Taking a look at the situation of Armenians and Kurds in Turkey shows that neither of these two minorities in Turkish society has ever been accepted by successive governments. Despite Turkey, the Armenian Genocide in Turkey was recognized by some countries in the world one hundred years ago. On the other hand, the Kurdish issue in Turkey has not been successful despite decades of armed activity and the political process by the Kurds to realize their rights, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his latest speech claimed that there is no Kurdish issue in Turkey.

KurdPress interviewed Professor Garabet K Moumdjian, an Armenian researcher and historian, to examine the situation of the Kurds living in Armenia, as well as some historical events such as the Armenian Genocide in Turkey, as well as Turkey's policy towards the Armenians and the Kurdish issue.

How many Kurds live in Armenia right now? Did they migrate to Armenia or are part of the origins of the population?

I must first make a clarification; Kurds in Armenia are of Yazidi extraction. They are known as Yazidis rather than Kurds, although the word Kurd is also used to denote them. The official number of Yazidi Kurds in Armenia is 35.000. However, unofficial estimates show that number as around 50.000.

The Yazidis came to the Russian Empire (Southern Caucasus, now the territories of the republics of Armenia and Georgia) during the 19th and early 20th centuries to escape religious persecution, as they were oppressed by the Ottoman government and Sunni Kurds alike, who tried to convert them to Islam. The Yazidis were massacred alongside the Armenians during the Armenian Genocide, causing many to flee to Russian-held parts of Armenia. The first ever Yazidi School opened in Armenia in 1920, during the time of the first independent Armenian republic (1918-1920).

Yazidis form the largest minority group in Armenia today. They are recognized as a distinct ethnic group and are well integrated into Armenian society. They enjoy religious and cultural freedoms.

It is noteworthy to mention here that a year ago (2019) the world's largest Yazidi temple, Quba Mere Diwane, was inaugurated in Armenia. The temple is just an hour outside the capital city of Yerevan. Its gleaming, seven-domed temple crowns the quiet, poplar-lined village of Aknalich.  The temple includes a statue park featuring Nobel winner Nadia Murad.^[1]  

Do Armenian Kurds have political parties or representatives in government, parliament, or other establishments in Armenia?

I don’t think Yazidis in Armenia have any political parties of their own. Since the community is integrated into the Armenian milieu, some Yazidis take active part in other Armenian political parties. Per constitutional law, the Yazidi community has one MP (Member of Parliament). There are no laws that hinder the appointment of Yazidis to governmental posts.

How do you explain the Armenian Genocide in Turkey? I have heard from some analysts that some Kurdish soldiers of the Ottoman Empire participated in the Armenian genocide. What are your ideas about this accusation?

The Armenian Genocide is an event that has uprooted an indigenous people from its homeland of several millennia. It remains a crime that has not yet been acknowledged by the perpetrator, The Turkish state, which is considered to be the entity that replaced the Ottoman government. Although there are many Turkish academics, intellectuals, journalists, and other personalities that today accept the fact of the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish state continues its denial of the event thus hindering any rapprochement with Armenia and Armenians around the world.

As to the second part of the question, let me first say that it was not Kurdish soldiers per se who participated in the Genocide, but rather some Kurdish Sunni tribes whose aim was to get rich by confiscating Armenian women and children as well as Armenian fixed and movable properties (Amvali Matruke).^[2]

It must be noted, however, that many Kurds helped save Armenian lives in Areas such as Dersim (Tunceli), Sassun, Bingöl, Diarbakir, etc. Not all such help was rendered because of philanthropic reasons. Many Kurds adopted Armenian orphans so that they could have more hands to do work as is the case in rural communities

My last statement is important in that it leads to the issue of Islamized and/or Kurdified Armenians in Turkey. The phenomenon is quite new, since for a long time we Armenians were thought that there were no more Armenians in Turkey, except in Istanbul, Izmir and some other coastal towns. This self imposed amnesia—which, as it turns out, was a result of Armenian political endeavor to push forward the issue of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, meant that we abandoned those who were left behind. There are no scientific data regarding the number of such Armenians after more than one hundred years from the Genocide. Moreover, the people themselves are in limbo since acknowledging themselves as Armenians would be tragic for them and their extended families. Thus is the condition of what we now call as “Hidden Armenians.” I tried to deal with this subject in one of my latest academic papers titles “Armenian Participation in the 1927 Ararad and the 1937 Dersim Kurdish Rebellions: Mapping the Origins of Hidden Armenians.^[3]   

How do you describe the relationship between Armenian and Kurds in Turkey? Does their close relation change the current Turkish attitude towards the Kurds and Armenians?

Continuing from the above answer, let me state that Armenian political parties, regardless of Kurdish participation in the Genocide, have always kept a brotherly attitude towards Kurds and the Kurdish Question. I myself was exposed to such sentiments as a young man in Beirut, Lebanon.

