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Kurdistan

PKK flags
HRK flag
Various reports of Kurdish flags seen in the media.

PKK flag

PKK is the Kurdistan Workers Party, a Kurdistan liberation's army. Its flag is a red flag with a green-bordered yellow circle and a five-pointed red star inside the circle.
Giuseppe Bottasini

HRK flag

On "Famiglia Cristiana" n. 17/1995 there was a picture showing a Kurdish demonstration in Germany. Apart from the well-known PKK flag there is another flag:
"two equal horizontal bends, the top is yellow and the bottom is green. A red 5-pointed star astride the two bends, shifted towards the hoist. Around under the star, three red letters H-R-K".
There are many common things between the two flags: the colors (red-green-yellow), the red 5-pointed star. I guess the HRK flag is the flags of some PKK-related organization.
Giuseppe Bottasini, 1995-08-09

Various reports of Kurdish flags seen in the media

The most commonly recognized flag of Kurdistan is a red-white-green horizontal tricolor with a gold (yellow) sun in the center. This is deliberately Iran up-side-down, and I believe it was the flag of the Mahabad Republic (which was carved out of solely Iranian territory). The Kurds of Iraq are the same cultural/linguistic group as Iran, but the Kurds of Turkey have a different heritage and may not identify with this flag.

Todd Mills, 1996-09-03

I have seen several times in the news three flags over Iraqi Kurdistan:

Three horizontal bands, green, yellow and red (1970's and 1980's).
Three horizontal bands, yellow, red and green (1991).
Three bands, red, green, yellow, with a red five-pointed star in the center of the green band (1994). Jaume Oll�, 1996-09-06

Seen in today's the Edmonton Journal an article from the Washington Guardian that was added to the coverage of the recent attacks. Inserted into the article was a small color graphic, including what I assume is supposed to be the 'Kurdistan' flag: a green-yellow-red horizontal tricolor. Is this actually the flag of the KDP or the PUK, or is it sort of a 'generic' Kurdistan flag for the papers to use?

Stoner, 1996-09-04

Earlier I mentioned the Kurdish red-white-green tricolor with a sun. You can see different renditions of this at:
- http://ourworld.compuserve.ca:80/homepages/RIbrahim
- http://www.evitech.fi/~hasand/KURDISTAN
- http://www.pe.net/~shafi
- http://www.HumanRights.de/~kurdweb/
The last one has the flag on language buttons for the various Kurdish dialects, suggesting that the flag is universal in Kurdistan. (Kurmanji is the language of Turkish Kurdistan; Sorani is the language of Iranian/Iraqi Kurdistan.) All of these are crude hand-made gifs, and the suns are quite different. Jaume Oll� has the best sun at his site, but (unless he knows something I don't) the flag is upside down! [Note added by editor: source is the Catalan Encyclopedia, probably originally from The Flag Institute.]
I should qualify all this by mentioning that a Kurdish friend of mine of some social prominence (he entertained all the Kurdish leaders in his home) once told me that Kurdistan has no flag. His home was Mahabad, the seat of the Mahabad Republic. I think he was merely being overly strict in his construction the concept: there has been no Kurdish state since the Mahabad Republic, therefore there has been no flag. But until the 1991 creation of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, Kurds in all countries looked back to the Mahabad Republic as the symbol of their aspirations for statehood.
Another little aside: the Army of the Mahabad Republic wore Soviet uniforms (they were essentially a Soviet puppet state), but their buttons were home made--featuring the Kurdish sun.

Todd Mills, 1996-09-04

Iraq has on several occasions recognized Kurdish autonomy, but it was usually a trick which led to war. Most recently, Iraq has not recognized it but the Kurds have been de facto independent since the Gulf war allies created a safe-haven. While Kurdish leaders have been warmly received by European heads of state, nobody wants to recognize Kurdish independence de jure. The dismemberment of Iraq is considered taboo (enhanced power to Iran, complications of Turkish claims to the Mosul villayet which was never intended to belong to Iraq, etc.) Kurdistan had free elections on 19 May 1992, but the presidential vote and parliamentary vote were pretty much tied at 45% between the KDP and PUK. They set up a government of national unity, but the situation soon degenerated into civil war. (The National Assembly was in Arbil, the town just seized by Iraq and the KDP from the PUK.) Until the early 60s there was only the KDP, but Jalal Talabani broke away and formed the PUK which appealed to the intellectual, urban elite in contrast to the the traditionalist Barzani party.
I was at the funeral of the Iranian Kurdish leader Ghassemlou in Paris in 1989. The red-white-green tricolor was in evidence as well as several party flags like the PKK.

Todd Mills, 1996-09-05

The Financial Times of 1996-09-02 carries a front page Reuters photo of a boy waving a flag at a Kurdish demonstration in London's Trafalgar Square. The flag is red. In its centre is a large device comprising a circle in which there is a star; the points of the star touching the circle. In the middle of the star is what appears to be a flaming torch. Circle, star and torch are all in yellow/gold.
The caption describes the flag as "the Kurdish flag" which is neither accurate nor particularly helpful. From the context (this was an anti-Saddam demonstration) I would hazard the guess that this flag is the Party flag of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Another flag I have seen Kurds use in demonstrations in the UK and Germany is red with a yellow disc in the middle, outlined in green. On the disc is a red star. I suspect this is another factional flag but don't know whose.

Stuart A. Notholt, 1996-09-07