (the portion of Kurdistan in Iran) while Simku had seized Urmiya (Urmia) itself. But Britain, by1918, made it clear that it did not advocate such a unified Kurdistan. The British had enough of an idea of Kurdish tribal rivalries to realize that successful unity and leadership amongst them was highly unlikely. They also used this rivalry to deepen the conflicts among the Kurds. For example, the British made a counter-proposal to Taha’s, that Taha become governor of a northern Kurdish entity that would be established under British influence. It would have ranged from Rawanduz to Shamdinan, but the British refused to give him the military means necessary to achieve this. So, he declined the proposal. Later, the British brought back the uncle of Taha, Sheikh Abd al Qadir, who did not have a good relationship with him. This then turned Taha to the Turks.
Recently, the Kurdish academic Loqman Radpey has claimed that the lack of Kurdish unity was also a result of British uncertainty regarding the Kurds. Obviously, Kurdish fate was not the only of British worries. As Radpey himself argues, in the post-war era, self-determination was reformulated for the purpose of “the reordering of political influence.” That is to say that the battle for influence in Kurdistan became the battle for the Kurds as a self-determining nation.(17)Indeed, the British did not have definitive policies regarding the future of Kurdistan, but one should not view the lack of Kurdish unity as a result of a lack of definitive British policies. Of course, the imperialist and dominant powers always did try to keep the Kurdish people fragmentated, and indeed Kurdish society is not inherently a homogenous society, but the main problem with the Treaty of Sèvres was that Western imperialists were imposing a specific model of nation-statehood on the Kurds that clearly was not appropriate for them.
The very definition of a ‘nation’ is itself a subject of immense disagreement. As Hugh Seton-Watson explains, no scientific definition of a nation can be fixed. Yet the phenomenon has existed and continues to exists. Nations are something. Often, the concept of a nation is defined in a way to prove that, in contrast to the community to which the definer belonged, some other group was not entitled to be called a nation.[18] The Eurocentric idea of nationalism was mostly alien not only to Kurdish society, but to the vast majority of Middle Eastern peoples. The majority of Middle Eastern peoples had to struggle to adopt nationalist ideologies, and only a very few were familiar with the concept as it was understood in Europe. As Edward Said, in Culture and Imperialism, demonstrates, the power to narrate or prevent the formation of other narratives was part of an imperial project to impose the frame of nationalism on non-European peoples.(19)In this respect, the imperialists did not have any intention to embrace the true nature of Kurdish society and its politics. Instead of accepting something like a decentralized Kurdish Confederation, their political and economic strategies favoured the establishment of unified, homogeneous, and centralised unity such as a nation-state.(20)Obviously, such a political form was not appropriate for the Kurds of the early of the early 20th century.
The Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed on 24-07-1923, divided Kurdistan from two parts to four, and some argue even to five parts. The battle of Chaldiran between the Ottoman and Safavids Empire in 1514 divided Kurdistan into two parts. This division was formalised in the Peace Treaty of Qasr-i-Shirin in 1639. As Thomas Schmidinger argues, the division of Kurdistan by the Treaty of Lausanne amplified the political division already present in the region.(21)It reinforced the already existing tribal and religious fragmentations in the region. It put Kurdish social realities through the wringer of the nation-state form, which has determined all political order, internally and internationally, for the past few centuries. With respect to the Kurds, Lausanne and the consequent formation of new nation-states in the region, established new political frameworks for the Kurdish political actors, but it left the Kurds stateless and struggling to express their politics through these new entities. Being stateless resulted in catastrophic political, economic, and societal consequences for the Kurds.(22) A range of top-down state policies such as ethnic cleansing, forced migration, assimilation, mass murder, and denial of existence imposed on minoritized (non-core) groups in each newly established nation-state left a people like the Kurds politically dominated by these new states. Policies that led to culturicide, linguicide, genocide and existential domination characterized the Kurdish 20th century. It left hundreds of thousands of Kurds citizenshipless as well.(23)
The division of Kurdistan between four different nation-state meant that they were relegated into distinct political, economic, and societal frameworks. Obviously, each nation-state develops its own political economy, and has different levels and type of incorporation into the capitalist world system. The separation of the Kurds into different political arenas and systems had political, economic, and societal consequences. This resulted in the formation of new political parties and Kurdish national movements in different parts of Kurdistan that resisted, to varying degrees, the dominant states they were now trapped in. For instance, as Kamran Matin (2020) argues, the deep and earlier transformation of the political economy of Turkey and Iran from feudal to capitalist systems, and their pro-West strategy especially post-World War II, provided a process of class transformation and a political and ideological condition favourable for the emergence of radical left tendencies within the Kurdish national movement. The establishment of the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê (Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK) in 1978 in Bakûr (Southeast Turkey) and the Revolutionary Organization of the Toilers of the Iranian Kurdistan (ROTIK), known as Komala in 1979 in Rojhelat (Northwest Iran) exemplify this result.
