Kurdistan has been a center of humanity throughout history, and has birthed many civilizations with her riches. The lands of Kurdistan have had diverse communities live together for centuries, and have been important for water sources, agriculture and husbandry as well as mining. As such, the Kurdish people and other peoples in the region have lived independent of foreign countries. With these riches, the Kurdish people and other peoples formed great civilizations that led the world in Kurdistan.

MINERALS EXTRACTED FROM THE REGION TAKEN TO THE WEST

Kurdistan is one of the richest lands in the world, and has many natural resources. A full hundred percent of the oil extracted in Turkey comes from the lands of Kurdistan, which are also rich in minerals. Kurdistan has one of the richest reserves in the world for copper, bronze, chrome, lead, silver, coal, lignite and various other minerals. All the minerals extracted from the region were removed from the area, locals were unable to utilize them to date. The minerals were always refined in western Turkey, and are sold internationally without the people of the region ever receiving a share.

ALL OIL EXTRACTED IN TURKEY COMES FROM KURDISTAN

All the oil extracted today comes from Kurdish provinces of Batman, Adıyaman, Amed, Şırnak-Silopi, Siirt, Urfa and Mardin-Nusaybin. The oil in Turkey, only found in the Kurdistan region, is taken to Turkish cities with pipelines and tankers. Kurdistan’s oil is processed in the Izmir - Aliaga Refinery, Kocaeli - Iprash Refinery, Kırıkkale - Central Anatolia Refinery and Hatay - Dörtyol Refinery. The colonialist Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid had extensive explorations done in Kurdistan for oil a century ago, and determined the oil-rich areas. Over a century after Abdulhamid’s death, the AKP government takes over his task.

AKP DRILLS NEW OIL WELLS

The Turkish state has extracted oil from Kurdistan for a century, and is now accelerating efforts to discover and drill new wells. The AKP government has launched exploration efforts in Hakkari-Van in recent years. The efforts are accelerated especially in areas like Hakkari, Çukurca, Şemdinli, Bitlis and Van, as Abdulhamid had determined.

The Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) formed an oil exploration field in Hakkari’s Çukurca district in May. AKP’s former Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Berat Albayrak announced that they have conducted the first deep drill, and stated that the region has been talked about for a long time due to both explorations for oil and mining, due to its natural resources and potential. In the statement, Albayrak said, “In the coming period, we will be gathering gravity data with aircrafts in the area from Şemdinli to Cizre and Van to Siirt in the north. This is an important step,” signaling that the riches will be taken away with greater speed now.

“WE WANT TO UTILIZE OUR OWN RESOURCES”

Meanwhile, the people of Kurdistan are not happy with the AKP government’s oil exploration efforts. Citizens spoke to the ANF and said the oil extracted from their region has been transported to western Turkey for years, and that the Kurdish people have not been able to utilize their own resource. Citizens pointed out that the Turkish state uses the extracted oil to serve its own interests and that the west has gotten richer as the Kurdish people have been pushed deeper into poverty. Citizens also spoke about how the Turkish state exploits Kurdistan’s resources and said: “We don’t want the Turkish state extracting our resources. We want to utilize our resources ourselves.”