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A very early record of confrontation between Kurds and Sassanid Empire appears in a historical text named Book of the Deeds of Ardashir son of Babak. In this book, the author explains the battle between Ardashir I and Madig king of the Kurds in the early 3rd century. Ardashir killed one thousand of the Kurds, while others were wounded and taken prisoners; and out of the Kurds that were imprisoned, he sent to Pars their king with his sons, brothers, children, his abundant wealth and property.<27> This battle has also been reported by the Persian poet Firdawsi in his epic Shahnama (Volume 6, Chapters 61,71,72), in which the name of the Kurdish King appears as Mádík.<28><29><30>
. . . In 696, Kurds joined the Khariji revolt near Hulwan.<40>
Under the caliphs of Baghdad the Kurds were always giving trouble in one quarter or another. In 838, and again in 905, formidable insurrections occurred in northern Kurdistan; the amir, Aqpd-addaula, was obliged to lead the forces of the caliphate against the southern Kurds, capturing the famous fortress of Sermaj, whose ruins are to be seen at the present day near Behistun, and reducing the province of Shahrizor with its capital city now marked by the great mound of Yassin Teppeh.
. . . Removal of the population from along their borders with the Ottomans in Kurdistan and the Caucasus was of strategic importance to the Safavids. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, along with large groups of Armenians, Assyrians, Azeris, and Turkmens, were forcibly removed from the border regions and resettled in the interior of Persia. As the borders moved progressively eastward, as the Ottomans pushed deeper into the Persian domains, entire Kurdish regions of Anatolia were at one point or another exposed to horrific acts of despoilation and deportation. These began under the reign of the Safavid Shah Tahmasp I (ruled 1524-1576). Between 1534 and 1535, Tahmasp began the systematic destruction of the old Kurdish cities and the countryside. When retreating before the Ottoman army, Tahmasp ordered the destruction of crops and settlements of all sizes, driving the inhabitants before him into Azerbaijan, from where they were later transferred permanently, nearly 1000 miles east, into Khurasan. Some Kurdish tribes were deported even farther east, into Gharjistan in the Hindu Kush mountains of present day Afghanistan, about 1500 miles away from their homes in western Kurdistan.
. . . Some of the Kurdist groups sought self-determination and the championing in the Treaty of Sèvres of Kurdish autonomy in the aftermath of World War I, but the Turkish resurgence under Kemal Atatürk prevented such a result. Kurds backed by the United Kingdom declared independence in 1927 and established so-called Republic of Ararat. Turkey suppressed Kurdist revolts in 1925, 1930, and 1937 - 1938, while Iran did the same in the 1920s. A short-lived Soviet-sponsored Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in Iran did not long outlast World War II.
. . . During 1920s and 1930s, several large scale Kurdish revolts took place in this region. The most important ones were 1) Saikh Said Rebellion in 1925, 2) Ararat Revolt in 1930 and 3) Dersim Revolt in 1938 (see Kurds in Turkey). Following these rebellions, the area of Turkish Kurdistan was put under martial law and a large number of the Kurds were displaced. Government also encouraged resettlement of Albanians from Kosovo and Assyrians in the region to change the population makeup. These events and measures led to a long-lasting mutual distrust between Ankara and the Kurds <62>.
. . . In 1974, Iraqi government began a new offensive against the Kurds and pushed them close to the border with Iran. Moreover, Iraq informed Tehran that it was willing to satisfy other Iranian demands in return for an end to its aid to the Kurds. With the mediation of the Algerian President Houari Boumédiènne, Iran and Iraq reached a comprehensive settlement in March 1975 known as Algiers Pact. The agreement left the Kurds helpless and Tehran cut supplies to the Kurdish movement. Barzani fled to Iran with many of his supporters. Others surrendered en masse and the rebellion was finished in a few days. As a result Iraqi government extended its control over northern region after 15 years and in order to secure its influence, started an Arabization program by moving Arabs to the oil fields in Kurdistan, particularly the ones around Kirkuk.<9> The repressive measures carried out by the government against Kurds after the Algiers agreement, led to renewed clashes between the Iraqi Army and Kurdish guerrillas in 1977. As a result in 1978 and 1979, 600 Kurdish villages were burned down and around 200,000 Kurds were deported to the other parts of the country.<10>
. . . The incorporation into Turkey of the Kurdish-inhabited regions of eastern Anatolia was opposed by many Kurds, and has resulted in a long-running separatist conflict in which thousands of lives have been lost. The region saw several major Kurdish rebellions during the 1920s and 1930s. These were forcefully put down by the Turkish authorities and the region was declared a closed military area from which foreigners were banned between 1925 and 1965. A major campaign to eradicate separatist sentiment by severely restricting Kurdish cultural and political activities was undertaken by Turkey's first president, Kemal Ataturk, and continued in varying degrees of severity under his successors.
In 1983, a number of provinces were placed under martial law in response to the activities of the militant separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).<4> An extremely violent guerrilla war took place through the rest of the 1980s and into the 1990s, in which much of the countryside was evacuated, thousands of Kurdish-populated villages were destroyed and numerous extra judicial summary executions were carried out by both sides.<6> More than 37,000 people were killed in the violence and hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave their homes.
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