Kurdish Republic of Lachin Komara kurdî ya Laçînê Кoмара Кӧрдийа Лачине | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | |||||||||
 Flag | |||||||||
 Kurdish Republic of Lachin in 1992 | |||||||||
| Capital | Lachin | ||||||||
| Government | Republic | ||||||||
• President and Prime Minister | Wekîl Mistefayêv | ||||||||
• Deputy Prime Minister | Sheref e Eshir | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 20 May 1992 | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 30 November 1992 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of |  Azerbaijan | ||||||||
TheKurdish Republic of Lachin (Kurdish:Komara kurdî ya Laçînê; Кoмара Кӧрдийа Лачине) was a short-lived unrecognized state declared byKurdish nationalists on the territory of the formerKurdistan Uezd[1] in 1992, during theFirst Nagorno-Karabakh War, and dissolved in the same year.
In 1923, the government of theSoviet Union had created an administrative unit known asKurdistan Uezd, or "Red Kurdistan" within theAzerbaijan SSR. It consisted of the districts ofLachin,Qubadli andZangilan, with its capital inLachin.[2] According to the 1926 census, 73% of its population was Kurdish and 26% was Azerbaijani.[3] The Kurdistan Uezd was briefly reorganized into the Kurdistan Okrug in 1930 and then dissolved; after this, a series of deportations of the Kurds followed.[4]
Starting from 1961, when theFirst Iraqi–Kurdish War started, there were efforts by the deportees for the restoration of their rights, spearheaded byMehmet Babayev; these proved to be futile.[5] Later, during theperestroika era in the 1980s, there was a resurgence in the nationalist aspirations of Soviet Kurds, leading to the formation of theYekbûn organization in 1989, which aimed to reestablish Kurdish autonomy. The government of the USSR underGorbachev attempted to cooperate with the Yekbûn to negotiate the reestablishment of Red Kurdistan. Nonetheless, the 1991collapse of the USSR coupled withTurkey's hostility to this plan ended all aspirations for an autonomous Kurdish state within the Soviet Union.[6]
TheFirst Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994), fought by the Armenian separatists of the nascentNagorno-Karabakh Republic together withArmenia againstAzerbaijan, spilled over into the areas of the former Red Kurdistan. The fighting caused more than 80% of the existing Kurdish population to flee the region.[7]
However, members of a new organization, the "Caucasian Kurdistan Freedom Movement",[8] led byWekîl Mistefayêv, stayed behind. Mistefayêv, who had been exiled to theUzbek SSR as a young man during the Soviet deportations, had returned to help organize the nationalists.[9] After Armenian forcescaptured Lachin in May 1992,[10] the Armenian government contacted the nationalists and encouraged them to proclaim a Kurdish state in Lachin, promising military assistance and telling them to gather together the Kurdish population from across the former USSR. Babayev was strongly in opposition to this plan, arguing that the Armenians were not to be trusted and only wanted to use the Kurds against the Azerbaijanis.[11]
The Caucasian Kurdistan Freedom Movement[8][12] convened in Lachin and declared the establishment of the Kurdish Republic of Lachin on 20 May 1992, raisingthe Kurdish flag in the city.[11] The atmosphere in this ceremony was compared to that of awedding celebration. Around 70 Kurdish intellectuals and young people were present, together with a few Armenian observers; around 20 of the young people were armed. They arrived in Lachin via buses provided by theYerevan municipal government. During the proclamation ceremony, Mistefayêv was declaredprime minister, and announced some members of his cabinet: Sheref e Eshir as thedeputy prime minister; Karlan e Chachani as the Minister of Culture, and Emerike Serdar as the Minister of Information.[11] The districts ofLachin,Jabrayil,Kalbajar,Qubadli, andZangilan all came under the administration of the republic.[13]
By the end of the month, however, Mistefayêv had foreseen the downfall of the republic, and toldÖzgür Gündem that Armenia had not sent them any aid or weapons, and that the plan to bring in Kurds from other parts of the former USSR had collapsed.[11] Nonetheless, the first congress of the republic was held on 9 June, resulting in the election of Mistefayêv aspresident.[13]
