Remarks by Philip Kowalski- Aug 10, 2020 Webinar

“Anyone who’s walked through Washington DC and through the embassies will have noticed that a slew of nations have been celebrating their Centenary of independence, Georgia, Lithuania, Holland, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, you name it. But why not Kurdistan? Where’s the Kurdish embassy? The Treaty of Severes, which was signed a hundred years ago on this day, was supposed to make provisions for an independent Kurdistan. It split Anatolia and the Middle East up, mainly by the main signatories, which were the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and other more minor signatories. It was flawed to begin with because it omitted Kurdish majority areas of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and mainly focused on what is today, Southeast Turkey. And it also gave much Kurdish majority land, such as Van, to Armenia, which never came to fruition. Instead of any sort of Kurdish independence, the flawed treaty, by 1923, essentially became obsolete. International promises for an independent Kurdistan came to nothing. The result is the continuation to what we see today. Kurds being split between four States and minimal to no effort was made by any of these four States, that is Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq, to represent their Kurdish subjects. Today, Kurds are the large world’s largest stateless nation, an issue that has yet to remedy itself, and is often overlooked by the international community.”