Specificity of politication and radicalization of the Kurdish national liberation movement in the Middle East

Baravi Melina Vladimirovna ORCID: 0009-0004-6063-6948 Postgraduate student of the Department of History and Politics of Russia, National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603022, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Gagarin Avenue, 23 melinabaravi@gmail.com Petrunin Aleksandr Sergeevich ORCID: 0000-0003-4709-4086 Postgraduate student of the Department of Political Science, National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603022, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Prospekt Gagarina str., 23 sasha99_52@mail.ru Rogozhina Evgeniya Mikhailovna ORCID: 0000-0003-3515-2699 PhD in Politics Associate Professor of the Department of International Relations and Foreign Regional Studies Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod 603155, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Minina str., 31 a evgenia-amiga@yandex.ru

Ryzhov Igor' Valer'evich ORCID: 0000-0002-6417-1517 Doctor of History Professor, Head of the Department of History and Politics of Russia of National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603000, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanova str., 2, office 313 ivr@fmo.unn.ru Other publications by this author

The relevance of the research topic lies primarily in the fact that today the problem of the very phenomenon of existence, logical development and even some form of evolution of the Kurdish national movement and its both direct and indirect influence on the policy of the great powers in the Middle East region in the last quarter of the twentieth century is more relevant than ever. The main issue of this problem is the confrontation of two very large-scale contradictions, expressed in the conduct of the Kurdish national liberation struggle for the right to recognize their rights and freedoms in the context of the territorial issue on the one hand, and on the other, non-recognition, ignoring, silencing and attempts to solve the problem, including by force, within the framework of the the regional policy of the Middle Eastern countries in the territory where Kurdistan was historically located.

It is also worth noting that the Kurdish issue covers several areas, affecting both domestic and international cooperation, thus influencing both the internal political situation of the Middle East states and their relations within the framework of interstate cooperation in general. Taking into account this thesis and considering it as a kind of axiom and starting point, it is safe to say that the Kurdish issue has long gone beyond regional politics and turned into a global problem, in which not only interested countries such as Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, but also Russia, are involved, USA, UK. France, Germany, dividing spheres of influence in the Middle East region, whose activities are often focused on attempts to use the Kurdish national liberation movement in their interests in order to prevent an increase in the level of Kurdish national consolidation and prevent the creation of a unified and independent state of Kurdistan.

Moreover, the Kurdish issue, due to its extremely narrowly focused specifics and classification of the conflict, is still not fully resolved, as well as insufficiently studied, and therefore it is not possible to resolve this territorial and political problem at the moment, taking into account historical and cultural development.

The degree of scientific development of the topic. The historiographical base of this study was made up of the works of both domestic researchers and foreign authors.

Many works, both among domestic and foreign authors, are devoted to the topic of factors, causes and prerequisites that led to the formation of the Kurdish national liberation movement in the Middle East.

Among the works of domestic researchers, the works of Ivanov S.M., Veselov A., Vertyaev K.V., Zhigalina O.I., Mehmet E.I.D. should be highlighted, considering the state of the Kurdish issue in Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran, its impact on the politics and economy of the Middle East, as well as attempts to analyze forecasts of prospects for resolving contradictions and, as a result, the acquisition of Kurdish independence.

The works of Western researchers Robert Olson and Stuart Hall are aimed at examining the root causes and factors that influenced the formation and primary development of the stages of the Kurdish question.

Among the works of Turkish researchers, the works of Kehl-Bodrodi K., Hakan Yavuz M., Vamik Volkan, Ismail Geldes and Umit Cizre Sakallioglu should be highlighted, devoted to the process of aggravation and further radicalization of the Kurdish national liberation movement at late stages, analysis of the actions of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), consideration of it in the format of state discourse in Turkey, the influence of the impact on public opinion and rethinking of the Kurdish issue, as well as the direct and indirect influence of Kurdish activities on the policies of the Middle Eastern powers.  

The Kurds are one of the oldest peoples living in the Middle East, inhabiting Kurdistan – the "land of the Kurds", a vast mountainous area around the Kurdistan Mountains located at the junction of the Armenian and Iranian highlands in the center of Asia Minor. This territory, inhabited by Kurds, was torn between Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran during a number of historical events. In this regard, along with the generally accepted term "Kurdistan" in the literature, there are four geographical names: Turkish (Northern Kurdistan), Iraqi (Southern Kurdistan), Iranian (Eastern Kurdistan) and Syrian (Western Kurdistan).

