Kurdish history cannot be read as a mere sequence of rebellions and insurgencies against central governments. Woven into the fabric of this history are reformist voices that called for union, equality, and recognition of existence—even if all ultimately failed, or their efforts remained confined to theoretical frameworks never translated into state policies.
This text traces numerous Kurdish attempts aimed at unifying with other nationalities within the framework of the modern state, examining historical events and chronicling scattered, intermittent phases of efforts by political elites who sought integration, recognition, and equality, with a brief allusion to the latest of these attempts: the ongoing Kurdish-Turkish peace process.
Between the duality of repression and revolution, the Kurds attempted early on to carve out a third space befitting their historical stature within the Ottoman Empire at the dawn of the end of the Hamidian autocratic era. During this time, an active Kurdish-Ottoman movement emerged alongside efforts by Turkish, Arab, Albanian, Circassian, and Armenian Ottoman elements to redefine the legal and constitutional bond uniting the components of an empire in its final hours. The story began with Kurdish pioneers who helped establish the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP); among its four founders in the spring of 1889, not a single one was Turkish. Instead, it was two Kurds—İshak Sükûti and Dr. Abdullah Cevdet—alongside İbrahim Temo (an Albanian) and Mehmed Reşid (a Circassian) who founded the committee. These two Kurdish activists played their part by publishing and writing for newspapers and periodicals opposed to Hamidian despotism, advocating for a renewal of the Ottoman bond on clear, equitable constitutional grounds.
Cevdet, who served as the committee’s secretary and spokesperson during its early stages, focused in his works—alongside his colleague Sükûti—on the feasibility of coexistence within a single constitutional and parliamentary state. While Cevdet was unenthusiastic about the idea of establishing an independent Kurdistan, he championed the notion of an Ottoman Empire encompassing culturally distinct nationalities on a foundation of justice and equality, while advocating for equal linguistic rights among Ottoman nationalities to ensure these languages could “develop and flourish.”
The call for equality did not proceed smoothly; it was met with deep suspicion despite the shared primary goal of the CUP, initiating a phase of division between extremists and liberals—particularly through the influence of the Turkish nationalist extremist Ahmet Rıza and his mistrust of Arab, Kurdish, and Albanian intentions. Following the growing dominance of Turkish extremists after the successful Unionist coup, Kurdish associations surfaced during the first two decades of the twentieth century in an effort to consolidate the Kurdish presence in the Ottoman state and subsequently call for a form of political and cultural decentralization for Kurdistan. This aligned with what had been agreed upon in Paris in 1907 during a CUP meeting, where the Unionists accepted “self-determination and autonomy within the framework of the Ottoman state.” It is worth noting that the concept of Kurdish independence at that time carried no connotations of secession or the creation of a sovereign state; rather, it meant that Kurdistan, or portions of its geography, would acquire a legal personality within the overarching Ottoman entity.
Prior to the 1907 conference, the Unionists refrained from extending an invitation to Cevdet and Sükûti on the grounds that both had accepted government positions—in other words, the Kurdish duo was ousted, and other Kurds were brought into the CUP leadership. While Sükûti’s death in 1902 brought his trajectory to an end, Cevdet persisted in his calls for linguistic and cultural equality even after the successful 1908 Young Turk Revolution, channeling his efforts through newspaper writings and activities in Kurdish associations.
It was not only Unionist Kurds who were stunned by the transformations of their Turkish colleagues. One need only look to the Arabs, Armenians, and Greeks, for the Kurds were not alone in their enthusiasm for a union that ought to have been transparent. The inclination toward independence was far more pronounced among Armenians than among other Ottoman nationalities. Following Bulgaria’s independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, Armenian nationalism surged, and Armenian nationalists sensed the possibility of replicating that experience. However, the Hamidian massacres dampened this optimism. In the wake of the massacres of 1894–1896, an Armenian elite advocating for political and administrative reform emerged, choosing to engage in the precarious game of the CUP. The 1894 Sasun (Batman) uprising prompted the Dashnaktsutyun to ally with the Young Turks, and the Armenians subsequently found liberal allies within the CUP structure, such as Prince Sabahaddin. Even after the successful 1908 coup and the wave of Turkish nationalism it unleashed, the Armenians—much like the Kurds—did not lose hope in reform to break free from Hamidian discriminatory policies. The fervor for change even moved an Armenian author named Hakimian to compose an anthem for the Chamber of Deputies that declared: “Long live Niyazi, long live Enver.”
