Consideration of Kurdish national autonomy under the principle of self-determination

Global Politics

To what extent has the denial of the Kurdish autonomy under the principle of self-
determination been justified?

Pablo Jose González Solano

Content page
 1. Introduction page 3
2. Historical Background page 5
3. Principle of self-determination page 8
4. Discussion page 10
5. Personal engagement page 11
6. Conclusion page 11
7. Bibliography page 12

1. Introduction
Known by many as the “no land people” the Kurds are a minority located in the Middle East
that descended from the Persian civilization, which created an empire in the VII century B.C.
Nowadays, Kurds are mostly Sunnis Muslims with laic political visions, they are located in a
region of nearly half a million square kilometers. What has sabotaged the Kurdistan
autonomy throughout all these decades has been factors like the dispute towards the territory
they are settled in, the multiple cases of human rights violations detected in the territory,
political instability, and the continuous will of people to establish a legal independent state.
All these issues, amongst a lot more, contribute to the instability increase of the regions
occupied by these civilizations due to the constant manifestations and the hostile response of
the states that reside in the region. There are around 30 million Kurds in this territory, that are
distributed amongst 4 principal states, Turkey, Iran, Irak, Siria and a reduced portion of
Armenia. Due to this, Kurdistan is the largest civilization without a portion of land in the
world.

For many years the Kurds have claimed sovereignty over the Kurdish territory, nevertheless
the region stays under the control of the five states that own the land (Turkey, Iran, Irak, Siria
and Armenia) having each of them their own determination over the status of the region and,
therefore, their territory. Some of these 5 nations grant more freedom and autonomy over this
jurisdiction, which allows them to have an adequate medium for the development of their
culture, nevertheless, this autonomy is often limited.
The kurds possess, in some states, certain economical freedom which allows them to have
their own economical relationships with states all across the globe, giving them access to an
international presence in the global market. But this international participation is defined by
each country where they reside.
The situation in Turkey is one of the most complex, since the governments considers Kurds
as terrorists, principally as a consequence of the actions made by the Kurdistan's workers
party (PKK), an illicit organization in Turkey which is considered as terrorist for the
government of that nation.
In most of the cases, the representation of the kurds is realized through this organization
which was created with political means, this is why it is common to find a negative view
towards these people. Meanwhile, Kurds have withstood in one of the most important
defenses against the approximations of the Yihadists in the north of Irak and Syria, forcing
Occident to recognize them as key allies in the fight against the Islamic State, but the pledged
alliances with this same countries, like the United States of America, have also made it more
difficult for the Kurds to accelerate the recognition of the legitimacy of this fight.
The Kurdish people may not have an independent state, yet, they are a nation. This is why it

is important to emphasize that the concept of state and Nation may be contrasted; a nation

responds to the compound of cultural characteristics, religious, ethics of linguistics that share

certain people, usually in a specific land, while a State is a sovereign country, recognized as

that in the international community, settled in a determined territory and with the capacity of

having their own proper government agencies. The Kurds are a nation that seeks for self-

determination, but this path has not been easy due to the constant tensions of the region, with

both national and internationalized conflicts (not international), which shows the presence of

many other states, mainly fighting against yihadist groups. Taking this into account, it is safe

to state that this conflict is of a big importance nowadays, due to its influence in the

international concern and that remarks the questioning of the true fulfillment of the Human

Rights and the United Nations regulations towards the self-determination of the people. This

is why it is of meaningful importance that this issue is treated in the organization and the

solution for this problem is settled, especially in Turkey since it is where most Kurds are

settled and yet they live in a constant conflict which has left thousands of killings since 1984.