Kurds are one of the significant national minorities in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. According to approximate data at the beginning of 2024, the total number of Kurds (ethnic Kurdistan and the diaspora) was estimated at about 45 million people. Of these, 14.7 million people lived in Turkey, 8.3 million in Iran, 7 million in Iraq, and 2.6 million in Syria. The Kurdish population is concentrated in these countries in a similar way: in Turkey, Kurds live in the southeast of the country in the cities of Diyarbakir, Mush, Harput, Van, Bitlis, Mardin, Erzurum, Dersim, Erzincan and their districts. In Iran, Kurds inhabit the northwestern part of the country, called Iranian Kurdistan. This includes the districts of the cities of Maku, Salmas, Khoy, Ushnu, Sulduza, Bane, Mehabad (Soujbulak), Sakkyz, Sennedzha, Kermanshah. In Iraq, the Kurdish population is concentrated in the north – in the areas of Rawanduz, Sulaymaniyah, Mosul, Kirkuk, Koisanjak, Amadiya and the Sinjar Mountains. In Syria, the Kurdish population is located in the northeastern part of the country bordering Iraq. Also, separate Kurdish settlements were found along the Syrian-Turkish border [Vertyaev, Zhigalina, Ivanov, 2013, pp. 11-15].

The main part

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Kurds inhabited most of the territories of the Deregez, Kelat, Rodkan, Kuchan, Bujnurd khanates, partly Mehshed khanates, etc. These khanates were also inhabited by Tatas, Turkmens, Persians, Baluchis and the Turkic-speaking population, known in literature under the common name "Turk".

A small number of Kurds live in other countries, in particular in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Separate groups of Kurds living southwest and northwest of Ankara were forcibly resettled by the Turkish government during World War I and especially after the suppression of the Kurdish national movement in 1927 and 1930.

Geographically, Kurdistan is for the most part a mountainous country where the most important nodes of the mountain systems of Asia Minor – Zagros, Taurus and Antitaurus - converge. Numerous rivers originate and flow on the territory of Kurdistan – Euphrates, Tigris, Bokhtan-su, Bolshoy and Maly Zab, etc.

Kurdistan has long played a major role in trade with neighboring nations. In addition to its commercial importance, Kurdistan attracted the attention of foreign powers with its rich reserves of minerals such as oil, iron, lead, coal, etc.

One of the characteristic features of the Kurdish people is the still-preserved tribal division. The Kurds break up into a significant number of large and small tribes, each of which occupies a certain territory. It should also be noted that, although tribal unions and tribal institutions are gradually beginning to fade into history, they nevertheless continue to play an essential role in the political and socio–economic life of Kurdish society.

The Kurdish language fits the classification of the Indo-European language group and belongs to the northwestern branch of the Iranian language. It has several main dialects, such as: Kurmanji, which is a northwestern dialect and is at the heart of the linguistic base of the literary language of the Kurds. It is used in Turkey, Syria, Northern and Northwestern Iran. As well as Kurdi, a southeastern dialect spoken mainly among the Kurds of Iran and Iraq.

By religious affiliation, the vast majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims of the Shafi'i and Hanafi persuasions, but there are also adherents of Shiism.

In the countries of the Middle East, by religion, which plays an important role in the life of peoples in Asia, Kurds settle approximately according to the following scheme: Sunni Muslims in Turkey, Iran, Iran, Syria; Shiite Muslims inhabit Khorasan, as well as the central and southern parts of Iranian Kurdistan. The main places of settlement of the Yezidis are Northern Iraq, the districts of Jabal, Sinjar and adjacent areas of Syria. The Ali-Ilahi live mainly in the Kermanshah area.

Taking this into account, it can be concluded that Kurdistan historically had an extremely advantageous territorial and resource location, which, in turn, could not but arouse claims both among neighboring countries and foreign conquerors, which, in turn, forced the Kurds at different historical stages to fight for their independence and to wage a liberation struggle against Turkey, Persia, Mongolia and the Arab States. 

