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Kurds in Turkey, Episode 5 | AiTME #22 | An article by Avi Melamed | Podcast version powered by Ai.
Demography and Geography
The largest Kurds congregation is in Turkey. Kurds constitute the largest ethnic minority in Turkey, numbering approximately 15–20 million people, or 18–25% of the population. They are concentrated primarily in southeastern and eastern Turkey, regions often referred to by Kurds as Bakur or Northern Kurdistan. Significant Kurdish populations also reside in major western cities—especially Istanbul, which today hosts the largest Kurdish urban population in the Middle East—as a result of decades of internal migration driven by economic factors and conflict.
The geographic concentration of Kurds along Turkey’s borders with Syria, Iraq, and Iran has made the Kurdish question a central security, political, and identity issue for Turkey.
Short History of the Kurds in Turkey
The Kurds are an indigenous people of Anatolia and Mesopotamia, with a long presence in what is today eastern and southeastern Turkey. Under the Ottoman Empire, Kurdish emirates enjoyed limited autonomy in exchange for loyalty to Istanbul.
Following World War I and the collapse of the Ottomans, the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) briefly envisioned Kurdish autonomy. This prospect vanished with the founding of the Turkish Republic (1923) under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which adopted a centralized, nationalist model denying Kurdish identity. Kurdish language, names, and political expression were banned, and several uprisings were brutally suppressed.
From the 1980s onward, the Kurdish question became militarized with the rise of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a protracted insurgency against the Turkish state, costing tens of thousands of lives and displacing millions. Limited cultural openings emerged in the 2000s, but collapsed amid renewed violence after 2015.
By 2025–early 2026, the long-running conflict between Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkey entered a new, cautious phase. The PKK announced a halt to its armed campaign and began withdrawing fighters from Turkish territory, following renewed calls by imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan to shift toward political struggle.
Ankara has responded by advancing a “terror-free Turkey” framework, focusing on disarmament, limited reintegration measures, and security stabilization—while rejecting full amnesty and maintaining Öcalan’s imprisonment. At the same time, Turkey continues military and diplomatic pressure against PKK bases in northern Iraq and remains hostile to PKK-affiliated forces in Syria.
Despite reduced violence, core political issues remain unresolved: Kurdish rights, prisoner releases, constitutional recognition, and the future of Kurdish armed groups beyond Turkey’s borders. As of early 2026, the conflict is de-escalated but not settled, with progress dependent on regional dynamics and Ankara’s domestic calculations.
Participation of Kurds in Turkey’s Political System
Kurds have participated in Turkey’s political system since the republic’s early decades, but their engagement has been uneven and constrained. For much of the 20th century, Kurdish political expression was suppressed under a centralized nationalist framework that denied Kurdish identity, pushing many Kurds to operate within mainstream parties rather than through explicitly Kurdish platforms.
From the 1990s onward, Kurds increasingly mobilized through pro-Kurdish parties, culminating in
movements such as the Democratic Society Party, later the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). These parties succeeded in entering parliament, winning municipalities across southeastern Turkey, and giving Kurds a national political voice—often by framing Kurdish rights within a broader agenda of democracy, minority rights, and social justice.
However, Kurdish political participation has faced systematic obstacles: party closures, arrests of elected officials, removal of mayors and replacement by state-appointed trustees, and prosecutions linking legal Kurdish parties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). While many Kurds continue to vote and engage politically—both through pro-Kurdish parties and major national parties—the space for independent Kurdish political representation has narrowed sharply in recent years.
As of the mid-2020s, Kurds remain deeply involved but politically constrained: present in parliament, influential in municipal politics and civil society, yet operating under heavy legal and security pressure that limits their ability to translate demographic weight into durable political power.
In the next – and concluding episode of our series – we’ll explore the relationship between the Kurds and Israel.
This article is also available as a Podcast: the AiTME Podcast. This Podcast was written and created by Avi Melamed, Middle East Intelligence Analyst and Founder of Inside The Middle East [ITME], an institute dedicated to apolitical, non-partisan education about the Middle East.
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Kurds in Turkey, Episode 5 | AiTME #22 | An article by Avi Melamed | Podcast version powered by Ai.
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