2. Historical Background
The origins of the Kurd nation goes back to 2.500 B.C. when a group of indo europeans
descendants arrived to the lands, with origins in the ancient Persia, they settled in a territory
of the Asian southeast that was mainly mountainous, this geographical location includes hills
like the Taurus, the Zagros and the Elburz. Following what happened, it conceded the name
of “Kurdistan” to the region. This system kept out the transformations or cultural evolutions
that some neighbors had, mainly what is nowadays called the middle east. Its social structure
was compounded by different settlements associated between them, due to this, it not only
stopped the region from falling into nationalist revolutions but also turned it into an
economically self-sufficient settlement. Despite the flourishing of the Mesopotamic culture
and the hegemony civilizations like greeks, romans, christian and muslims applied in the
region, the kurds managed to prevail their identity and ethics in that region, except from the
religious aspect, which changed as a consequence of the arab invasions in the middle age. In
the XIX century, Kurdistan was attached to the Otoman Empire, which granted limited
autonomy to the region, nevertheless, after WW1 and the further dissolution of the Empire,
the reality was about to change for the Kurdish nation.
It is important to talk about the Turkish topic, since in this territory it is located the majority
of the Kurds and throughout the years there have been several armed conflicts in the region.
For this matter it is important to get along with the end of WW1, where Turkey was a
meaningful part of the Ottoman Empire that continued to dissolve as a consequence of the
war. Amongst 1919 and 1921 the freedom kurdish movement possessed diverse control over
some political organs and structures that played a key role in the formation of an independent
Kurdistan, this historic moment was called by the historians as the “golden opportunity”.
Taking this into account, it is safe to ensure that one of this structures of political opportunity
was seen as an international permission and external help, as the allies offered the Kurds
diplomatic support for the formation of the independent Kurdistan. The reason was that
Kurdistan, in company with Armenia, would be useful as a comfort between Turkey and the
rest of the Turkish areas in central Asia called Turan, the young turks aspired to have control
to form the Turan Empire. To prevent this, the allies supported both the Armenians as the
kurds. The treaty of Sevres of 1920, signed after the WW2, contained some provisions for the
formation of the independent Kurdistan, as it is shown in the following article of the treaty:
“Article 62: A Commission sitting at Constantinople and composed of three members
appointed by the British, French and Italian Governments respectively shall draft within six
months from the coming into force of the present Treaty a scheme of local autonomy for the
predominantly Kurdish areas lying east of the Euphrates, south of the southern boundary of
 Armenia as it may be hereafter determined, and north of the frontier of Turkey with Syria
and Mesopotamia, as defined in Article 27, II (2) and (3)...” (Treaty of sevres, 1920)
Nevertheless, the support given by these Western states was limited to diplomatic initiatives
and there are no kept records of military presence or financial aid that supported the Kurdish
self-determination that this nation was looking for. This treaty established how the support to
the autonomy of Kurdistan was always present, but it never had a breakpoint where they
developed official conversations to officialize and settle Kurdistan as an autonomous state by
the principle of self-determination. Besides, This treaty was never applied de facto, and was
replaced in the Turkish independence war (1919-1923) when the Ankara government led by
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk won this event in history. The replacement for this treaty was the
Lausanne treaty, signed in 1923 which established the Turkish borders that remain the same
until today. At first the kurds supported Ataturk as a joint defense of Islam against the
Occident, but afterwards the caliphate was abolished and in Turkey the search for a new
ethnic turkish identity for an adequate consolidation of the state started, which opened the
gate to nationalist movements against kurdish people causing them to take up arms for the
first time against Turkey. The insurrection started with the Sheikh Said Rebellion (1925) and
continued to develop with 16 rebellions in 13 years, and ending up with the Dersim Rebellion
(1938), giving the lead to three decades in which the the kurdish identity had been assimilated
into the context of the new turkish nation and that way quitting to any political ambition.
The actual Turkish conflict began in 1984, when the PKK declared an armed attack against
the Turkish state. The PKK was created in 1978, when a small Kurdish group led by
Abdullah Öcalan decided to create a nationalist organization with a Marx-Lenin ideology.
The emergence of the PKK and its consolidation as a hegemonic organization of Kurdish
nationalism in Turkey advised a change in the essence and characteristics of Kurdish
nationalism, which evolved from its traditional conservative character to an ideological frame
based on communism. Nonetheless, With the end of the cold war the PKK was forced to
stake out its ideological frame as a consequence of how obsolete the normative frames of the
orthodox socialism were. In 1998, soon enough after his capture in Kenya in 1999, Öcalan
presented a peace treaty in which there was a remarkable absence of references towards the
independence of Kurdistan. The objectives started evolving from the independence and the
formation of an autonomous state to sort of an autonomy inside of Turkey or even the
democratization of Turkey (specially referring to the rights of its minorities). The conflict
between the militias of the PKK and the Turrkish armed forces reached a new level of
intensity in the 90's, which held an emergency state in several areas and provinces of the
southwest of the country during 15 years (1987-2002), and the state using repression tactics
and counterterrorism qualified by the majority of the observers as a “dirty war”. Following
the capture of Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK declared an unilateral cease to the fire.
The Kurds have also been involved in conflicts in other countries where they reside. The
invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the coalition led by the United States of America and the Kurdish
armed forces and the following political reforms in the post-Saddam opened space to the
ratification of the new Iraq's constitution in 2005. The new constitution established that Iraq's
Kurdistan is a federal entity recognized by Irak y by the United Nations. In Syria, after the
beginning of the civil war, the government of Assad had to take back several of their forces in
the Kurdish regions to defend the cities of the west from the insurgent groups. This allowed
that the kurdish party, PYU, to take the command on the regions at the north of the country,
which they named Rojava and splitted it into three autonomous states which were ruled in a
democratic way and with equity principles, giving the guarantee of the inclusion of all the
ethnic groups. Nevertheless, just when everything started to shape in 2014, the Islamic State
started to expand throughout Syria and were able to push the Kurds all the way to the city of
Kobani, which is located on the border. At this point the United States of America came in to
support Kurdistan, which trained and gave armed support to the Kurdish militia to fight back
ISIS. The support had such success that the Kurds, while they pushed back ISIS from Syria,
started consolidating their territory and people inside of Rojava, creating this way the
“Democratic Federation of Northern Syria '', which is yet to be recognized by the government
of Assad.

