Kurds in Turkey

Group Profile
In this largest and most populous part of the Kurdish territory,[1] scholars estimate that at least two-thirds of the Kurds nominally are Sunni Muslims, and that as many as one-third are Shia Muslims of the Alevi sect.[2]  Many Alevis in Turkey speak Zara, a language more closely related to the Caspian languages of Iran than to Sorani or Kurmanji.[3]

While an estimated 99 percent of all Kurds in Turkey are Muslim, there are also reportedly 30,000 Nestorian and Assyrian Christians, and 40 to 50,000 Yazidis.[4]

Demography

The Kurdish population in Turkey today is estimated to represent about 20 percent of the total population, or 14.2 million people.[5]  Turkey’s censuses do not list Kurds as a separate ethnic group, so there is limited reliable data on the Kurdish population over time.[6]  However, numerous individuals have done demographic studies.  In 1965, one study estimated the Kurdish population at just over three million.[7]  In 1970, a study estimated that the total number of Kurds in Turkey was 8.5 million.[8]  In 1987, a different study estimated the population at seven million.[9]  In 1990, the population was estimated at 12.6 million.[10]  Studies did correlate a higher growth rate among Kurds than in the larger Turkish population; between 1965 and 1990, the average growth rate was 3.24 percent, 49.31 percent higher than the non-Kurdish growth rate in Turkey.[11]

Geographic Distribution

Traditionally residing in eleven provinces in the southeast in rural communities, more recently urban migration has shifted Kurdish demographics.[12]  In 1965, 27.8 percent of Kurds lived in 146 Kurdish burgs and 18 towns, six of which had a population of over 100,000; the remaining 72.2 percent lived in 11,120 villages and 9,717 hamlets.[13]  In 1965, there were still about 70,000 to 80,000 nomads; by the late 1970s, there were barely 30,000.[14]

Massive population movements in the 1960s, 70s and 80s led many Kurds to urban centers and shantytowns surrounding larger cities.[15]  Most of the Kurds still live in their traditional areas in the east and southeast, but increasing numbers head west.  Once about one-fifth lived in the west in 1965, but this ratio increased to about one-third by 1990.[16] The city with the world's largest Kurdish population today is Istanbul, followed closely by Ankara, even though neither city falls within traditional Kurdistan.[17]

Historic Hardship

With the rise of Kemalism in Turkey in the early 20th century, the identities and rights of Kurds in Turkey came under threat.  Article 89 of the new Turkish law stipulated that political parties and associations “must not claim that there are any minorities in the territory of the Turkish Republic, as this would undermine national unity.”[18]  The regime deprived Kurds of all rights, and imposed on them the reference “mountain Turks.”[19]  In 1924, Kemalist Turkey passed a law forbidding the teaching of Kurdish in school

From 1925 to 1965, Kurdistan was a “military area” to which foreigners were denied access, and several hundred thousand Kurds were deported to Central and Western Anatolia.[20]  During the 1960s and 70s, despite periods of political liberalism, the Kurdish ‘national problem’ was mentioned publicly only once, in 1970, when the Turkish Workers Party passed a resolution recognizing the existence of the Kurdish people and the legitimacy of its democratic demands; the party was banned as a result.[21]

The Kurdish quest for autonomy in Turkey led to a war between 1984 and 1999 between the Kurdish PKK and the Turkish military in Central Anatolia; an estimated 40,000 Kurds were killed in those years.[22]  The Turkish military also burned and razed thousands of villages.

Ongoing Hardship

While the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is considered a rebel group and many Turks still view Kurdish separatism as a threat to national sovereignty, Kurds gained representation in the 2007 parliament elections.  Twenty-one lawmakers from the Democratic Society Party were elected, marking the first time Kurds have been represented in the legislature since 1994 when the party was ousted over alleged ties to militants.[23]  Kurdish lawmaker Ahmet Turk, a leader of the Democratic Society Party, said in August of this year that the state should listen to his group if it wants to avoid alienating Kurds further.  “We want the violence and clashes to stop. We want this solution solved through peaceful and democratic means,” Turk said.[24]