Kurds

Core values & worldview

Ask a Kurd where they are from and you may get two answers: the country on their passport and Kurdistan, the land they consider home, divided among Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.^•

That double answer sums up a lot. Kurds are one of the largest peoples in the world without a state, and nobody knows exactly how many there are. No census counts them; estimates range from about 25–35 million to the Kurdish Institute of Paris’s 36–46 million, with roughly half in Turkey.^•

The land and the mountains. Kurdish identity is bound up with place: mountains, villages, springs and valleys, often lost to war, dams or forced displacement. The proverb “no friends but the mountains” is quoted with a rueful smile. It expresses both pride in the mountains that sheltered them and bitterness at outside powers who, many Kurds feel, used and abandoned them.^•

Honour, family and hospitality. Traditional Kurdish society was organised around tribes, extended families and religious sheikhs, and loyalty to family and kin still matters a great deal, in politics as well as private life.^•

Hospitality is a point of pride: a guest is fed, given tea and treated generously. Ideas of family honour remain strong in many rural and conservative communities, and campaigners, many of them Kurdish women, have fought “honour”-related violence for decades.^•

Language as identity. Kurdish is an Iranian language, related to Persian but distinct from it, and quite unrelated to Turkish or Arabic.^•

Because it was banned or restricted for so long, speaking it, singing in it and teaching it to children can feel like an act of survival.^•

Women’s place. Kurdish women have been prominent in politics and, since the 1990s, in armed movements, from the PKK to the YPJ units that fought ISIS. The slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) comes from the Kurdish women’s movement.^•

At the same time, many communities remain patriarchal, and Kurds argue among themselves about how far this has really changed.^•

Daily life & customs

The year’s high point is Newroz, the new year on 20–21 March. Families picnic in the hills, people jump over bonfires and dance the govend in long lines. Kurds link it to the legend of Kawa the blacksmith, who killed the tyrant Zahhak and lit fires on the hills to announce freedom. In the twentieth century it became a national and political festival, and for years celebrations in Turkey and Syria were restricted or ended in clashes with police.^•

Weddings are huge, loud and joyful, often with hundreds of guests, live music and hours of dancing. Bright traditional dress appears at weddings and Newroz: sequined, layered dresses for women and, in Iraq and Iran, baggy trousers with a wide sash (şal û şapik) for men.^•

Music runs deep. The dengbêj, singer-storytellers, chant long unaccompanied ballads of love, feuds and massacres, and in the years of bans they were a living archive of Kurdish history.^•

Modern singers such as Şivan Perwer turned songs of exile into anthems.^•

Food is generous and shared: rice, bulgur, flatbread, yoghurt and dew (a salty yoghurt drink), stuffed vegetables (dolma), meat-filled bulgur kutilk, grilled meats in summer, and endless glasses of strong sweet tea. Sitting down together, often on the floor around a cloth, is the point.

Most Kurds now live in cities, from Diyarbakır and Erbil to Istanbul and Berlin, and urban life looks much like city life anywhere in the region. Many families still keep ties to an ancestral village, even one that was destroyed.^•

Wounds & sensitivities

Denial. For decades, being told you do not exist was the everyday wound. Turkish official discourse long denied a separate Kurdish identity, sometimes calling Kurds “mountain Turks”, and a 1983 law banned Kurdish publications and recordings until 1991. In Syria, a 1962 census left about 120,000 Kurds stateless. In Iran, Kurdish parties have been repressed and many activists executed.^•

Massacres. Dersim (1937–38), Anfal and Halabja (1988) and the Yazidi genocide (2014) are living memories. In Iraq, HRW concluded that at least 50,000 and possibly twice that many rural Kurds were killed in 1988 alone; Kurdish authorities use a figure of 182,000.^•

Treat them with the seriousness you would give any genocide.

