Activist marching from Washington to NYC to draw attention to Kurdish problem

Evrim Deniz / Gazete Duvar

Kani Xulam, the director at the American Kurdish Information Network, has been continuing his march which he started on July 1 in Washington D.C. and plans to end at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on July 24, i.e. on the 100th anniversary of the Lozan Treaty.

Xulam names his march “Meşa Azadîyê” which means “Freedom March” and is staying at a total of 24 places during the time span of the march.

Xulam told Gazete Duvar that he is marching “for the Kurdish problem to be solved in a peaceful way.” “My aim is to show that the Lozan Treaty is an agreement that is ‘based on violence.’ As a result of this agreement, the Kurdish people’s will has been overlooked and has not been accepted since that day. This injustice that Kurdish people are facing needs to end and their will needs to be accepted.”

The Lausanne Treaty, which was signed on 24 July 1923, formalized the de facto division of Kurdish-inhabited lands among Turkey, Iraq and Syria. By replacing the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which had promised the creation of a Kurdish state in the Middle East, the Lausanne Treaty represented a blow to Kurds’ aspirations for self-determination.

Xulam was born in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakır but has been living in the United States for the last 43 years. During his march, he is taking videos and sharing his videos on his social media accounts, posting them in Kurdish, Turkish and English.

“Freedom is at the same time political freedom, the freedom to speak in mother tongue, freedom of opinion, and in my dreams a free and independent Kurdistan. Kurdish people should act with their own will and determine their own destiny. In a free Kurdistan, there would not be a Turkish, Persian, Arab soldier or police,” he said.

Xulam said that his march has a purpose of creating a platform of discussion about the experiences of Kurdish people. “Currently, there is a Kurdish problem in the Middle East and Kurds are not the ones only responsible of this,” he said.  

(English version by Didem Atakan)