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Turkey's Kurdish Issue: How Did We Get Here?

Tulin Daloglu reviews the history of Turkey's Kurdish issue.
An Iraqi policeman of Kurdish descent walks between coffins draped with Kurdish flags containing the remains of victims during a burial ceremony in Sulaimaniya, 260km (162 miles) northeast of Baghdad, May 28, 2012. More than 700 Kurds, killed by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, were honoured in a ceremony in northern Iraq on Monday. Kurdish officials gathered at the Police Academy in Suleimaniya province to mourn 730 victims of Iraq's notorious 'Anfal' campaign, whose bodies were discovered in mass grave

While what Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan actually has in mind as a solution to the Kurdish issue remains a mystery, it might be useful to review the history of the conflict.

World War I brought a painful end to the Ottoman Empire, stripping it of its dignity and leaving little in its wake except enmity and hatred among its former subjects. Reflecting on this period, Kurdish nationalists came to believe that they had missed an opportunity to carve out their own homeland. Since that time, the Kurdish issue, according to most of modern Turkey’s governments, has represented a challenge to Turkish unity.

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