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Lausanne Treaty

The Importance of Reviving the Debate on ‘National Identity’

The issue of “identity” preoccupied the late Ottoman milieu. There were those who argued that an Ottoman identity must be formulated to preserve territorial unity and protect the “eternal Ottoman state,” as was the case in the late literature of the intellectuals of Abdul Hamid II’s court, and those for whom identity took on nationalist […]

The Treaty of Lausanne: The Crime of the Century

History is a terrifying place for the Kurds. It is a place fraught with geopolitical losses, displacement, subjugations, and horrific human rights violations. Undoubtedly, the Kurds have been the consistent losers in the historical and geopolitical events in the region in the past century. A series of treaties and events which occurred in early 20th […]

Lausanne Treaty: From Statelessness to Citizenshipless Kurds

The Lausanne treaty resulted in catastrophic consequences for the Kurds, the most obvious of which was statelessness. However, long after the imposition of the treaty, the Kurds continued to suffer a range of state imposed policies and consequences that affected their capacity to live with basic human rights and dignity. One such repercussion was the […]

The Treaty of Lausanne: 100 Years of Destroying Kurdistan

From the late medieval period until the mid-19th century, Kurdish lands were ruled by Kurdish hereditary chiefs. From the mid-19th century until WWI, the centralization process in the Ottoman empire and Qajar Iran brought Kurdistan under the direct rule of the central governments. The Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed on July 24, 1923, resulted […]

100 Years after Lausanne: Challenges for the Kurds across Kurdistan

The following is a transcription of a speech presented by Thomas Schmidinger during a two day international conference on the centenary of the Lausanne Treaty held in Hasaka, Rojava (Northeastern Syria). The international conference was organized by The Rojava Center for Strategic Studies and held on the 7th-8th of July. *The following transcription entails editing […]