Kurds in Armenia

The historically suspicious treatment from Armenia toward local Kurds, especially Muslim Kurds, is best explained as a reaction to the fact that some Kurdish tribes in (what was then) Western Armenia participated along with the Turks of the Ottoman Empire during the deportation and genocide of the Armenian populations during the World War I.

In the First Republic of Armenia of 1918–1920, the Kurds received political rights: a Kurdish representative elected to the Armenian parliament, some Kurds became officers of the Armenian Army and organized Kurdish volunteer units.[2]

During the Soviet period a large amount of Kurdish literature was published in Armenia, national schools and radio were opened. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Soviet Armenia was the main center of Kurdish literature.[3] In 1925 more than fifty schools were opened for the Kurds of Armenia.[4]

In 1937, during the period of Stalinism, many Kurds in Armenia, along with Kurds in Azerbaijan, became victims of forced migration, and were forcibly deported to Kazakhstan.[5][6]

In the period between 1992-94 the Kurdish minority of Lachin and Kelbajar districts of Azerbaijan was forced to flee due to the Armenian invasion during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.[7]

According to the director of the Center of Kurdish research, the situation with Kurds in Armenia today is normal and there is not any open intolerance.[8] The Election Code of Armenia reserves one seat in the parliament to the representative of the Kurdish minority.[9]

Prominent Armenian composer Komitas collected many Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish folk songs,[12] and in 1897 he got a degree in Kurdish Music Studies at Frederick William University in Berlin.

Armenian poet Hovhannes Shiraz used the motives of Kurdish legend in his famous poem "Siamanto and Khjezare".

• Najm ad-Din Ayyub and his brother, Shirkuh, who were born near the ancient city of Dvin (near the present-day village of the same name). Ayyub's son Saladin[13][14] would establish a dynasty under his father's name and led the Islamic opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant.

• Armenian–Kurdish relations
• Armenian Genocide
• Hamidiye (cavalry)
• Qulp (Kurdish Emirate in Armavir & Aragatsotn)
• Yazidis in Armenia