On the other hand, the system of indirect rule of the British empire continued the tribal policies and the cooperative system of tribal law with the state that already existed in the Ottoman empire. The Iraqi state, though, after its independence in 1932, inherited many of the ottoman political structures, including the cooperation of state and tribes in the judicial system and the feudal economic structures in rural Iraq. This changes only after the coup of Abdel Karim Qasim in 1958, and the land reform of the Iraqi republic also played a role in the uprising of parts of the Kurdish Aghas and tribal leaders against the Iraqi state. One can easily see, how tribal system had dominated the political power on Başûr (South Kurdistan/ Northern Iraq).
The division of Kurdistan into four different parts also minoritized the Kurds in terms of population. This fragmentation created more power imbalances between each particular branch of the Kurdish movement. The demographic imbalances brought by nation-statism also brought political power imbalances. This even made Kurdish actors too weak to fight without outside support, which repeatedly made them dependent on their supporters. This, in turn, increased political tensions between Kurdish political actors and enabled the ruling forces to continue to rule based on the principle of divide and conquer.
There is an even more important political dimension to this. Each branch of the Kurdish movement, and all the political parties, formulated their political strategies based primarily on the local socio-political conditions and then the international relations of the particular states they were trapped within. This led the strategies of different branches of the Kurdish movement to often diverge from, or even clash with, each other and in the process undermine the Kurdish movement as a whole. For example, the US-backed Pahlavi monarchy in Iran supported the Barzani family and their Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq in its struggle against the Soviet-backed Iraqi Ba’ath regime during the late 1960s. The KDP led by Mullah Mostafa Barzani therefore considered the anti-Iranian insurgency initiated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (PDKI) during 1968-1969 to be a danger to its tactical alliance with the Shah of Iran and therefore decisively suppressed it by force of arms. Another example is when Iran supported the Barzani family and the KDP in Iraq, while the Iraqi government helped Komala and the KDPI in the 1980’s. This ‘alliance’ sometimes led to clashes between different Kurdish political parties. The tribal divisions that contributed to the high unlikelihood of the implementation of the Treaty of Sèvres were transformed following the Treaty of Lausanne into the immense plethora of partisan divisions we find in Kurdistan today.
Reflecting on the Treaty of Lausanne at its 100th anniversary has thus led us to make two claims: the Treaty of Sèvres was doomed from the start and the Treaty of Lausanne was inevitable because of both savvy Turkish strategic calculations concerning Western fears of losing Turkey to Russia and the internal disunity and decentralised nature of Kurdish politics and society that thereby rendered the Western nation-state model inappropriate and inapplicable to the setting of greater Kurdistan. While hindsight is 20/20 and looking back through history tends to strip it of its contingency, we should also recognize and appreciate that the factors that led to the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne still pertain today. What has formally changed over the past 100 years? Not much. Instead of exploiting Western fears regarding the red menace of Bolshevik Russia, Turkey now plays both sides and leverages its relationship with a neo-imperial Russia so as to scare its fellow NATO members and extract concessions from them. Instead of only suffering tribal disunity, Kurdistan is characterized now by a partially tribal, but more often partisan, disunity that continues to leave the centralised and homogenous nation-state model inappropriate and inapplicable to broader Kurdish society.
