It was the Kurds themselves who did not ask for a Kurdish state, says Professor Dogu Ergil, one of the most renowned political sociologists from Turkey.
Ergil explains that the Kurds "cooperated" with the Turks against the Armenians to deport them and seized the goods and property left behind by the Armenians. He says that the Treaty of Lausanne was crafted with the consent of the Kurds. "They did not want a Kurdish state for several reasons. But the primary reason was the ambition of some to create a separate Armenia in the same lands. The Kurds wanted to prevent this from happening," says Ergil.
Zaman quotes the Turkish professor as saying that the Kurds played an extensive role in the expulsion of Armenians from Turkey and the appropriation of their properties.
"Kurds and Armenians used to live together in East Anatolia. They cooperated with Turkish official circles in the deportation of Armenians and played a primary role in the redistribution of the property and land of the deported Armenians. Their return would mean that everything should be restored and reversed. They converted their children to Islam and took them into Kurdish families. And, of course, there was no Turkism back then; there was a state approach based on an understanding of Islam. This was pretty understandable for the Kurds. They have lived like this for centuries. No room was
left for Kurdishness when Turkishness in a political sense was invented because this place was declared as being the land of the Turks," says Ergil.