Displacement. In 1990s Turkey thousands of villages were emptied and burned during the war with the PKK; in 1991 more than a million Iraqi Kurds fled to the mountains; Afrin’s Kurds were displaced in 2018. Many families carry a story of a lost home.^•

Abandonment. Kurds often list the times they feel outside powers dropped them: Lausanne in 1923, Mahabad in 1946, the Algiers deal in 1975, the uprising of 1991, Kirkuk in 2017 and northern Syria in 2019.^•

Their own dark pages. Honest Kurds also acknowledge harder truths: Kurdish tribal irregulars took part in the Armenian genocide of 1915 and earlier massacres of Armenians and Assyrians, and Kurdish parties have fought each other bitterly.^•

Modern attitudes

The dream of a state, and the reality of four. Independence remains a deeply held hope for many; in Iraq’s 2017 referendum about 93% of voters chose it.^•

But most Kurdish movements today campaign for rights, autonomy or decentralisation within existing states, and many Kurds in Turkey and Iran simply want equal citizenship and freedom to use their language.^•

Turkey: a fragile peace. After the PKK announced its dissolution in May 2025 and burned weapons that July, Turkey passed a reintegration law in August 2026. Many Kurds hope for real political change, but they are cautious after the collapse of the 2013–15 talks, and the treatment of elected Kurdish politicians remains a sore point.^•

Iraq: pride and frustration. The Kurdistan Region is a real achievement, safer and more prosperous than much of Iraq. But many young Kurds there are frustrated by the dominance of the Barzani and Talabani families, corruption, unpaid salaries and limits on press freedom.^•

Syria: an uncertain new chapter. In January 2026, Syria’s new government recognised Kurdish as a national language, restored citizenship to stateless Kurds and made Newroz a holiday, while Kurdish-led forces agreed to merge into the state after weeks of fighting. Many Syrian Kurds welcome the recognition but worry about losing the self-rule they won.^•

Religion. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, but Kurdish nationalism has generally been secular, and many Kurds see their identity as ethnic and cultural rather than religious.^•

Not all Kurds are the same

Language. “Kurdish” covers several varieties that are not always mutually understandable. Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish), written in the Latin alphabet, is spoken by most Kurds in Turkey and Syria and in the far north of Iraq. Sorani (Central Kurdish), written in Arabic script, dominates around Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Mahabad. Southern Kurdish is spoken around Kermanshah and Ilam. Zazaki and Gorani (Hawrami) are counted by many linguists as separate Iranian languages, though most of their speakers see themselves as Kurds.^•

Religion. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, mostly of the Shafi’i school, often with strong Sufi traditions. There are also Alevi Kurds (especially around Dersim), Shia Kurds such as the Feyli Kurds of Iraq and many in Iran’s Kermanshah, followers of the Yarsan (Ahl-e Haqq) faith, and the Yazidis.^•

Many Yazidis speak Kurmanji and see themselves as Kurds; others insist they are a separate people, a view that grew after 2014. Let them define themselves.^• Kurdish Jews once lived in many towns, and most moved to Israel in the early 1950s.^•

Country. A Kurd from Turkey may speak Turkish more fluently than Kurdish; one from Iraqi Kurdistan may have grown up with Kurdish schools and a Kurdish government; one from Iran lives under the tightest restrictions; one from Syria may have been stateless until 2026.^•

Tribe and town. Some Kurds still feel strong tribal loyalties; others are urban, secular and see tribes as a relic. The two often coexist in one family.^•

Politics. Kurdish politics is famously divided. In Iraq, the KDP (Barzani family, strongest in Erbil and Dohuk) and the PUK (Talabani family, Sulaymaniyah) are rivals who fought a civil war in the 1990s. In Turkey, the pro-Kurdish left (HDP, now the DEM Party) is close to the PKK’s ideas, but many Kurds vote for Erdoğan’s AKP or other parties. In Syria, the PYD and its rivals in the Kurdish National Council disagree sharply. Never assume one Kurd’s party.^•

