The Kurdish Question & Iraq
This program focuses on the long-standing Kurdish question in relation to Iraq and across the greater Middle East. Hovsepian says, “The Middle East suffers today from problems created as a result of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern state system.” The Kurds, like the Armenians, got the short end of the stick. The Treaty of Sevres at the end of World War One could have led to a sovereign Kurdish state. But it never happened. Kurds are in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Eastern Turkey has the largest Kurdish population. For decades Kurdish armed resistance has challenged the Turkish state. Thousands have been killed. Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world that does not have its own state. In all, there are about 31 million Kurds.
Interviewed by David Barsamian.
Speaker
Nubar Hovsepian
Nubar Hovsepian is an associate professor emeritus of political science at Chapman University in Orange, California. He served from 1982 to 1984 as political affairs officer for the United Nations Conference on the Question of Palestine. He edited and contributed to The War on Lebanon. He is the author of Palestinian State Formation: Education and the Construction of National Identity and Edward Said: The Politics of an Oppositional Intellectual.
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