“The twentieth century saw Kurds suffering from harsh discriminatory and assimilationist polices at the hands of central governments dominated by Turkish, Persian and Arab political elites. With the turn of the twenty-first century, however, the once-marginalized Kurds have emerged as key players in the rapidly changing Middle East. Despite a growing sense of optimism, however, serious obstacles remain as Kurds make progress towards political recognition. In this chapter, the challenges and opportunities the twenty-first century has brought about are examined with the aim of shedding light on domestic, regional and global dynamics in assessing the prospects of Kurdish aspiration for recognition in the new century.”

The chapter examines the antagonism of the Turkish political elite towards Kurdish autonomy claims in a broader historical and ideological context with a view to understanding how that antagonism has been codified into law and jurisprudence in Turkey. It explores answers to the question why autonomy has not been a viable political project for Kurds in today’s Turkey and one that can be realized through democratic and legal means. The chapter also explains how the enduring trajectory has led the country into an unprecedented centralist system and authoritarian rule in recent years and the repression of Kurdish claims for autonomy. In so doing, it concentrates on three main reasons behind the impossibility of Kurdish autonomy in the current political and legal status quo. First, a dominant anachronistic reading of the centralist state legacy overlooks the Ottoman legacy for organizational diversity and the Kurdish conventional self-rule. Second, a dexterously designed legal system has made unlawful autonomy as a political project, while presenting the unitary state model as the only one conceivable and fundamental to political and legal order. Third, the mainstream political elites’ ideologically driven response to the Kurds’ claim for autonomy and failure to comprehending or to deal with Kurdish nationalist sentiments and aspirations attached to it.