Cengiz Çandar - Turkey’s Mission Impossible: War and Peace with the Kurds

Turkeys Mission
Impossible

Kurdish Societies, Politics, and International Relations

Series Editor: Bahar Baser, Coventry University

This series strives to produce high quality academic work on Kurdish society and politics, and the international relations of Kurdish organizations and governments (Kurdistan Region of Iraq) both regionally and globally. The books in this series explore themes of contemporary relevance as well as presenting historical trajectories of the Kurdish populations. The series contributes to the rapidly growing literature on this topic with books that are original and make substantial empirical and theoretical contribution. The series main focus are the Kurds and the social, cultural and political environment in which Kurdish issues play out. The subjects that we are interested in include but are not limited to: the history of the Kurds, Kurdish politics and policies within Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria, as well as Kurdish politics and their impact on the international relations of the Middle East. This series also publishes books on the policies of the USA, Europe, and other countries towards Kurdish movements and territories, and interdisciplinary research on Kurdish societies, religions, social movements, and the Kurdish diaspora. Lastly, our aim is to contribute to the academic literature on Kurdish culture, arts, cinema and literature. This series speaks to audiences outside academia, and is not limited to area-studies topics. All books in this series will be peer-reviewed and demonstrate academic quality and rigor.

Titles Published

Customized Forms of Kurdishness in Turkey: State Rhetoric, Locality, and Language Use by Ceren engl

Methodological Approaches in Kurdish Studies: Theoretical and Practical Insights from the Field by Bahar Baser, Yasin Duman, Mari Toivanen, and Begum Zorlu

Kurdish Alevis and the Case of Dersim: Historical and Contemporary Insights by Erdal Gezik and Ahmet Kerim Gltekin

The Geopolitics of TurkeyKurdistan Relations: Cooperation, Security Dilemmas, and Economies by Mustafa Demir

Kurds in Turkey: Ethnographies of Heterogeneous Experiences by Lucie Drechselov and Adnan elik

Social Media and Democratization in Irai Kurdistan by Munir Hasan Mohammad

The Kurdish Model of Political Community: A Vision of National Liberation Defiant of the Nation-State by Hanifi Baris

Media and Politics in Kurdistan: How Politics and Media Are Locked in an Embrace by Mohammedali Yaseen Taha

The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics edited by Mehmet Gurses, David Romano, and Michael M. Gunter

Turkeys Mission Impossible: War and Peace with the Kurds by Cengiz andar

Turkeys Mission
Impossible

War and Peace with the Kurds

Cengiz andar
Foreword by Eugene Rogan

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ISBN 978-1-4985-8751-8 (electronic)

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To my dear friends and all those Kurds and Turks who suffer and have
suffered, within Turkeys prisons and without, under injustice and tyranny.

Contents

The Kurdish question emerged from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. A century later, it remains one of the most intractable problems to arise from the postwar partition of Ottoman lands.

A distinct ethnic community in the multinational Ottoman Empire, the Kurds were a fully assimilated part of the Ottoman body politic. Their cultural rights were respected, with Kurdish recognized as one of many national languages in the polyglot Ottoman state. In their majority Sunni Muslims, the Kurds fully shared in the dominant religious culture of the Ottoman state and recognized the Sultan as both a temporal and, in his role as Caliph, as a spiritual leader. While Kurdish intellectuals began to argue for a distinct national identity within Ottoman society, there was no separatist movement among the Kurdish communities before World War I. Instead, Ottoman Kurds fought to preserve the Empire and their place within it.