Kurdish dreams of a homeland are always dashed
Little has gone right since the end of the Ottoman empire
THE TREATY OF SEVRES, signed in 1920, carved the carcass of the Ottoman Empire into a number of nation states, including a “Kurdish State of the Kurds…east of the Euphrates, south of the southern boundary of Armenia as it may be hereafter determined, and north of the frontier of Turkey with Syria and Mesopotamia.” It would, said Winston Churchill, Britain’s minister of colonies, be “a friendly buffer state” between Turks and Arabs.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “No fixed abode”
From the October 19th 2019 edition
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