The Turkish Problem

Abstract

The Gulf War and its immediate aftermath, the Kurdish exodus from Iraq, certainly brought the Kurdish struggle to prominent international attention, something that had never really happened previously as this issue had had a low priority on the international crisis list, that is if it ever had one at all. Various Kurdish insurrections since the First World War had merited little more than ‘footnote’ status in international councils. The world was vaguely aware that there was some sort of Kurdish insurrection in Turkey, but interest in this respect tended to centre on human rights issues, which were constantly fed to news desks by Amnesty International and similar monitoring bodies.