Use of ‘Kurdistan' in Turkey (1)

The word “Kurd” has been a taboo up until recently in Turkey. Now we avoid using the notion “Kurdistan.”
 
Kurdish intellectuals, on the other hand, use Kurdistan as the name of a scattered geography. There are different views on the geographical boundaries of Kurdistan.
 
In Turkey, the Iraqi Kurdistan regional administration is called northern Iraq. This common use is preferred by the Turkish media.
 
The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and Turkish nationalists preferred “the north of Iraq” during the period between 1992 and 2008. It was believed that naming this region northern Iraq would be contradictory to Turkish foreign policy underlining the unitary integration of Iraq and that it would mean recognition of the Massoud Barzani-Jalal Talabani rule. The reason for this is that Ankara did not recognize the administration formed by Barzani and Talabani after elections in 1992 subsequent to the Gulf crisis. The common discourse in Turkey during the period between 1992 and 2008 was “northern Iraq.”
 
Arbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk were recognized in the interim government law introduced on March 8, 2004, in the aftermath of the American invasion in 2003 as provinces of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. They gained constitutional status in the Iraqi constitution adopted on Oct. 15, 2005. The constitution uses the title the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). In a subject or discussion relevant to the region, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is used. Despite the fact that the KRG is officially recognized in the 2005 Iraqi constitution, the Turkish military, which used to direct Turkey's Iraq policy, called the KRG the regional administration in the north of Iraq. In this way, it avoided using an identity definition. In addition, political and diplomatic relations were not maintained with the KRG.
 
When the Foreign Ministry took over Iraqi policy in February 2008, this discourse was abandoned in Ankara. It was replaced with the name the Iraqi Kurdistan regional administration. This title is still valid in Ankara. However, this discourse was subsequently abandoned as well. For instance, in a conversation with journalists on a plane during his visit to Iraq in March 2009, President Abdullah Gül used the term “Kurdistan Regional Administration.” This was a first for Turkish politicians. Public universities in Turkey started using the expression “Kurdistan Regional Administration” in their correspondence with KRG institutions since 2009.
 
Because the KRG is recognized in the Iraqi constitution, terms like “Iraqi Kurdistan” and the “Kurdistan region” are used in Kurdish literature. However, Kurdistan currently refers to the KRG, which is able to govern itself autonomously and is used in official correspondence as such.
 
The policy of Kurdish intellectuals in Turkey in expressing the actual boundaries of the Kurdistan geography only by directions without mentioning the countries in this geography -- including Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq -- has become well-established. Under this policy, the lands where Kurds live in Syria are called “Rojava,” which literally means west in the Kurdish language. The area where the Kurds in Turkey live is called “Bakur” or north in Kurdish. The region where the Kurds in Iraq live is called “Rojhilat” or east in Kurdish. This is not frequently used because there is a province in Iraq called Kurdistan. The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) intellectuals refer to the KRG as “Kürdistane Başure,” which means “south Kurdistan.” They frequently refer to themselves as northerners and southerners. In this way, it is stressed that there is a region named Kurdistan and that it consists of four major parts.