Despite the fact that the Kurdish population lived in a significant part of the territory, which is now dispersed and is part of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, western Iran, as well as small areas of northern Syria and Armenia, for many centuries they have not been able to achieve the approval of the official status of their territory. The Kurdish national movement has often been viewed extremely negatively by governments and political elites, which has historically led to persecution, pressure, resettlement, persecution, or attempts at forced assimilation.

Despite the fact that the Kurdish issue, as well as the Kurdish problem, have a long and very ambiguous history of their formation and development, including periods of success and failure, stages of elevation and gaining public popularity, as well as the almost complete cessation of their activities, the Kurds have not managed to achieve any significant success in implementing your goal. Meanwhile, one should also accept the fact that the states of the Middle East did not succeed in finally breaking the Kurdish liberation movement [Ivanov, 2023]. At the moment, all the factors and causal relationships that support the Kurdish national movement have been preserved, making it one of the most important and relevant factors in both domestic and foreign policy in the Middle East.

Recently, the concept that considers Kurdish nationalism as a natural force has been gaining popularity [Kehl-Bodrogi, 1999, pp. 555-568]. Thus, nationalism itself, regardless of whether it is Turkish or Kurdish, is always based and formed in the context of national identity, as well as within the political context. Meanwhile, they should be distinguished, because Turkish nationalism, unlike Kurdish, is based on the presence of a state territory. Turkish nationalism is focused on the constant development and modernization of society, while Kurdish, emphasizing its identity and the originality of historical development, is a kind of response to the modernization of national states.

Kurdish nationalism is based on the postulates of the Kurdish ethnic group, which includes such aspects as: the foundations, traditions and values of this people. The Kurdish issue in its modern form largely exists due to the politicization of Kurdish culture and the struggle to preserve national autonomy.

Meanwhile, without taking into account the fact that representatives of the Turkish ethnic group can also be perceived as participants in the movement of Kurdish nationalism, there are very serious disagreements within the framework of the national identity system itself on the basis of tribal, religious and linguistic differences. The sources of these disagreements are based on a socio-historical nature, which prevents the emergence of a full-fledged Kurdish identity [Yavuz, 1998, p. 75-95].

Another source of fragmentation of the Kurdish identity is the territorial or geographical factor. The Kurds are a nation that was formed at the intersection of the Persian, Arab and Turkish worlds, which to some extent granted the Kurdish tribes a high degree of autonomy. Most Kurds lived in rugged mountainous terrain, which in turn separated one community from another, as well as from Arabs, Persians and Turks. And these harsh geographical conditions were the main factors hindering the formation of Kurdish unity.

Studying the evolution and politicization of Kurdish ethnonationalism in Turkey, one can emphasize the socio-political process of separating Islam from Kurdish nationalism, as well as the social forces that both united and fragmented the process of Kurdish self-determination. In the course of its historical development, the Kurdish issue has overcome a number of stages that can be identified and considered both from the perspective of socio-economic, political and ideological processes in Kurdish society, states with Kurdish communities and directly in Kurdistan, and from the perspective of ideological changes in international and interstate relations, including the Middle East. It follows from this that the process of formation and development of Kurdish nationalism has passed through 4 stages of historical development.

At the first stage, first of all, it is possible to identify the factor of influence of the policy of centralization of the Ottoman state in the XIX century. As a response to this policy, as well as the penetration of European capitalism, local Islamic networks have been politicized and mobilized. At this stage, the role of the Naqshbandi and Qadiri orders is emphasized in the form of instruments of resistance to the centralization of the Ottoman state, as well as a way of forming the Kurdish identity (1878-1924).

During the period of Ottoman rule, ethnic identity played an extremely low political role, and religious identity formed political loyalty to a greater extent. The first attempts to centralize the state in the 19th century led to the politicization of peripheral ethnic and religious identities. Most of the uprisings of the Kurdish tribes against the central government were the result of a reaction to the intrusive and centralizing modernization policies of the Ottoman State and the Turkish Republic. Such a policy of centralization in terms of monopolizing violence and education threatened tribal autonomy and the interests of agha or Sayyid. Some of these tribes resisted the spread of the rule of law in this region, as it was aimed at limiting and ending their feudal tyranny [Hall et al., 1999, p. 55-69].