Yet, with Enver, Talaat, and Cemal Pasha seizing power in 1913—following a sequence of policies centered on Turkifying the state, such as designating Turkish as the primary language in 1908—doubts began to cloud the minds of all non-Turkish elements. Unionist Kurds were not the only ones harmed by this off-putting new rhetoric; the removal of Armenians, Greeks, and Arabs from the Ottoman fabric during the World War resulted in the image of the state being centered around just two nationalities: Kurds and Turks. During a session of the Chamber of Deputies on December 17, deputies debated the “viability of the Austro-Hungarian model” for implementation within the Ottoman state. This concept resonated with the deputies who later joined the Grand National Assembly (Kemalist) in 1920, where the assembly included a fair proportion of Kurdish representation roughly equal to their ratio of the state’s overall population: 72 out of 437 deputies were Kurdish, some of whom had represented the Kurds at the Erzurum and Sivas Congresses in 1919. Here again, the weight of those striving to remain within what was left of the Ottoman state becomes apparent, after the European and Arab provinces had gained independence and the Armenians had begun carving out their own path toward sovereignty.
Prior to that point, the experience of the Ottoman Administrative Decentralization Party came to an end under the weight of policies pursued by former allies (the Unionists), despite the party having served as a container for elements of the “Ottoman nation,” including Kurds who worked alongside Arabs within its ranks, such as Prince Abdul Rahman Bedir Khan, who later took over the publication of the newspaper Kurdistan after his brother Miqdad left Egypt. Added to the causes of this failed experiment were the dynamics of World War I, which severed Arabs and Armenians from the Ottoman state, leaving the Kurds as the final remaining party within the post-1923 Treaty of Lausanne map—despite various attempts to break away or modify the terms of remaining, as seen in the 1925 Sheikh Said rebellion, the Azadi association, and subsequent revolutionary movements.
Consequently, the exiled Kurdish movement represented by the Khoyboun League began operating under arduous conditions shaped by the Kemalists’ success in suppressing the Ararat rebellion (1930) and the Dersim uprising (1937–1938). Khoyboun members Celadet and Kamuran Bedir Khan sought to convince the Kemalists of the utility of reaching an understanding. This is evident in Prince Celadet’s letter to Atatürk urging a resolution to the Kurdish question through formal recognition of Kurdistan and the distinct identity of the Kurdish people. This approach was further reinforced and elaborated by his brother Kamuran during his meeting with the Turkish Consul in Beirut, where he added a demand for linguistic and educational freedoms for Kurdish speakers. This shift among Kurdish independence advocates reflected a pragmatic acceptance of the post-World War II reality, as well as a recognition of the existence of established states with which understandings had to be reached to restore respect for Kurdish rights to citizenship, equality, and recognition of existence.
It is worth noting that early Khoyboun literature pursued a policy of neutrality regarding Iraq and Syria, contenting itself with what the mandate authorities provided to the Kurds in both countries while focusing its attention on the Turkish front, preserving the pluralistic fabric of Kurdish society, and maintaining the unity of the joint Kurdish-Armenian struggle—a stance that mirrored their past cooperation within the ranks of the CUP. Khoyboun’s discourse gradually shifted toward emphasizing Kurdish distinctiveness rather than disseminating anti-Turkish rhetoric. This trend paralleled the activities of revolutionary and political movements in Iran following the founding of the Tudeh Party in 1941 and its calls for Kurdish-Persian brotherhood, followed by Kurdish-Azeri brotherhood with the declaration of the Republic of Kurdistan (Mahabad) in 1946 and the call for a joint struggle for autonomy under Soviet patronage. Kurdish cooperation with the Tudeh Party remained open and continuous, with Tudeh viewed as a secondary home for members and supporters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), even as the Kurdish party maintained its cherished slogan: “Autonomy for Kurdistan, Democracy for Iran.”
