Kurdistan

Summary

In the King-Crane Commission Report’s survey of territorial conditions in Anatolia, Kurdistan is the only claimed area, besides Armenia and the Constantinopolitan State, that the Commission advises handling separately at present: a limited natural area with a measure of autonomy under close mandatory rule, placed under the power caring for Mesopotamia (Report of the American Section of the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey, lines 6909-7150 approx.).

The Kurds claim a very large area on the basis of their distribution, but they are greatly mixed with Armenians, Turks and others and divided among themselves into Kizil-bash Shiites and Sunnites; the Report limits the area to that between the proposed Armenia on the north and Mesopotamia on the south, with the divide between the Euphrates and the Tigris as the western boundary and the Persian frontier as the eastern (lines 6909-7150 approx.).
Autonomy is to prepare the Kurds for ultimate independence or federation with neighbouring areas; voluntary exchange of population could shift most Turks and Armenians out, obtaining a province of about a million and a half people, nearly all Kurds, with full security provided for the Syrian, Chaldean and Nestorian Christians dwelling in the area. The plan would provide for all the Sunnite Kurds in Turkey; the Kizilbash group lies almost wholly to the west (lines 6909-7150 approx.).
Section Three’s recommendation 5 charges the Asia Minor boundary commissions with defining Syria’s and Mesopotamia’s northern boundaries with special reference to allowing the Kurds this autonomy, possibly in connection with Mesopotamia (lines 7409-7650 approx.).
Section Two had already allowed that the Southern Kurds might possibly be linked up with a united Mesopotamia of the Basra, Bagdad and Mosul vilayets (lines 4761-4930 approx.).

tags
aliases