I must underline that there was an important Armenian participation in the Ararat Rebellion (1927-1929), and the Dersim Rebellion (1937). The Armenian collusion in these rebellions were orchestrated by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, AKA Tashnagtsutyun). This shows that Armenians had put aside any remorse they had regarding Kurdish participation in the Armenian Genocide and has acted with the cognizance that the Kurdish and Armenian causes were inseparable.

Moreover, the problematic issue for good relations between Armenians and Kurds was the absence of any centralized political leadership among the Kurds since Kurdish society was based on a feudal, tribal basis.

Armenians recognize that the Kurds from the 4^th largest ethnic element in the Middle East. Armenians also advocate that keeping such ethnic element without its own state is problematic. Even today, Kurds don’t tend to come up with a unified front; take the case of Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurds in Syria, Iran, etc…

Of course, the whole issue was created in 1916 as a consequence of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Current political situation in the Middle easat perhaps implies the creation of a Kurdish state. That, however, seems to be far fetched still…

Nowadays, in Turkey itself, there are many Kurdified Armenians in the areas I mentioned above. Also, there are whole Hidden Armenian villages neighboring Kurdish villages until today.

The Turkish government’s policy toward Kurds is one characterized by hostility and repression. Events in southeastern Turkey—an area inhabited mostly by Kurds—from the 1980s onwards illustrate how successive Turkish governments dealt and still deal with Kurdish national liberation struggle. It follows that close relations between hidden Armenians and Kurds are not welcomed in Turkey.

It seems that being divided among four states in the Middle East, Kurds have a geo-political problem in getting united.

How do you describe Russia attitude towards Kurds?

Imperial Russia had always played the Kurdish card for the purpose of destabilizing the Eastern frontier of the Ottoman Empire. In reality, Kurds became an instrument in the hands of Ottoman and Russian diplomacy from 1850 onward until WWI. The ebb and flow of the politics of these two regional powers was desasterous to Kurds. I have studied this period and have written two long papers about it. I footnoted one previously in this interview (footnote # 2). My other work was one that I tackled with at the beginning of my academic career. It is titled “Armenian Kurdish Relations in the Era of Kurdish National Movements: 1830-1930.^[4]

The USA and some other countries have recognized the Armenian genocide in Turkey. How these actions affect Turkish attitudes and policies regarding minorities like Kurds and Armenians in this country?

We know that republican Turkey has always been in the defensive when it came to the issue of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The Young Turks did give a final blow to their Armenian question. Republican Turkey followed a policy of ignoring the Armenian Question. Several generations of Turks were numbed to the Armenian issue because their government intentionally chose not to include it in school and university curriculums and textbooks. It is only lately that a new generation of Turkish scholars is dealing with the subject matter and showing some affinity to Armenians. 

As for the Kurds, everybody knows the policies of massacre and persecution that Turkey exerted on them throughout the decades.

Turkish policy toward them in republican Turkey never accepted the Kurds as a separate ethnic element. They rather considered them as part of the Turkish ethnic group.

The situation in the Middle East is in a flux currently. Who knows what the future could bring in political, geographic terms. One can only try to understand the current situation by looking into the historical propensity of the issues themselves. Even in such a case, one perhaps needs an astronomer to guess what the future could bring…

Reporter's code: 50101

Nadia Murad Basee Taha is an Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist who lives in Germany. In 2014, she was kidnapped from her hometown Kocho and held by the Islamic State for three months.

[2] Garabet K Moumdjian, “Emval-i Metruke” Ottoman and Turkish Republican Laws Pertaining to Armenian “Abandoned Properties,” 1915-1930. See https://www.academia.edu/10748690/_Emval_i_Metruke_Ottoman_and_Turkish_Republican_Laws_Pertaining_to_Armenian_Abandoned_Properties_1915_1930_FIRST_DRAFT_FOR_PEER_REVIEW_AND_SUGGESTIONS

[3] See Garabet K Moumdjian, Armenian Involvement in the 1927 Ararad and 1937 Dersim Kurdish Rebellions in Republican Turkey: Mapping the Origins of “Hidden Armenians,” Uluslararası Suçlar ve Tarih Dergisi / International Crimes and History Journal, Sayı: 19, Yıl: 2018, Sayfa: 177-242. See https://www.academia.edu/37972952/Armenian_Involvme_in_the_1927_Ararat_and_the_1937_Dersim_Kurdish_Relations_Mapping_the_Origins_of_Hidden_Armenians

[4] Garabet K Moumdjian, Armenian Kurdish Relations in the Era of Kurdish National Movements: 1830-1930. See https://www.academia.edu/10748156/Armenian_Kurdish_Relations_in_the_Era_of_Kurdish_National_Movements_1830_1930