The nature and uses of violence in the Kurdish conflict

Turkey, Iran and Iraq, the three modern states among which the vast region known as Kurdistan is divided, have each had their protracted and violent Kurdish conflict. In all three cases the conflict has frequently been described as an ethnic conflict — and rightly so, in the sense that the Kurds’ ethnic identity and political claims based on this identity were central to the conflict. It is, however, important to state at the outset that in none of these countries has the conflict had the form of a confrontation between Kurds and rival ethnic groups. Typically, the conflicts were between separatist political movements and central governments. In the course of these conflicts, the states have often used violence indiscriminately against Kurdish populations but there have not been — but for a few unimportant exceptions — clashes between groups of Turkish, Arab or Persian civilians and their Kurdish neighbours. The armed Kurdish movements have never targeted Turkish or Arab civilians as such; their leaders have proclaimed time and again that their quarrel is not with the Turkish (or Iraqi, or Iranian) people but with the repressive policies of the state. It is true that anti-Kurdish feeling has risen among nationalist Turks in Turkey and among sections of the Arab population in Iraq, but there have never been serious ethnic clashes setting Turks or Arabs against Kurds. (Fears that one day such violence might be triggered by terrorist actions in western Turkey, carried out by Kurdish activists, were not entirely groundless, however.