The Kurds in Turkmenistan form a part of the historically significant Kurdish population in the post-Soviet space, and encompass people born in or residing in

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...

who are of Kurdish origin. In the 17th century,

Abbas I of Persia Abbas I ( fa, ; 27 January 157119 January 1629), commonly known as Abbas the Great (), was the 5th Safavid Shah (king) of Iran, and is generally considered one of the greatest rulers of Iranian history and the Safavid dynasty. He was the third s ...

and Nader Shah settled Kurdish tribes from Khuzestan alongside the Iranian-Turkmen border. More Kurds arrived to Turkmenistan in the 19th century to find unclaimed land and to escape starvation. After the dissolution of

Kurdistan Uyezd Kurdistan uezd,, ku, Кӧрдӧйәзд, Kurduyezd also known colloquially as Red Kurdistan,, ku, Кӧрдьстана Сор, Kurdistana Sor was a Soviet administrative unit that existed for six years from 1923 to 1929 and included the distr ...

, many Kurds were deported to Turkmenistan.

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

deported many Kurds from

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...

to Turkmenistan in 1937 and again in 1944. Since the 1980s, The Kurds of Turkmenistan have been subject to government sponsored assimilation programmes. Under Soviet Turkmenistan the Kurds had their own newspapers and schools, but since the independence of Turkmenistan, the Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov had closed almost all non-Turkmen schools. The majority of the Turkmen Kurds are followers of Shia Islam, with a small minority of Sunni Islam followers. Despite that the History of current Kurds in Turkmenistan started in 17th Century. The relations and first Contacts between Kurds and Turkmens started with the arrival of the Seljuks in the Middle East.

Population

References

{{Ethnic groups in Turkmenistan Ethnic groups in Turkmenistan Kurdish diaspora

Population

See also

References