The centralization of the Ottoman Empire was aimed at destroying tribal ties and coalitions, which would lead to the strengthening of Sufi associations and the politicization of Islamic identity. The Kurdish ethnic consciousness developed within the framework of Islamic consciousness, and therefore, in the movement against centralization, Sufi associations called Naqshbandiya not only replaced the more aristocratic Qadiri orders, but also played a key role in it. The first proto-religious-ethnic uprising took place in 1880 under Sheikh Ubeidullah, a local religious leader, as a response to Sultan Abdul Hamid II's centralization policy. After the suppression of this religious and tribal uprising, Sultan Abdul Hamid II formed Hamidieh regiments from various Kurdish tribes to resist Russian-backed Armenian nationalism in eastern Anatolia, which played a key role in the formation of Kurdish nationalism.

The second stage (1925-1961) is characterized by the socio-political consequences of the transformation of the multiethnic Ottoman Empire into a new "national state" and the reaction of the Kurdish tribes to Mustafa Kemal's state-building project. The rebels, who opposed centralization, demanded the preservation of the autonomy of tribal structures, which played a key role in the formation of Kurdish protonationalism. The discourse of Mustafa Kemal's new Republican ideology either denied the existence of Kurds, or reconstructed the political language in such a way as to talk about this problem without pronouncing the word "Kurds". As part of the radical reforms of the state structure, the Kurdish traditional ideas about identity and culture were formulated as reactionary, resulting from regional backwardness.

Ethnolinguistic groups in the Ottoman State were classified not by ethnicity, but by religious affiliation, since various ethnolinguistic communities existed within various religious groups. Thus, during and after the First World War, Kurdish cultural committees were established in large Kurdish cities [Duran, 1998, p. 111-128]. As a result of this political mobilization, as well as British support for an independent Kurdish state, Serif Pasha presented the Kurdish issue at subsequent international conferences. Also, the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 created "local autonomy for lands where the Kurdish factor prevails." And despite the fact that it was never implemented, it remained in the memory of the Turkish state for a long time.

After Sheikh Said's uprising against the new Republic in 1925, the process of state reconstruction was accelerated [G?ldas, 2000, p. 256-284]. Again, the caliphate, which was abolished in 1924, was an Islam-sanctioned union of multinational groups and recognized ethnic diversity without assigning any political role to it. In other words, the caliphate was a symbol of a multinational state and government, it symbolized the unity of Muslims as a community based on faith, and provided space for the development of local autonomy of the periphery. The purpose of the 1925 uprising was to preserve this religious structure of the region. During the uprising, Islamic associations and structures were used to expand their social base in order to gain support from other anti-secularist Sunni Turks.

Initially, the policy of Sheikh Said of the Naqshbandi Order was conducted quite successfully, but tribal rivalry and internal religious differences prevented the Kurds from fully participating in this process. Despite the fact that the Turkish army captured Sheikh Said (1865-1925) and hanged him in Diyarbakir, his uprising, considered the first ethno-religious uprising, prompted the Turkish government to be more attentive and cautious about any form of Kurdish activity.

So in October 1927, a group of leaders of Kurdish tribes and intellectuals formed the Kurdish National Hoibun League, which carried out the uprising on Mount Agn (Ararat) in 1930-1931. In order to establish law and order in the region, the 1934 Law organized selective resettlement and exiled some Kurdish tribal leaders to western Turkey. Subsequently, this policy of assimilation and external interference caused a new uprising in and around the mountainous areas of Dersim, inhabited mainly by Alawite Kurds, known as Zaza, in 1937-1938.

These uprisings against the Turkish Republic created a cumulative image of the inhabitants of the region as socially tribal, religiously fanatical, economically backward and, most importantly, posing a threat to the national Turkish Republic [Olson, 2000, p. 67-94]. In other words, the Kemalist state discourse on the Kurdish issue developed as a result of these uprisings. The new state has become more sensitive to its policy of creating a secular Turkish nation.

Thus, in order to explain the presentation of the Kurdish issue by the Turkish state, it should be understood that the Republic did not deny the existence of the Kurds, but rather developed a new discourse that allows talking about them without pronouncing the word "Kurd" in an ethnonational sense, perceiving the Kurdish tribal structure as a reactionary, backward and extremely dangerous system.

