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Kurdification is a cultural change in which non-ethnic Kurds or/and non-ethnic Kurdish area or/and non-Kurdish languages becomes Kurdish. This can happen both naturally (as seen in Turkish Kurdistan) and deliberately (as seen in Iraq after the invasion of Iraq).

The notion of kurdification is different from country to country. In Turkish Kurdistan, many ethnic Armenians, Bulgarians, Circassians, Chechens, Georgians, Ingushs, and Ossetians have become kurdified, as a result of fleeing to the region and having subsequently interacted with ethnic Kurds. In Iraqi Kurdistan, currently the minorities like Turkmens, Assyrians, Yazidis and Shabaks underwent a process of Kurdification in the disputed territories of northern Iraq when Kurdish forces administrated the area until 2017.

Turkey

Caucasian refugees (1860s–1910s)

When refugees from Caucasus reached the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople decided not to settle these in Kurdistan due to the extreme poverty and lack of material resources for the refugees. Yet after some time, the Ottomans started seeing the refugees as a chance to diminish the Kurdish claim to the region and allowed the refugees to settle in the region. In 1862, Circassian refugees from the Shapsug tribe arrived in the Kurdish areas of Ahlat and Adilcevaz and settled in the three Kurdish villages of Yoğurtyemez, Xanik (Çukurtarla), Develik and founded the village of Koxiş (Yolçatı).

The first big wave of Caucasian refugees to Kurdistan was in 1864 when 15,000 to 20,000 refugees settled in Sarıkamış, founding new villages and settling in abandoned Greek and Armenian villages. These refugees included Circassians, Chechens, Laks and Avars. The largest group of refugees were Circassias who fled the Circassia region (part of the Russian Empire) during the ethnic cleansing of Circassians. Two years later, Shapsug tribe with members of the Abzakh tribe founded the villages of Bolethan (Karapolat), Arnis (Güzgülü) and Ximsor (Eskibalta) near Bingöl. Concurrently with the Circassian migration, Ossetians settled in the villages of Xulik (Otluyazı) and Ağcaviran (Akçaören) in Ahlat, Yaramış, Karaağıl, Hamzaşeyx (Sarıpınar), Simo (Kurganlı) in the eastern Muş region, and Lekbudak (Budaklı) near Karaçoban. According to the Russian intelligence officer Aleksandr Kolyubakin, no less than 1,500 Ossetians lived in the Sanjak of Muş in the late 1880s.

Chechens and Ingushs mostly settled in Varto area, in the villages of Arincik (Kıyıbaşı), Çarbuhur (Bağiçi), Tepeköy, Artet (Serinova), Ulusırt and Arinç (Çöğürlü), Avars who settled in Kayalık village, and Circassians of the Kabardian tribe founded the village of Narlı Çerkezleri (Eskinarlı) in Pazarcık area. There is also a Georgian village in Diyarbakir Province.

From early stage on, these Caucasians went through a process of kurdification and thereby had Kurdish as their mother tongue.

20th–21st century and PKK

When the Kurdish question rose in Turkey, it also had an effect on their Caucasian neighbours. Even today, there is an aversion from joining the Kurds in their conflict against the Turkish state, but some individuals of Caucasian origin joined the Kurdistan Workers' Party. As part of their campaign, the Kurdish party Peoples' Democratic Party won most Caucasian villages in Turkish Kurdistan.

Armenians

Through the 20th century, an unknown number of Armenians living in the mountainous region of Tunceli (Dersim) had converted to Alevism. According to Mihran Prgiç Gültekin, the head of the Union of Dersim Armenians, around 75% of the population of Dersim is descended from "converted Armenians." He reported in 2012 that over 200 families in Tunceli have declared their Armenian descent, but others are afraid to do so. In April 2013, Aram Ateşyan, the acting Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, stated that 90% of Tunceli's population is of Armenian origin.

Iraq

Shabak

On 21 August 2006, Shabak Democratic Party leader Hunain Qaddo, proposed the creation of a separate province within the borders of the Nineveh Plain, in order to combat the Arabization and Kurdification of Iraqi minorities. The Iraqi government voted against the proposition.

After 2011

Kurdification has been an open policy of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq since 2003, according to Gareth Stansfield, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of Exeter. The Haaretz newspaper had reported on 24 December 2014 that the Kurds object to the establishment of a protected Christian enclave, because they want to annex the Nineveh Valley, most of whose residents are Christians. Some Assyrians in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq also complained that construction plans are "aimed at affecting a demographic change that divides Assyrian blocs". Also some Yazidis, Shabaks and Turkmens have reported that they are facing a policy of cultural and security control against them, especially in areas which belonged to the Kurds before Saddam's Al-Anfal Campaign.

In 2016, David Romano, Professor of Middle East Politics, said that without the YPG and Peshmerga, the Assyrians of northern Syria and Iraq would likely all be dead, lying in some jihadist-dug mass grave. Another view is that the Kurdish militia (Peshmerga) quickly abandoned their positions at the beginning of the ISIL occupation of the city of Mosul, and that the Peshmerga, who had disarmed Assyrians and left them defenseless, retreated without informing the indigenous Christian population, leaving them uninformed and unarmed.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum published news which argued that the Yazidis have frequently been pressured to assimilate to both Arab and Kurdish ethnicities. Other sources have stated that Yazidis already speak Northern Kurdish which is one of the two major dialects of Kurdish language.

During the Iraqi Civil War, Iraqi army troops fled their posts around the Nineveh Plains while ISIL attacked. Later, KRG forces, with the support of coalition airstrikes, captured these areas from ISIL. Since then, there have been disputes between pro-government Assyrians and Kurds, as the former have either asked the Kurds to leave or promised them autonomy.

In 2011, some Yazidi activists voiced their "concern over forced assimilation into Kurdish identity". Some have accused the Kurdish and Iraqi parties of diverting US $12 million of reconstruction funds allocated for Yazidi areas in Jebel Sinjar to a Kurdish village and marginalizing them politically. According to Sweden-based economist David Ghanim, the goal of some tactics of the KRG had been to push Shabak and Yazidi communities to identify as Kurds, which has been strongly denied by KRG authorities. He also claimed that the Kurdish authorities are working to impose Kurdish identity on the Yazidis and the Shabaks. Assyrian politicians of some towns have been replaced with Kurdish ones.

See also

• Cultural assimilation
• Iraqi minorities
• Kurdistan Regional Government
• Shabak people

References

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General References

• A. Bazzaz, turkmen.nl "The Kurdification procedure was soon implemented by the Kurdish leadership after toppling Saddam down in April 2003"
• Park, Bill, The Kurds and post-Saddam political arrangements in Iraq The Adelphi Papers (2005), Taylor & Francis: "The Kurds, who are intent on the further ‘Kurdification’ of Kirkuk before any census is held"
• Park, Bill, Iraqi scenarios, The Adelphi Papers, Volume 45, Number 374, May 2005, pp. 49–66
• PKK Iran - Strategic Comments, 2004 - informaworld.com "recent months Turkish intelligence has begun to report Turcoman frustration with Ankara’s failure to prevent the increasing ‘Kurdification’ of northern Iraq"

• Cultural assimilation
• Iraqi Kurdistan
• Kurdish nationalism
• Political neologisms
• Politics of Iraq
• Yazidi history