Syria was given independence in 1946. The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria (KDPS) was formed in 1957. They were the first Kurdish national political party in Syria, and worked to better the lives of Syrian Kurds. The KDPS did not request the independence of Syrian Kurdistan, and worked for a "Syrianized" agenda.
Oil was discovered in Syrian Kurdistan in the 1960s. At the same time, events in Iraqi Kurdistan meant that the lives of the Kurdish population Syria became much worse. In August 1961, the Syrian government ordered a special census of al-Jazira Province in November that year. By the time the census was done, the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan had risen up to claim self-rule. The census took away Syrian citizenship and civil rights from about 120,000 Kurds in al-Jazira Province. The government decree ("order") in August 1961 said that Kurds were "illegally infiltrating" from Turkish Kurdistan into Syria, in order to "destroy its Arab character". The Kurdish lands in the Kurd Mountains were not changed by this census, and Kurdish people there kept their citizenship and were not made stateless.
In 1962 the Syrian government started the Arab Belt plan to "save Arabism" and stop the "Kurdish threat". The Arab Belt plan was to move the Kurdish population away from the Syria–Turkey border. In the Kurds' place, the government would move more Arabs onto the land. The Kurds would be moved to other parts of Syria, away from one another. The government's decision was made after the discovery of an oil field at Qaratchok, in the Kurdish Jazira. Much of the land in the Arab Belt was fertile arable land ("for growing crops") and had rich oil fields. More than half (50–60 percent) of all the petroleum in Syria is near Derik in the Jazira.
Things became worse for the Kurdish population when the ultra-nationalist Ba'ath Party of Michel Aflaq took power by a coup d'état in Damascus in March 1963. In November, the party published a pamphlet named "Study of the Jezireh Provnce in its National, Social, and Political Aspects" and written by the al-Jazira Province's chief of police, Mohamed Talab Hilal. Hilal was an Arab nationalist, and said he used "anthropological" arguments to "prove scientifically" that Kurds "do not constitute a nation". He wrote that "the Kurdish people are a people without history or civilization or language or even definite ethnic origin of their own. Their only characteristics are those shaped by force, destructive power and violence, characteristics which are, by the way, inherent in all mountain populations". Hilial also wrote in the pamphlet that "The Kurds live from civilization and history of other nations. They have taken no part in these civilizations or in the history of these nations." The Ba'ath Party's pamphlet had twelve plans to Arabize ("make Arab") al-Jazira Province. The planned steps were:
Many of these steps were taken over the following years and the Arab Belt continued to be the government's plan. The 120,000 Kurds of al-Jazira Province whom the government decided were non-Syrians could not get education or health care, and could not marry or vote. They could, however, be conscripted into the Syrian military. They could be sent to fight on the Golan Heights (lands fought over by Syria and Israel). These Kurds were victims of the Arab Belt plan. The government planned to move 140,000 Kurds off their land and move Arabs onto it. In 1966, the government was considering doing the same in the Kurd Mountains. (Like all of Syrian Kurdistan, the Kurd Mountains are on the Syria–Turkey border, and they are to the west of the areas first named as Arab Belt land.) In 1967, the lands of Kurds in al-Jazira Province were nationalized by a law named the "Plan to establish model state farms in the Jezireh Province". This was a euphemism for the Arab Belt plan. The Six-Day War meant that the plan was not fully completed. Many of the Kurds did not leave their lands when the government ordered them to do so. In 1975, the Syrian government built forty "model villages" in the Arab Belt area, and moved in 7,000 armed Arab peasant families to live in them. The government built the "model villages" in an area stretching from Amuda to Derik, with some near Qamishli. The government gave Derik (a Kurdish name) the new Arabic language name "al-Malikiyah". Water from the new Lake Assad flooded the lands of Arabs living in the Euphrates valley when Syria built the Tabqa Dam. The Arabs whose lands were flooded were moved to the mostly Kurdish al-Jazira Province.
The Ba'athist government moved slowly, in order not to get attention from other countries. The government suppressed Kurdish culture, harassed Kurdish people, and confiscated Kurdish literature and Kurdish music. The government sent people in the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria to jail for years for what the government said were "anti-Arabist" crimes. Official government documents in Syria do not mention Kurds or other non-Arab people. There were Kurdish people in the People's Council of Syria (the legislature of Syria), but the official identity was Arab-only for everyone in the Syrian Arab Republic. Between 1965 and 1975, 30,000 Kurds left al-Jazira Province to escape persecution or look for work. According to Kurds, the government took of land away from Kurdish farmers in al-Jazira Province: the government was following Hilal's plan. In the Kurd Mountains, the government's land reforms mostly redistributed land to Kurdish farmers, but in other parts of Syria, the government took many Kurds' lands and gave them to Arabs. Even in the Kurd Mountains, which were outside the lands of the Arab Belt in al-Jazira Province, all schools taught in Arabic language only and Kurdish language was marginalized in public life.
In 1976, Hafez al-Assad stopped the Arab Belt plan going any further by not building any more Arab villages. The villages the government had built and the Arabs the government had moved stayed where they were. Kurdish music was again heard and official harassment became less intense. The position of Kurds in Syrian Kurdistan was related to the changing political positions of Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan. In 1977, the government changed all Kurdish language place names in the Kurd Mountains to official Arabic language names, as in other parts of Syria. The 120,000 Kurds whose citizenship the Syrian government removed in 1961 – and all their descendants – were not given official documents or passports. The government was still conscripting these Kurds into the Syrian military in the 21st century.
Eastern Kurdistan
Eastern Kurdistan or Iranian Kurdistan is the part of Iran inhabited by Kurds, or the part of Kurdistan that is within Iran. Some of Iranian Kurdistan is in Iran's Kurdistan Province.
Iranian Kurdistan is next to the Iraqi Kurdistan. Further to the west are Turkish Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan.
Eastern Kurdistan is the name for the western and north-western regions of Iran. Iranian Kurdistan is between the central Zagros Mountains and the north-western international border of Iran. The lands of Kurdistan Province, West Azarbaijan Province, Kermanshah Province, Ilam Province are part of Iranian Kurdistan. The lands in parts of Hamadan Province where people speak Kurdish are also a part of Kurdistan. The area of Iranian Kurdistan is more than .
There are important rivers and forests and Kurdistan. At Kermanshah, there is an oil field. Lake Urmia is a salt lake that is the largest lake in Kurdistan. The mountains of Kurdistan have always been important for military strategy. The northern and central Zagros Mountains are where two important trade routes of the Silk Road economic system passed through Iran.
The most common crops in all of Kurdistan are cereals and tobacco. The most common livestock in Kurdistan are domestic sheep. Farmers grow strawberries and other fruits in southern Iranian Kurdistan.