After 1925, numerous nations and nationalities that lived on the territory of the Ottoman Empire began to form currents of Turkish nationalism by rethinking linguistic identity [Cizre, 1998, p. 73-90]. The new Turkish state tried to belittle the role of the Ottoman heritage, as well as to elevate and strengthen the Turkish identity through the use of the army, education, media and art. Thanks to this, in 1922-1950, during the development and formation of the Kemalism movement, in fact, it was possible to achieve competition between two versions of nationalism, namely: ethnoconfessional or communal and secular linguistic.

Nationalism and secularism formed the core of Kemalist ideology in Turkey. The Kemalist project of secularism was aimed at "civilizing" the cultural and social spheres of the nation. Although nationalism presupposes the creation of an ethnically homogeneous society at the expense of other identities, "race" has never become an integral element of being a Turk, but rather "being a citizen of the Turkish Republic. In the Constitutions of 1961 and 1982, there was a gradual ethnification of the term "Turk". According to article 66 of the Constitution of 1982, everyone who holds the citizenship of the Republic of Turkey is a Turk. In modern Turkey, the term "Turkish nation" includes all Turkish citizens, regardless of their ethnic roots. Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin represent a new concept that was introduced as a response to pressure from European states.

The third stage (1962-1983) highlights the secularization of Kurdish identity within the broader leftist movement in Turkey in the period from the 1960s to the 1970s.

The process of transformational changes in the identity of the Kurds occurred to the greatest extent under the influence of the Turkish leftist movement of the 1960s – 1970s of the 20th century, where the Alawite Kurds, in the course of interaction with the ideology of socialism, played one of the main roles in this issue.

With the spread of universal education and socio-political liberalization as a result of the 1961 Constitution, representatives of the Kurdish intelligentsia, replacing tribal and religious leaders, began to play a key role in shaping national identity, expressing deep concern and some dissatisfaction with the provisions of socialist ideas affecting the process of self-determination of the Kurds. Kurds, especially Alawite Kurds, dominated the Turkish left movement in the 1970s [Birand, 1992, p. 83]. Between 1965 and 1968, the bilingual Turkish-Kurdish magazines Dicle Firat and Deng were published. In the late 1960s, the issue of Kurdish identity was expressed in terms of regional economic inequality, and the resolution of this issue could be put within the framework of the socialist model of social development. At its Fourth National Congress, the Turkish Labour Party adopted a resolution stating: "There are Kurdish people in the east of Turkey." The purpose of this statement was to create a socialist base for the Labour Party using an ethnic map. In the 1970s, leftist groups and associations were used to challenge the "central political authority" in Ankara. Criticism of the center was the main unifying force of the left movement.

Another important event was the creation of the Revolutionary Cultural Society of the East in 1969, the first organizational attempt to raise awareness of the Kurdish population, highlighting the uneven economic development in the regions of the country. The leftist movement in Turkey has always tried to expand its base, placing the greatest emphasis on the problems of the Alawite and Kurdish populations. Some of the leaders of the association were active members of the Turkish Labour Party, but after the 1971 coup, the Labour Party and the Society of the East were outlawed.

One of the key goals of the 1980 coup was to establish control over the centrifugal forces of the Kurdish and religious movements. The coup used repressive measures and destroyed the organizational power of Kurdish associations in Turkey. He imprisoned many Kurdish activists, and some of them found refuge in Europe, where they formed the core of the transnational Kurdish association [Yavuz, 2000, pp. 33-39]. However, the suppression of the 1980 coup had the opposite effect, further politicizing and strengthening the Kurdish sense of identity, which in turn was exploited by the PKK. The policy of the Turkish military and regional events in Iraq and Iran further strengthened Kurdish separatism, and the PKK launched an armed uprising to defeat the Turkish state in 1984. And it is worth noting that no Kurdish organization or movement has previously been able to secure such a level of popular support and the resource base of the Kurdish population to such an extent and degree as the Kurdistan Workers' Party has managed to do.