Similarly, one can observe the alliance patterns of Iraqi Kurds with Iraqi communists, and subsequently with other Iraqi political movements, reaching a peak in the mutual acceptance of a unified homeland alongside the Kurds’ right to self-governance. The regime of Abd al-Karim Qasim went so far as to constitutionally recognize the Kurdish presence when Qasim issued his provisional constitution, which defined Iraq as a state of two primary nationalities in a manner reminiscent of the founding of Czechoslovakia. During negotiations conducted by Arab nationalists and Ba’athists with representatives of the Kurdish movement under the auspices of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the desire for union reemerged. Following rounds of dialogue between Kurdish and Arab nationalists in Cairo, a major milestone of mutual understanding materialized with the publication of the newspaper Al-Ta’akhi (Biratî) in Baghdad, following approval by Iraqi President Abd al-Rahman Arif in 1967. Indeed, Arif himself—who had conditioned the newspaper’s publication on the closure of the “Voice of Kurdistan” radio station—proposed the title, a compromise accepted by Mullah Mustafa Barzani and the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Saleh al-Yousefi.
Ultimately, obstacles were placed to impede the development of this unionist Kurdish-Arab approach in Iraq, which reached its zenith with the signing of the Autonomy Agreement (the March 11 Declaration of 1970). Despite suffering successive collapses prior to its final demise in 1974, the agreement remained testament to the availability of negotiated solutions and to the failure of the ruling political class to accommodate Kurdish aspirations.
Likewise, Noureddin Zaza, founder of the first Syrian Kurdish party, sought to halt the escalating discriminatory measures in Syria during the Syrian-Egyptian union. In his memoirs submitted to the Supreme Military State Security Court in late 1960, he argued that these measures “harm Arab-Kurdish brotherhood and solidarity between the two peoples,” noting with irony the closure of the newspaper Al-Tali’a in the Northern Region (Syria) simply because it published an article titled “Arab-Kurdish Brotherhood.” Realistically, Zaza reconciled himself to the fact that the Kurds had transitioned from a world where establishing independent states in the aftermath of World War I was possible to a world of states closed to independence movements. For this reason, he hoped to establish a party in Syria modeled on the Indian National Congress—an idea he presented to Syrian politician Akram al-Hawrani. Beyond that, he envisioned a “union of peoples” in the region (Kurds, Arabs, Turks, Persians, and Armenians), drawing inspiration from European concepts aimed at creating a united European union.
Within the context of a long history of unionist inclinations—wherein the Kurds were the initiating party seeking to reform the terms of their survival within existing states and transform nation/ethnic states into states of equal citizenship—the case of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) stands out. According to Martin van Bruinessen, it began as the first Kurdish party to call for “the independence of all Kurdistan as an ultimate goal,” whereas other Kurdistan parties in Iraq and Iran pursued autonomy within existing state frameworks for “pragmatic reasons.” Over time, the PKK repeatedly shifted its policy toward advocating for a united, decentralized state, culminating in the vision articulated by its founder, Abdullah Öcalan: a bond of equal citizenship replacing the Kurdish-Turkish rift, strictly within the framework of an existing democratic republic rooted in mutual acceptance, where Kurdish integration replaces policies of isolation and exclusion. Achieving such a realignment in the history of Turkish-Kurdish relations would serve as an eraser to wipe away the historical transgression of Lausanne (1923), which codified absolute Turkish sovereignty and ethnic-cultural dominance at the expense of the Kurdish people and the federal state project.
From a realistic standpoint, Kurdish unionist currents appear destined to face formidable tests. Yet, along an evolutionary trajectory spanning over one hundred and twenty years, they may—should partners among the ruling nationalities emerge—succeed in restoring historical legitimacy to the project of an equal citizenship state based on cultural and linguistic pluralism. In other words: the nation-state model (represented here by the established nation-states in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran) cannot be dismantled except from within, through the development of Kurdish political and civil engagement aimed at transforming the prevailing concept of the nation-state—especially since this direction is reinforced by an international desire to contain Middle Eastern conflicts through policies that diverge from the severity and radicalism characteristic of regimes that usurped Kurdish rights. This suggests that accepting Kurdish “integration” alongside the “openness” of regional capitals represents the only roadmap these regimes have yet to pursue.