3. Principle of self-determination
This principle refers to the right that every ethnic group has the free will to decide its own
ways of government, pursue their economic, social and cultural development; and freely
structure without external injerence. This principle does not have an exact date that can be
named for the first time it was used, but it can be shown how during the french revolution it
gained huge importance in the international ambit, despite it wasn't as settled as a principle
back in the day as it is structured now. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen stables the following on its article number 3:
“3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual
may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.” (Declaration of
the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789)
Nonetheless, it is necessary to differ over the context of this declaration, since it was
influenced by liberalism and individualism ideals of that time in history, it didn't seek for the
recognizement of the self-determination of the civilizations in the international scheme, but it
had a more individual focus. The ones who really called upon this principle in the
international scheme were Lenin and Wilson, both heads of state of the Soviet Union and
United States respectively, which fulfilled a knowledge of it in a period near to the end of
WWI, but there was no legal binding range in International Right, leaving it just as a political
postulate. That's how a jurist commission of the society of nations concluded it in the analysis
of the case of the Aaland islands sentencing the following:
“Although the principle of self-determination of peoples occupies an important place in
modern political thought, especially since the world war, it should be noted that it is not
included in the Covenant of the League of Nations” (The United Nations and National Self-
Determination, 1958)
The adoption of the United Nations charter in 1945, did not suppose, by itself, a remarkable
change in the evolution of the self-determination principle, but it can find itself mentioned
twice in the charter:
● Article 1: 2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the
principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other
appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
● Article 55; With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which
are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for
the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the United Nations
shall promote:
a. higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social
progress and development;
b. solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems; and
inter11 national cultural and educational cooperation; and
c. universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms
for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion
(United Nations charter, 1945)

But this just demonstrated how that exact organization presented several contradicting
points, since, by one side it accepts the colonial aspects settled in the category of non-
autonomous aspects (chapter XI UN charter) and of trusts (chapter XII and XIII UN charter)
and, in the other hand, it recognizes the right of self-determination. But these contradictory
statements were cleared when in 1950 the UN condemned colonial practicism and began to
work to stop them. Eventually, self-determination is recognized as a right in the Declaration
on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. Resolution 1514 (XV) of
the general assembly, in December 14th of 1960:
“2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely
determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural
development.”
(Resolution 1514 of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries
and Peoples, 1960)
The next day it was approved in the General Assembly the resolution 1541 (XV), in which
the principal criteria regarding the characterization of non-autonomous territories, also
establishing the proceeding ways from the self-determination principle, while signaling can
be justified in three ways: a) by its constitution in a independent and sovereign state; b) by
willingly associating with another independent state; and c) by its integration with another
independent state. By this means goes through to a positive right status.

