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Armeno-Kurdish Relations: Love Fest or
Divorce Settlement Meetings?
20.8.2012
By Dr. Henry Astarjian - The Armenian Weekly |
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Acting Patriarch Ateshian arrives in Sourp Giragos
church in Diyarbakir in Oct. 2012 to preside over
its reconsecration. Photo: Khatchig Mouradian
Dr. Henry Astarjian, United Stated. Dr Astarjia was
born in Kirkuk, Iraq, and attended the Khrimian
Azgayin Varzharan. In 1958, he graduated from the
Royal College of Medicine and went on to serve as an
army medical officer in Iraqi Kurdistan, he is the
author of The Struggle for Kirkuk.
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Read more by the Author
August 20, 2012
Like a first date with a potential lover or a last
meeting to settle divorce property with an ex,
Armenian and Kurdish individuals are in a fest, both
knowing full well that negative feelings hover over
the canopy under which they are sipping champagne.
Both sides, dealing from a position of weakness,
manage to create a façade of joviality and happiness
for the created opportunity. And both sides realize
that in order to settle their differences, they have
to accept difficult compromises, and yield serious
overdue concessions to the other side. Such are
Armeno-Kurdish relations today.
Individuals from both sides, meeting individually in
various places and on various occasions, are set to
rediscover each other. Recently boy-meets-girl and
getting-to-know-you opportunities were created. I am
mindful of the visit of Armenian dance troops to
Dersim (Tunceli), Armenian Diasporan participations
in Newroz celebrations, and in celebrations for
renovation of a church in Diyarbekir.
As part of their public relations strategy, the
Kurds are desperately trying to makeover their look
by attempting to erase the image of savagery, which
they perpetrated during the Armenian Genocide. Their
first official act came from the Kurdish Parliament
in Exile in Brussels through their communiqué #1, in
which they apologized to the Armenian nation for all
the ills they have committed against us.
Another such sweet event was the celebration in
Diyarbekir during the consecration of Surp Giragos
Church, when the city hosted Armenian clergy and lay
people with signs and flags welcoming their guests
“Home”—an uplifting gesture indeed that goes beyond
the usual mea culpa! No Armenian, to my knowledge,
packed his bag to go “Home,” and none is expected to
do so anytime soon.
Armenians, in turn, are making a half-hearted effort
to forgive, but not to forget, the Kurdish
atrocities perpetrated before, during, and after the
genocide. These are very difficult tasks for both.
Kurds, some 30 million of them, have been battling
for a century to gain notoriety in their own land.
Their major shortcoming has been, and to some degree
still is, tribalism. This socio-political structure
was a major obstacle in gaining statehood when the
pie was being divided at Sevres. This Treaty of
Peace, which sealed a lot of deals in dividing the
defeated Ottoman Empire, provided in its article 64
a rare opportunity for Kurdish independence:
“If within one year from the coming into force of
the present Treaty the Kurdish peoples within the
areas defined in article 62 shall address themselves
to the Council of the League of Nations in such a
manner as to show that a majority of the population
of these areas desires independence from Turkey, and
if the Council then considers that these peoples are
capable of such independence from Turkey and
recommends that it should be granted to them, Turkey
hereby agrees to execute such a recommendation, and
to renounce all rights and title over these areas.”
The mandated year passed, and now over 90 years
later, the Kurdish society remains disunited in
purpose. This fact does not need much to verify; one
look at the societal and political make-up of
Turkish Kurdistan or the Kurdish Parliament in Exile
based in Brussels would convince one of its
authenticity.
Further evidence comes from the recent Buyuk Millet
Meclisi (Turkish Parliament) elections where the
Kurdish vote was split and their goals shattered as
a result.
The most recent disunity and story of betrayal comes
from skeptics and conspiracy theorists who believe
that Abdullah Ocalan was betrayed by his Kurdish
adversaries, or I should say enemies, which led to
his kidnapping from Kenya by Turkish special agents.