Diaspora. Large communities live in Germany, which has Europe’s largest, and in France, Sweden, the UK and the US, where Nashville has the biggest. Many came as labour migrants from Turkey in the 1960s–70s, and many more as refugees from the 1980s on. In the diaspora, Kurds from different countries often meet for the first time.^•

Meeting someone

Conversation starters

• Their home region. Ask where their family comes from, which town or valley. You will often hear about mountains, orchards and grandparents’ villages.
• Newroz. Ask how their family celebrates it. It is the happiest topic there is.^•
  • Historical Dictionary of the Kurds — Michael M. Gunter, Scarecrow Press (2011)
• Food and hospitality. Dolma, tea and family meals. If you’re invited home, accept, and expect to be fed well.
• Music and dance. Şivan Perwer, dengbêj, wedding dances. Many Kurds love to explain the govend and will pull you into the line.^•
  • The Sung Home: Narrative, Morality, and the Kurdish Nation — Wendelmoet Hamelink, Brill (2016)
• Language. Asking which Kurdish they speak, Kurmanji or Sorani, shows you know there’s more than one.

Topics to approach carefully

• The PKK. This is the most charged subject. For some Kurds it’s a liberation movement; for others, a violent organisation that hurt Kurds too; for Turkey, the US, the EU and the UK it’s a listed terrorist group. Don’t ask “do you support the PKK?” and don’t assume either answer.^•
  • Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence — Aliza Marcus, New York University Press (2007)
  • PKK — Republic of Türkiye, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• “Which country are you from?” Many Kurds would rather say “Kurdistan” or name a region. Follow their lead, and don’t insist on “So you’re Turkish/Iraqi/Iranian/Syrian.” On the other hand, some Kurds are comfortable with both identities.
• Borders and “Kurdistan”. The word itself is politically loaded in Turkey, where it was long avoided officially. A Kurd may also have opinions on Turkish, Arab or Persian neighbours shaped by painful history; listen rather than debate.
• Party politics. KDP vs PUK, PKK vs KDP, PYD vs its rivals: these divide families. Ask before assuming.
• Massacres and losses. Anfal, Halabja, Dersim, Sinjar and the 1990s village burnings may be family history. Let them choose how much to share.^•
  • Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds — Human Rights Watch / Middle East Watch, Human Rights Watch (1993)
  • "They came to destroy": ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis (A/HRC/32/CRP.2) — UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, UN Human Rights Council (2016)

Common misconceptions

• “Kurds are Arabs / Turks / Persians.” They are a distinct people with their own language. Kurdish is closer to Persian than to Turkish or Arabic, but still distinct.^•
  • Kurdish Language i. History of the Kurdish Language — Ludwig Paul (Encyclopaedia Iranica) (2008)
  • Kurd — Encyclopaedia Britannica
• “Kurdish is a dialect of Turkish.” It belongs to an entirely different language family; Turkish is Turkic, Kurdish Iranian.^•
  • Kurdish Language i. History of the Kurdish Language — Ludwig Paul (Encyclopaedia Iranica) (2008)
• “All Kurds want to break away and form one state.” Many dream of it, but most Kurdish political movements today seek rights and autonomy within existing states, and Kurds disagree about the goal.^•
  • The Cambridge History of the Kurds — Hamit Bozarslan, Cengiz Gunes and Veli Yadirgi (eds), Cambridge University Press (2021)
• “Kurds are all PKK,” or “the PKK represents all Kurds.” Both are wrong. Kurdish political opinion is diverse, and the PKK has many Kurdish opponents.^•
  • The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey: From Protest to Resistance — Cengiz Gunes, Routledge (2012)
  • Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence — Aliza Marcus, New York University Press (2007)
• “Kurds are all Muslims” or “Yazidis are a Kurdish sect.” Most Kurds are Sunni, but there are Alevi, Shia, Yarsan and Yazidi Kurds, and many Yazidis see themselves as a distinct people.^•
  • Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition — Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Edwin Mellen Press (1995)
  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)