I think we can draw a number of lessons from this century-long continuity of structural, strategic and political dynamics in the region, lessons mostly to do with the rarity of opportunities in politics and the long-grind of path dependency, but I would like to emphasize one further lesson that may be lost in this centenary year, and that is that Kurds need to work to obtain a decentralised political entity based on heterogeneity and plurality. Only by striving for this sort of political entity can Kurds finally not fall victim to Turkey’s exploitation of Western strategic gullibility and its own internal disunity. Kurds need to fight for just enough unity so to organize and render autonomous their disunity. Only a Kurdish confederation can achieve both. Only a Kurdish political entity based on plurality, heterogeneity, and autonomy can provide the self-defense requisite for avoiding the worst of the effects of the Treaty of Lausanne. This type of entity is neither a homogenous and centralized nation-state nor even a federated republic, but rather a heterogenous confederation. If the nation-state model demands centralised unity, and federalism offers a model of political existence without unity, then confederalism must offer a model of political existence and unity with disunity, based on the appreciation and championing of tribal and partisan plurality. It is hard to see any other way for the next hundred to not simply perpetuate the present state of dismal affairs initiated by the Treaty of Lausanne.
Bibliography:
Ali, O. (1997) ‘The Kurds and the Lausanne Peace Negotiations, 1922-23,’ Middle Eastern Studies, 33 (3), pp.521-534.
Azeez, H. (2023) ‘Lausanne Treaty: From Statelessness to Citizenshipless Kurds,’ Kurdish Centre for Studies. Available at: https://nlka.net/eng/lausanne-treaty-from-statelessness-to-citizenshipless-kurds/
Bokanî, K. (2017) ‘An untold story about the division of Kurdistan,’ New Eastern Politics, available at: https://www.neweasternpolitics.com/an-untold-story-about-the-division-of-kurdistan-by-kardo-bokani/
Kareem, M.S. (2022) ‘The Post-Ottoman order in the Middle East: Mark Sykes and the Complexity of Kurdish Question,’ British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 49(5), pp.937-956.
Korkmaz, T. (2017) ‘Mustafa Kemal and Turkey in the Correspondences of Soviet Bureaucrats (1918-1922)’, The Turkish Yearbook of International Relations, 48, p. 37-49.
Matin, K. (2020). ‘Liminal lineages of the “Kurdish question”’ (Version 1). University of Sussex. https://hdl.handle.net/10779/uos.23488328.v1
Mylonas, H. (2012) The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities, Cambridge University Press, New York.
McDowall, D. (1997) A Modern History of the Kurds, I.B. Tauris, New York.
Tusan, M. (2023) The Last Treaty: Lausanne and the End of the First World War in the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Tsvetkova, T. (2018) ‘Turkish National Movement and Soviet Russia in Caucasus (1919-1922), Journal of Balkan and Black Sea Studies, I (1), pp. 77-114.
Said, E.W. (2000) ‘Invention, Memory, and Place,’ Critical Inquiry, 26(2), pp.175-192.
Schmidinger, T. (2023) ‘100 Years After Lausanne: Cahllenges for the Kurds Across the Four Parts of Kurdistan,’ Kurdish Centre for Studies, available at:
https://nlka.net/eng/100-years-after-lausanne-challenges-for-the-kurds-across-greater-kurdistan/
Seton-Watson, H. (1977) Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism, Methuen & Co. Ltd, London.
Footnotes:
1-http://www.hri.org/docs/sevres/part3.html
2-Bokanî, K. (2017) ‘An untold story about the division of Kurdistan,’ New Eastern Politics, available at: https://www.neweasternpolitics.com/an-untold-story-about-the-division-of-kurdistan-by-kardo-bokani/
3-Tusan, M. (2023) The Last Treaty: Lausanne and the End of the First World War in the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, New York.