Armenia's stance regarding the nationalists' actions was initially supportive. The proclamation of the republic, in the eyes of the Armenian authorities, could be used as leverage against Azerbaijan by showing that the Kurds and Armenians were standing together to fight against Azerbaijan.[14] Furthermore, it was presumed that the Kurdish Republic of Lachin would be effectively under thesuzerainty of Armenia and its existence would not affectthe corridor connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh proper.[15] The government ofRussia also lent its support to the nascent republic;[12] in June 1992 Mistefayêv traveled toMoscow to meet with theRussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In a 2014 interview withRudaw, Mistefayêv alleged that following the meeting with the Russians, Azerbaijan had attempted to bribe him to dissolve the republic, but he refused.[16]
Much to the chagrin of Azerbaijan, Armenia continued to back the Kurdish Republic of Lachin throughout 1992. The Azerbaijani media routinely condemned what was seen as a joint Kurdish-Armenian effort to destabilize Azerbaijan. The deputy president of the organization "Kurdish Liberation Movement", Alikhane Mame, said that the fate of the Kurds depended on an Armenian victory in the war, and his claims were repeated in the Armenian media, infuriating Azerbaijan.[17]
Mistefayêv also attended a conference of thePKK concerningthe Kurdish struggle in Turkey in summer 1992; after this, he named Ishhan Aslan, a Kurd from Armenia, as the "military commander of this new republic".[18]
Mistefayêv also said he had contact withAbdullah Öcalan during this time. Mistefayêv criticized Öcalan for his efforts to establish an independentKurdistan in Syria sinceHafez al-Assad's government would never let that come to fruition. Rather, he invited Öcalan to come to the Kurdish Republic of Lachin and be its president, saying that the republic was a free and secure land for Kurds under Armenian protection.[19]
By the end of 1992, however, the Armenian authorities had begun to turn against Mistefayêv and his fellow nationalists, realizing that allowing the existence of a Kurdish republic in the region conflicted with the narrative thatall Karabakh had always been ethnically Armenian, therefore undermining the entire argument for the war.[20]
Aside from the growing hostility from Armenia, the other main problem for the Kurdish Republic of Lachin was that the vast majority of the Kurdish population of the region had by then fled due to the war.[21] It was becoming increasingly clear that prolonging the republic's existence was no longer feasible, and it collapsed, marking the definitive end of Kurdish nationalism in the region. TheNagorno-Karabakh Republic subsequently assumed full control over Lachin and the general area claimed by the Kurds. The remaining Kurds of the region left for Azerbaijan.
In 1997, Emerike Serdar said:
We all knew full well that the Armenians were never going to give us that land, and that we were never going to be able to convince the Kurds to come and settle in the land depopulated because of the war. But we went to Lachin to leave a marker for history. We filmed it all, we took photographs. This struggle will not end. One day when this issue becomes topical again we will have documentation in our hands.[11]
In 2007, the government of Azerbaijan alleged that thePKK's leadership was moving its bases from Iraqi Kurdistan to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and that a Kurdish autonomous administration would be recreated in the Lachin and Kelbajar regions. This never materialized and Azerbaijan's claims appear to have amounted to mere allegations.[22]
Wekîl Mistefayêv fled to Italy after the republic's dissolution; he died in on 19 April 2019 inBrussels and was buried inErbil of theautonomous Kurdistan region inIraq. His nephew Bahaddin Mustafayev told the media that his uncle "dedicated all his life for the freedom of the Kurdish people" and had supported the2017 Kurdistan region independence referendum.[23]
In 1992, with the assistance of Russia and Armenia, the president of the Caucasian Kurdistan Freedom Movement, Wekil Mustafayev, proclaimed the reformation of Red Kurdistan in Lachin during the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Using the Kurdish card, Armenian authorities were trying to show that not only was the Armenian minority fighting for independence from Azerbaijan, but the Kurdish minority was as well.
It was presumed, that the new state structure would be loyal towards Armenia and wouldn't close the rout connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabagh.
... by creating a Kurdish state in the region, Armenian authorities would have contradicted the basic Armenian argument in the Karabakh war: that Karabakh belonged historically to Armenia.