The fourth stage (1983-1998) is formed and developed within the framework of a violent uprising led by the PKK. In the late 1980s, Kurdish nationalism was still in its infancy and consisted of a number of different heterogeneous formations. Kurdish nationalism envisioned the formation of a territory where class and regional debates and disagreements could be omitted, and the PKK could put an end to the mutually exclusive relations of Islam, ethnicity and nationalism in favor of the latter. The Kurdish nationalists used the "path of violence", starting from the terrorist campaign led by the PKK, and ending with the creation of predominantly Kurdish parties and the struggle for cultural and political rights [Volkan, 1997, p. 168-180].

For the fate of the Kurdish national movement and for the entire Kurdish issue as a whole, the period after 1970 was of particular importance, since it was due to the creation and active activity of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) or, as it is also called, the Kurdistan People's Congress, which is a militant Kurdish nationalist organization founded by Abdullah Ocalan ("Apo") in the late 1970s . Despite the fact that the party initially advocated the formation of an independent state of Kurdistan within the territories of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, in the future this idea was replaced by more liberal calls for increasing the autonomy of the Kurdish peoples.

The PKK has played a crucial role in raising the political consciousness of the Kurds, creating a network of groups and associations both in Turkey and abroad to recruit fighters, undermining the religious and tribal structure of the region, providing new opportunities to the middle class and urbanized Kurdish youth, and unexpectedly popularizing and consolidating Turkish nationalism in Turkey. The PKK's activities prompted the Kurds to criticize not the political power in Ankara, but rather Turkish nationalism as an institution in general, in order to legitimize their own separatist nationalism. This new turn from criticism of state power to criticism of Turkish nationalism was a turning point in the separation of Kurdish nationalism and Turkey's leftist movement. [Mukhin, 2017]

During the collapse of the social structure as a result of serious social transformations in the 1970s, the PKK positioned itself as a liberation movement and wanted to restore Kurdish identity and justice by violent means. The 1980 coup and its brutality helped create an appearance of hopelessness in society, convincing the Kurdish people that their future was limited and artificially restrained by the Turkish state. In this regard, people had only two options: either move to Europe as political refugees and seek a new life, or join the PKK to fight against the Turkish state [Eccarius-Kelly, 2001, p. 5-7]. Thus, the PKK became increasingly popular as harassment intensified as a result of the military coup.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party was established on November 27, 1978 and remained under the authoritarian leadership of Abdullah Ocalan, whose goal was to destroy the traditional Kurdish social structure and create a socialist pan-Kurdish state.

The PKK launched a campaign of terror against Turkish state officials. His main goal was to destabilize Turkey and create an independent Kurdish state with the support of some foreign countries such as Syria, Greece and the USSR. For more than two decades, A. Ocalan has operated from Syria and Syria-occupied Lebanon. The PKK is responsible for the indiscriminate killing of moderate Turkish Kurds, both in Turkey and in Europe. In addition to killing many moderate Kurds, she forced Kurdish families to send their children to the service of the party. Moreover, she has consistently targeted the educational infrastructure in the region, calling public schools "instruments of Ankara's assimilation policy." The PKK reportedly killed about 200 teachers and destroyed 150 schools to "stop assimilation," as well as blowing up bridges, hospitals and getting rid of "collaborators." The party killed both Kurds and Turks, as the victims were perceived as supporters of the state. The PKK and its leadership have never tolerated disagreement with the party line and considered the assimilated Kurds to be the "biggest enemy." The PKK failed to gain popular support from many Kurds, but at the same time was able to politicize their national consciousness.

In order to deter and suppress the activities of the PKK, the Turkish state has implemented a number of political measures. Thus, one of the main social costs of the conflict between the PKK and the state has become the securitization of everyday life in densely populated Kurdish provinces. The Kurdish-populated area of southeastern Anatolia has been in a state of regional emergency (known as OHAL) for almost 20 years. The fight against the PKK was conducted under martial law until a ceasefire was introduced in 1987. The OHAL region included Bingol, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hakkari, Mardin, Siirt, Tunceli and Van, and then expanded to Adiyaman, Bitlis and Musa. In 1990, the provinces of the OHAL region also included Batman and Sirnak. Despite the fact that Elazig and Adiyaman were withdrawn from OHAL, special government regulations apply to its regions, which are not subject to the supervision of the Constitutional Court. This means that the OHAL region has different legal and administrative rules than the rest of the country. This different legal and administrative rule further strengthened Kurdish nationalism.