4-Tusan, M. (2023) The Last Treaty: Lausanne and the End of the First World War in the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, New York.
5-McDowall, D. (1997) A Modern History of the Kurds, I.B. Tauris, New York.
6-Tusan, M. (2023) The Last Treaty: Lausanne and the End of the First World War in the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, New York.
7-McDowall, D. (1997) A Modern History of the Kurds, I.B. Tauris, New York.
8-Tsvetelina Tsvetkova, T. (2018) ‘Turkish National Movement and Soviet Russia in Caucasus (1919-1922), Journal of Balkan and Black Sea Studies, I (1), pp. 77-114.
9-Tsvetkova, T. (2018) ‘Turkish National Movement and Soviet Russia in Caucasus (1919-1922)’, Journal of Balkan and Black Sea Studies,1, pp. 77-114.
10-Korkmaz, T. (2017) ‘Mustafa Kemal and Turkey in the Correspondences of Soviet Bureaucrats (1918-1922)’, The Turkish Yearbook of International Relations, 48, p.41.
11-Korkmaz, T. (2017) ‘Mustafa Kemal and Turkey in the Correspondences of Soviet Bureaucrats (1918-1922)’, The Turkish Yearbook of International Relations, 48, p.44.Korkmaz, T. (2017) 12-‘Mustafa Kemal and Turkey in the Correspondences of Soviet Bureaucrats (1918-1922)’, The Turkish Yearbook of International Relations, 48, p.45
13-Tsvetkova, T. (2018) ‘Turkish National Movement and Soviet Russia in Caucasus (1919-1922)’, Journal of Balkan and Black Sea Studies,1, pp. 77-114.
14-McDowall, D. (1997) A Modern History of the Kurds, I.B. Tauris, New York, p.130.
15-Tusan, M. (2023) The Last Treaty: Lausanne and the End of the First World War in the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, New York.
16-McDowall, D. (1997) A Modern History of the Kurds, I.B. Tauris, New York.
17-McDowall, D. (1997) A Modern History of the Kurds, I.B. Tauris, New York, p.133.
18-Radpey, L. (2022) ‘Kurdistan on the Sèvres Centenary: How a Distinct People Became the World’s Largest Stateless Nation,’ Nationalities Papers, , 50(6), pp.1187–1216. https://www-19-cambridge-org.ucc.idm.oclc.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/A8A41F9088ABB9443BCEFF51EAAEC76D/S0090599221000325a.pdf/kurdistan-on-the-sevres-centenary-how-a-distinct-people-became-the-worlds-largest-stateless-nation.pdf
19-Seton-Watson, H. (1977) Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism, Methuen & Co. Ltd, London.
20-Said, E.W. (1994) Culture and Imperialism, Vintage books, London.
-21-McDowall, D. (1997) A Modern History of the Kurds, I.B. Tauris, New York.
Schmidinger (2023)
22-Azeez, H. (2023) ‘Lausanne Treaty: From Statelessness to Citizenshipless Kurds,’ Kurdish Centre for Studies. Available at: https://nlka.net/eng/lausanne-treaty-from-statelessness-to-citizenshipless-kurds/
23-Azeez, H. (2023) ‘Lausanne Treaty: From Statelessness to Citizenshipless Kurds,’ Kurdish Centre for Studies. Available at: https://nlka.net/eng/lausanne-treaty-from-statelessness-to-citizenshipless-kurds/
Author
Rojin Mukriyan
Rojin Mukriyan is a PhD candidate in the department of Government and Politics at University College Cork, Ireland. Her main research areas includes political theory and Middle Eastern politics, especially Kurdish politics. She has published articles in the Journal of International Political Theory, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and Theoria. Her research has thus far focused on the areas of Kurdish liberty, Kurdish statehood, and Kurdish political friendship. She is also currently a researcher at Mojust.org

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