The issue with this principle in relation to the Kurds is conflictive thanks to diverse reasons,
amongst them it lies that the territory is not recognized by the United Nations as a Non-
Autonomous Territory, therefore it is theoretically speaking it can't apply for a decolonization
process. But analyzing the case historically, it is observable how this territory has suffered
from a colonization process and as a consequence it has been even ignored its right to the
principle of self-determination. But, since there is no exact definition of the status of this
region as a self, meaning this, independently from the country it is located and referring to as
Kurdistan, it is up to the decision of the sovereign country over that territory if it is a good
move or not whether to make Kurdistan an autonomous state or not. Even though, it is
possible also to look after the conflict in an international way since the UN charter is ratified
by all the states involved in the conflict, therefore they are on their duty to recognize the right
to self-determination.
4. Discussion
Taking into account the benefits that Kurdistan has brought up to the international scenario,
as the stopping of the ISIS expansion on syrian territory, The peshmerga military forces as a
national army, The kurdistan region of Iraq is rich in oil, tourism, agriculture, amongst other
economical factors that could make Kurdistan a self-reliable territory, with the eyes of the
international community taking care of them, mostly speaking of the United States of
America and how it could be a benefit for both of them that Kurdistan could gain
independence, United States could benefit from having another autonomous state as an ally in
the middle east and considering how rich in oil some parts of the Kurdistan territory they
could also have an economical ally that could strengthen both economies. Kurdistan could
even be a leading state in the middle east, with the support of some leading nations in the
globe, they could turn themselves into a developed economy and a strong militia.
Thus, it is important to emphasize in the geopolitics surrounding it, being Kurdistan located
in the middle east, one of the regions of most political instability on the globe, a region that
has been corroded by the corruption, the religious philosophy towards the rest of the world
which does not follow the world of their god, the nuclear; armed and endless conflict which
most of the states are involved in, and adding another ingredient to the recipe could also
mean the beginning of a new conflict looking at it from several aspects, Some of the states
that would have the give up on portions of their territory could fight back for them; a conflict
for the resources of the state; even the wrong political decisions could lead to a civil war,
dying more blood into the region, the first thing that this region needs is political and armed
stability, when that is reached, this region can flourish into a territory that has a lot to share
and help economically and culturally speaking to the global community.
It is also important to take into account the denial of the UN towards accepting Kurdistan as a
non-autonomous territory, This makes it a lot harder for Kurdistan to apply for the self-
determination process, a revision of the case of Kurdistan needs to be done by the UN in
order to have a further view regarding the geopolitical position of Kurdistan, and if the
freedom they acquired in Iraq is enough to refer to them as non-autonomous, also, it is
important to understand the position of the other states and if they are willing to give a
portion of their territory to the formation of Kurdistan.
All these aspects need to be taken into account at the hour of even starting to think of the
independization of Kurdistan and how relevant its role would be at the hour of starting a
process of self-determination.

5. Personal engagement
Global politics are an essential part of me, it is a passion I have, I care a lot about what is
happening in the world and how it can be solved, I want my career to be focused on global
politics, I want to be a leader in the future, for my country, Colombia, and for the world.
This topic in general really appeals to me since the first day I heard of it, as an active
participant of the United Nations Model and president of VESMUN, the model of my school,
I believe that this case is a perfect example that nobody never has the complete reason in a
conflict, and that all the sides have a different truth regarding the issue. Besides, by doing my
extended essay, I learned a lot about how complicated the condition of the Middle East is but
that they are a strategic region for the Most Economically Developed Countries in a military
and economical aspect.
6. Conclusion
In conclusion, the future of Kurdistan is still uncertain, despite the fact that the independence
of it could sum up a lot of positive factors to the international community, it is going through
a delicate situation, where the UN won't reaffirm them as a non-autonomous territory so they
can't start their self-determination process. Despite the historical violent events linked to
Kurdistan, it is important to say that the Kurdish people as a minority have seen a lot of
rejection towards them, for instance in Turkey, where they throughout history have been into
political persecutions and rebellions that had left blood behind. Nevertheless, this minority
have also been included and given some sort of autonomy by countries such as Iraq, so even
though they are starting to get recognized and given some territorial freedom, there is still a
lot to go through, it is important to remark how helpful has Kurdistan been at the hour of
fighting against insurgent groups such as ISIS. This made a huge impact on how the
international community sees Kurdistan and how it can impact the security of the Middle
East. The add of Kurdistan as an autonomous state to the international community could
bring with it huge impact in the global market, being it a rich region in oil, and beside it,
Kurdistan's economy wouldn't be a dependent economy rather than a diverse economy, as it
would have a strong travel and tourism industry due to the culture and history of the minority
and of the region itself, taking into account that it once was a british colony. And with some
correct trading deals it would make Kurdistan an economy with a positive impact on the
region and on the world.

Bibliography

- International amnesty , Hope and fear. Human Rights in the Kurdistan Region, april, 2009.

- Resolution 1514 of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries