Araz News: Kurdish nationalist parties such as Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP), Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Iranian Kurdish parties claim right on Azerbaijani Historical territory.

Vast parts of Azerbaijani territory are included in the maps of Kurdistan publishing and propagating by these organizations. The maps publishing by Kurdish nationalists includes South Azerbaijani cities like Urmia, Khoy, Salmas, Maku, Nagade (Sulduz), Tekab (Tikan Tepe) and Shahin Dezh (Sayin Qala). This is while overwhelming majority of these regions is populated by Azerbaijani Turks. Kurdish minority hardly reaches 20 percent in some of these regions while in some regions it is less than 5 percent. None of these regions was called Kurdistan in the history as well as today that they are in West Azerbaijan Province according to official subdivisions of Iran. Urmia, the second large city of South Azerbaijan, is capital city of West Azerbaijan province. Interestingly in some so called Kurdistan maps – which differs from case to case – even Tabriz, capital city of East Azerbaijan Province and historical capital of whole Azerbaijan is included.

The above map is the alleged map of Kurdistan published by KDP in its official Facebook page. As seen this map contains vast parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria including whole western regions of South Azerbaijan. With a rough calculation it is seen that this map covers an area about 400,000 km2 with a population about 50 million. While it is widely known that entire Kurdish population in Middle East hardly reaches 30 million.

Picture above shows a screenshot of North Iraqi semiofficial Kurdish channel Rudaw TV, which is close to KDP. The weather report map of the alleged Kurdish resided areas shown by TV channel is a huge land stretches from Mediterranean Sea in west to the Arabian/Persian Gulf in south and cost of the Black Sea in the north. This area roughly accounts about 800,000 km2 with a population about 70 million, more than two times of all Kurdish population in the region. In this map more than one half of South Azerbaijan is being claimed İncluding Tabriz, the historical capital of Azerbaijan and largest city of northwest İran with nearly 2 million populations, larger than Arbil and Sulaymaniyah.

The question is that what is the goal of Kurdish nationalists (who are vastly dominant in Kurdish political parties and organizations) and what they try to achieve? Do they really think that they will occupy and rule such a great area, where the Kurdish people remain a minority? Don’t they know such unrealistic and extremist dreams have no result but war and blood?

Undoubtedly Kurdish people’s civil and democratic struggle for their rights is respectful and legitimate. But when it begins to violate other nations and peoples rights it losses legitimacy. And if it is done by armed terrorism case is awful.

It’s time to extract lesson from past. Middle East peoples need urgent peace, not more conflict, blood and pain. To respect others and struggle within the civil and democratic limits is the only way.