In the 1980s and 1990s, PKK attacks and reprisals by the Turkish government led to a state of virtual war in eastern Turkey. In the 1990s, Turkish troops attacked PKK bases in the so-called safe havens of Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq, which were established after the Gulf War in 1990-1991, first from the air and then with the help of ground troops. In February 1999, Abdullah Ocalan was captured in Nairobi and sent to Turkey, where in June he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death; however, after the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey in August 2002, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in October of the following year [Berkan, 1999, p. 225-227].

Conclusions

Ultimately, the collapse of the multinational Ottoman Empire and the formation of ethnically based nationalist regimes are the root causes of the politicization and radicalization of the Kurdish issue [Veselov, 2017]. It should be borne in mind that the problems of the Kurds have been accumulating for many decades, and it is naive to believe that they can be solved by some half-hearted measures or a banal "payback". Today, there is an increase in the Kurdish national identity, in which representatives of the Kurdish ethnic group, in essence, are the main stabilizing force in the region, since the fate of the Middle East today largely depends on the Kurdish factor. Despite the extremely low indicators of national unity against the background of competing subethnic factors and characteristics, the Kurds are ready to do everything possible to create Kurdistan, which they intend to turn into a real democratic state.

Of course, these calculations are extremely ambitious and in many ways illusory, however, nevertheless, they are based on several quite solid factors. The territory of a more or less compact settlement of Kurds in the area of Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia contains significant reserves of oil and gas in its bowels, which will be at least a strategic energy raw material for the next half century. [Fedorchenko, Krylov, 2019]. In addition, there is evidence of the presence of other valuable mineral resources there, but their exploration is practically impossible until the Kurds receive in one form or another the right to dispose of these riches. This latter circumstance is connected with the hidden and at the same time persistent struggle between Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Thus, the successful modernization of Turkey, the expansion of communications and a high degree of mobility have strengthened and mobilized the ethnic Kurdish consciousness. This radicalized Kurdish nationalism, which in turn politicized and popularized Turkish nationalism. 

Moreover, with all these factors, the United States stands behind Turkey's interests as a whole, and Russia stands behind Syria's interests. As for countries such as Iraq and Iran, they have been trying to maneuver between the interests of these two major powers, as well as Great Britain, France and Germany, for quite a long time. This situation allows the Kurds to play on the contradictions of the countries where they currently live.

It is precisely because of the contradictory and at times harsh anti-Kurdish policy pursued in the region in the last 20-30 years [Ivanov, 2023] that mass migrations of Kurds have been observed, primarily to European countries. And today, having taken root there, it is a support for lobbying the interests of its people in the Middle East. However, the major powers use such opportunities of the Kurdish diaspora to their advantage, including as a lever of pressure on competing countries.

So, all of the above led to the emergence, formation, development, aggravation, as well as radicalization of the Kurdish issue and its very natural development in the form of a national liberation movement. Despite all the unconditional injustice and ambiguity of the situation, the Kurds must admit that today there is neither territorial nor political opportunity and space in the Middle East to create an independent state of Kurdistan. [Naumkin, 2019, pp. 76-87]. Turkey, in turn, must also recognize the cultural and historical rights of the Kurds and find a new way for cultural unity and peaceful coexistence side by side with the Kurds. Despite the fact that economic ties with the Kurds are currently underway, they do not help resolve the territorial issue in favor of the latter. Therefore, the only way for the Kurds to peacefully coexist is only trade, and not the direct use of force. However, there is little time left for this, because the political, or rather power, map of the world is rapidly changing.

Thus, the paper considers the main stages, factors and features, as well as the reasons that influenced the formation of the idea and further development of the Kurdish national liberation movement in the Middle East.

The authors of the article carefully analyzed the internal policy pursued in the territory of the Ottoman Empire, and subsequently in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran during the late XIX – XX centuries; identified direct and indirect historical and foreign policy factors that influenced the conduct of the policy of centralization and modernization by the Young Turk state, as well as the relationship of these factors with the emergence, formation and the development of the Kurdish national liberation movement. The study also identified the root causes, causes and main stages of the politicization and radicalization of the Kurdish issue; identified factors that had a significant impact on the emergence of the phenomenon itself and the further development of the Kurdish national movement in the Middle East.