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The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey.According to various estimates, they compose between 15% and 20% of the population of Turkey. [4] [5] [6] There are Kurds living in various provinces of Turkey, but they are primarily concentrated in the east and southeast of the country within the region viewed by Kurds as Turkish Kurdistan.
Kurdish ethnic revival appeared in the 1970s when Turkey was racked with left-right clashes and the Marxist PKK was formed demanding a Kurdish state. [58] PKK declared its objective as the liberation of all parts of Kurdistan from colonial oppression and establishment of an independent, united, socialist Kurdish state.
Turkish Kurdistan or Northern Kurdistan (Kurdish: Bakurê Kurdistanê) is the southeastern part of Turkey [1] where Kurds form the predominant ethnic group.The Kurdish Institute of Paris estimates that there are 20 million Kurds living in Turkey, the majority of them in the southeast.
In August 1984, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) declared war on the Turkish authorities, which continues today. Until 1993, the PKK made the most radical demand – the proclamation of a single and independent Kurdistan, uniting the Kurdish territories that are now part of the state borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
Kurdish sources put the figure at 10 [12] to 15 million Kurds in Turkey. [13] Kurds mostly live in Northern Kurdistan, in Southeastern and Eastern Anatolia. But large Kurdish populations can be found in western Turkey due to internal migration. According to Rüstem Erkan, Istanbul is the province with the largest Kurdish population in Turkey. [14]
Kurds (Kurdish: کورد, romanized: Kurd) or Kurdish people are an Iranic [36] ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in West Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. [37]
A recent study estimates that there are 2,708,000 marriages between Turks and Kurds. [36] According to a survey done in March 2020 by Area Araştırma, 20.4% of the total population of Turkey claim to be Kurdish (either Kurmanji speaking or Zazaki speaking). Ethnolinguistic estimates in 2014 by Ethnologue and Jacques Leclerc: [37] [38] [39]
Islamists in Turkey, whether Turks or Kurds, were formerly united with the common goal of defeating the Kemalists, however their relations worsened during the tenure of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who divided the Islamists on an ethnic basis due to him pushing an Islamist-nationalist rhetoric, with most Islamist Turks being satisfied with him, and ...