Kurdish political thought and institutions are so
dangerously diverse and divided, that a section of
them prefer their status quo within Turkey; others
inebriated by religious fervor work for the return
of the Islamic Caliphate of yesteryear; and yet
others yearn for total independence and statehood.
This being the situational climate, Kurds can offer
us only love and good will, which they are
attempting to do, and we accept all that with
gratitude—but that is not enough! The price of
reconciliation is far greater than that. Granted
they cannot give us what they don’t have,www.ekurd.net
but sooner or later 30 million or so of them will
have to have some kind of self-rule—be it autonomy,
federation, or confederation—with Turkey, taking our
legitimate rights to Western Armenia with them. This
is not acceptable!
To achieve their goals, the Kurds need to forge
alliances. Among their most natural allies, aside
from the mountains, are the Armenians who spread the
span of the globe and can exercise their ideological
and political clout to bolster the cause. This can
happen if and when our love fest is consummated in
concrete terms.
We have the same past, the same political and armed
struggle, the same national aspirations, the same
future, the same destiny, and the reciprocity of
goodwill. Furthermore, regardless of all
circumstances, we are locked in and destined to live
together. At the beginning of the 19th century, the
Kurdish Prince Badrkhan forged an alliance with the
Armenians, put together some 40,000-strong armies
consisting of both parties, and waged a war against
the central Turkish government. At the beginning
they gave Turks hell only to live in one when
Badrkhan’s brother, who was commanding the forces on
the right flank of the attack, betrayed them in lieu
of money and perks offered him by the Turks.
When all is said and done, Armenians have their own
problems and shortcomings. Physically they are
scattered almost everywhere and in most places they
are comfortable. The genocide and post-genocide
psychological and physical translocations have
created a reality of apathy in the nation. In the
diaspora, people, especially the political parties,
are interested in rehashing failed policies because
it justifies projecting guilt on the perpetrators of
the genocide, thereby avoiding a commitment to the
new, necessary, risky, and difficult issue of
Western Armenia.
Poverty of thought prevails in the nation; the
intellectual class of yesteryear was either beheaded
on the eve of the genocide, assassinated like Hrant
Dink, or died a natural death. No! There are no
replacements! There is a void, a political thought
and action vacuum, which the church is trying to
fill affirming the millet mentality and reality.
History tells us how disastrous that could be!
The Third Republic is corrupt to the core and
sitting on its hands while tens of thousands leave
the country, creating an unprecedented brain drain.
The diaspora, neglecting the real issue of regaining
our rights in Western Armenia, is busy like the
hounds chasing the plastic rabbit dangled in front
of us. A church here, a church there, or a monument
renovated and returned to us, generates
psychological but deceptive comfort. It does not
address the real issue of Western Armenia.
Movers and shakers—if there are any in the
nation—must have unity of purpose. Bring this issue
on the radar screen, and then sip champagne with the
Kurds under the canopy of the Sevres Treaty, in a
divorce settlement while engaging in love fest.
- Dr. Henry Astarjian was born in Kirkuk, Iraq,
and attended the Khrimian Azgayin Varzharan. In
1958, he graduated from the Royal College of
Medicine and went on to serve as an army medical
officer in Iraqi Kurdistan. He continued his medical
education in Scotland and England. In 1966, he
emigrated to the U.S. In 1992, he served as a New
Hampshire delegate to the Republication National
Convention in Houston, Texas. His weekly column
“Loud and Clear” appeared in the Armenian Weekly for
several years. He was the editor of the short lived
“Armeno-Kurdish Chronicle” and has written articles
in the Kurdistan Times. For three years Astarjian
addressed the Kurdish Parliament in Exile in
Brussels, defending Armenian rights to Western
Armenia, which is now inhabited by Kurds and a
million-or-so converted Armenians. For three
consecutive years, he addressed the American Kurds
in California and Maryland. Astarjian has also been
a keynote speaker during April 24 commemorations and
May 28 celebrations in California, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He
delivered a speech at the American University of
Armenia on “The Kurdish Revolution and the Armenian
Cause.” He is the author of The Struggle for Kirkuk,
published by Preager and Preager International
Securities.
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