The Kurds of Azerbaijan & Armenia: An Update on Ethnic Minorities and Human Rights

This report, drawn from KHRP's May 2000 fact-finding mission to the ex-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia, provides a timely and essential update to KHRP's last report on the region from December 1998 (The Kurds of Azerbaijan and Armenia by Julie Flint).

As authors Deborah Russo and Kerim Yildiz make clear, ex-Soviet Kurds in both Armenia and Azerbaijan have managed to maintain a degree of Kurdish cultural identity despite having been separated for most of the twentieth century from the wider Kurdish world. Today, however, this Kurdish identity is threatened in both countries by the harsh economic conditions and governmental neglect in these highly unstable newly independent states (NIS). Now that both countries have recently ratified the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and applied for accession to the Council of Europe, hopes for greater Kurdish cultural freedom have been renewed. The governments of Azerbaijan and Armenia now face the looming task of providing greater attention to human rights and minority issues, lest they find themselves in breach of international conventions.