Kurds in Cizre, Turkey, on March 2, surveying the damage after much of their town was destroyed by Turkish forces. By Robert F. O n the morning of Oct. As the convoy rumbled past the border gate, the road for miles ahead was lined with thousands of ecstatic Kurds, who clapped, cheered and waved the Kurdish flag.
Many had tears in their eyes. Some even kissed the tanks and trucks as they passed. Their route that day traced an arc from northern Iraq through southeastern Turkey and onward into northern Syria: the historical heartland of the Kurdish people.
For the bystanders who cheered them on under a hazy autumn sky, the date was deliciously symbolic. What had long been a grim annual reminder of Turkish rule over the Kurds was transformed into rapture, as they watched Kurdish soldiers parade through three countries where they have long dreamed of founding their own republic.
Some who stood on the roadside that day have told me it changed their lives. The battle against the Islamic State had made the downtrodden Kurds into heroes. The P. But they gained admirers all over the world. There was renewed talk in Europe of removing the P.
For many Turkish Kurds, the lesson was unmistakable: Their time had come. I met a year-old P. Nineteen months after that convoy passed, the feelings it inspired have helped to start a renewed war between Turkey and its Kurdish rebels. Turkish tanks are now blasting the ancient cities of the Kurdish southeast, where young P. The fighting, which intensified last fall, has spread to Ankara, the Turkish capital, where two suicide bombings by Kurdish militants in February and March killed 66 people.
