Kurdish War of Independence

## Participants

Soviet UnionCommunist Party of Kurdistan

Iraq

Iran

Syria

Turkey

The **Kurdish War of Independence** (Kurdish: Şerê Azadiya Kurd, *Kurdish Freedom War*). The Kurds are a traditional Iranian peoples who constituted a prominent minority across southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northeastern Syria and western Iran.

Kurdish nationalism emerged after the Great War of 1914 with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire which had historically successfully integrated (but not assimilated) the Kurds, through use of forced repression of Kurdish movements to gain independence. Revolts did occur sporadically but only in 1880 with the uprising led by Sheik Ubeydullah did the Kurds as an ethnic group or nation make demands. Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid responded with a campaign of integration by co-opting prominent Kurdish opponents to strengthen Ottoman power with offers of prestigious positions in his government. This strategy appears to have been successful given the loyalty displayed by the Kurdish Hamidiye regiments during the Great War.

The Kurdish ethno-nationalist movement that emerged following the Great War and the end of the Ottoman Empire was largely a reaction to the changes taking place in mainstream Turkey, primarily to the radical secularization, which the strongly Muslim Kurds abhorred, to the centralization of authority, which threatened the power of local chieftains and Kurdish autonomy, and to rampant Turkish nationalism in the new Turkish Republic, which obviously threatened to marginalize them.

Jakob Künzler, head of a missionary hospital in Urfa, has documented the large scale ethnic cleansing of both Armenians and Kurds by the Young Turks. He has given a detailed account of the deportation of Kurds from Erzurum and Bitlis in the winter of 1916. The Kurds were perceived to be subversive elements that would take the Russian side in the war. In order to eliminate this threat, Young Turks embarked on a large scale deportation of Kurds from the regions of Djabachdjur, Palu, Musch, Erzurum and Bitlis. Around 300,000 Kurds were forced to move southwards to Urfa and then westwards to Aintab and Marasch. In the summer of 1917, Kurds were moved to Konya in central Anatolia. Through these measures, the Young Turk leaders aimed at weakening the political influence of the Kurds by deporting them from their ancestral lands and by dispersing them in small pockets of exiled communities. By the end of the Great War, up to 700,000 Kurds had been forcibly deported and almost half of the displaced perished.

Some of the Kurdish groups sought self-determination and the confirmation of Kurdish autonomy in the Treaty of Sèvres, but in the aftermath of the Great War, Kemal Atatürk prevented such a result. Kurds backed by the United Kingdom declared independence in 1927 and established the Republic of Ararat. Turkey suppressed Kurdist revolts in 1925, 1930, and 1937–1938, while Iran in the 1920s suppressed Simko Shikak at Lake Urmia and Jaafar Sultan of the Hewraman region, who controlled the region between Marivan and north of Halabja.

In response to failed July 26th, 1953 communist revolution in Cuba, Georgy Malenkov of the Soviet Union cites the moderation of Mikhail Kalinin as anti-revolutionary and failing the Soviet Union. As he wanted to extend Soviet control into the Middle East (to gain
access to oil and counter Western colonialism) he begins funding Kurdish and
Palestinian communists. He hoped to harness Kurdish and Palestinian nationalism to construct socialist movements in the Middle East as well as gain access to more oil.

## Participants

**Communist Forces:**

* Soviet Union: Georgy Malenkov
* Communist Party of Kurdistan: Qazi Muhammad

**Nationalist Forces:**

* Kingdom of Iraq: Rashid Ali al-Gaylani
* Kingdom of Iran: Jafar Sharif-Emami
* Syrian Republic: Shukri al-Quwatli
* Republic of Turkey: Adnan Menderes

## Timeline of the Kurdish War of Independence

   -July 1st, 1958: Revolts break out in Northern Iraq and Southeastern Turkey due to Kurdish communist guerillas supplied by the Soviet Union. This begins the Kurdish War of Independence or the Şerê Azadiya Kurd “Kurdish Freedom War” to the Kurds. They are heavily coordinated and are well

armed by the Soviet Union. The Kurds are supported by Arab Socialists as well
as Iraqi Turkmen and Assyrian separatists.

-July 14th, 1958: The attempted rebellion against the
Hashemite monarchy in Iraq by the Free Officers is defeated due to the Iraqi government have the popularity of the people as they fought against the communist Kurds to the north.

-December 1st, 1958: Communist uprisings break out in
the Commonwealth of Palestine as the Soviets had been funding Palestinian
Communist forces of the Palestinian Communist Party (which contains Jews, Muslims and Christians). The British colonial government is swift to react
quickly crushing the revolutionaries. However, with the Kurdish communist to
their north they feared another socialist uprising and as such began funding
the Mashriq Party, a notably anti-communist, pan-Arab, pro-Islamic organization
run by Mohammed Amin al-Husseini. The British hoped that al-Husseini would
crushed the Jewish revolutionaries as well.

-January 15th, 1959: Kurdish forces capture Northern
Iraq. The Kurds are now fighting a coalition of Iraq, Syrian, Turkish and
Iranian forces but due to Soviet backing (and lack of cohesiveness among their
opposing armies) they manage to push them back.

-February 20th, 1959: Iraqi forces invade Kuwait citing
their need for oil to continue fighting the Kurdish communists. This is
relatively ignored by the West who view it as a necessity to fight communism.

-February 28th, 1959: Iraqi forces capture and annex
Kuwait.

-March 1st, 1959: Armenian Soviet troops begin pushing
into northeast Turkey while Azerbaijani Soviet troops begin pushing into Azeri
dominated northern Iran. The Soviets hoped to connect these territories to the
growing Soviet backed Kurdistan. Kurdish forces begin spreading into eastern
Syria.

-April 5th, 1959: Kurdish forces capture the eastern tip of Syria.

-April 20th, 1959: In response to the lost eastern provinces, Syria invades and annexes the long disputed Hatay Province from Turkey hoping to gain something of value from the conflict.

-May 10th, 1959: Kurdish forces begin pushing into southeast Turkey.

-August 1st, 1959: Kurdish forces capture parts of southeastern Turkey.

-August 10th, 1959: Iran begins forcibly expelling its Kurdish population. Many of these Kurds join up with the Kurdish communists.

-October 1st, 1959: Kurdish forces clash with Iraqi, Iranian, Syrian and Turkish forces and with aid from the Soviets, manage to hold them off and defend their core territory despite being greatly outnumbered.

-December 31st, 1959: The People’s Republic of Kurdistan finally declares its independence and signs a peace treaty with Syria, Turkey,
Iraq and Iran thus ending the Kurdish War of Independence. The Soviet Union is
the first country to recognize it followed by the Socialist Republic of China
and reluctantly the United Kingdom and France. The United States refuses to
recognize its independence as a communist nation.