Syrian Citizenship Disappeared 6. A short history of Kurds: The history of Kurds is linked to the history of Middle-East. Indeed, their origins trace back to 2,000 years. At the time of Arab conquests of Mesopotamia, in 637, Kurdish armies were included into the Sassanian Empire and fought alongside its armies. By the end of the conquest, and the defeat of Sassanians, a significant part of Kurdish chiefs submitted to Arab armies and embraced Islam. Under the consecutive governments, Kurdish remained significantly independent, leading revolts on several opportunities, against the Umayyads, in particular along the course of the 6th and 7th centuries, and the Abbasides during the 9th century. Over the course of the 10th and 11th centuries, several Kurdish dynasties, including the Shaddadids, the Marwanids and the Hasanwayhids arose. Kurdistan was later the target of Empires that destroyed the area, such as Mongols and Timurids. Until then, the social fabric did not revolve around a Kurdish identity, but was mostly the result of family ties, tradition and Islam. When the Shi’i Safavi leader Ismail established the Safavid dynasty in 1505, ruling over today’s Iran, Kurds massively defected to support the Ottoman Empire, that, at the time, relied on local chiefs, as opposed to a more centrally organised Safavid Empire. During the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire earned a prominent position. On the early stages of its establishment, the Ottoman Empire granted Kurdish chiefs with significant independence negotiated by Bitlisi, a Kurdish political advisor to the Empire, in exchange of their recognition of the Ottoman Empire, and the provision of trained men serving the Ottoman armies during the Ottoman-Persian wars. This settlement led to the creation of semi-autonomous Kurdish Emirates that, although not totally satisfying for either party, and punctuated by Kurdish revolts, sustained until the Ottoman reforms, in the middle of the 19th century. 10 During its presence in Syria, France developed a positive attitude towards minorities. Applying a divide-and-rule strategy to assert their rule, France favoured Druze, Alawites and Kurds minorities, particularly when it came to the recruitment in its army. The departure of France from Syria would, however, reveal precarious for minorities, and especially the Kurds. With the rise of post-mandate Arab nationalism, that aimed for a massive Arabization of the territory, and its perception of the Kurdish identity as a threat to the success of an Arab Syria, the governments embarked in the oppression of the ethnic group. Northeastern Syria, home to the Kurdish community, was heavily targeted by such policies. The event object of this report took place in 1962, just as the strategy was being implemented. The Ba’ath party taking over power in 1963, aiming at a secular Arab society, only pursued the discrimination against non-Arab minorities. To further assert Syria as an Arab state, the party later on embarked in designing the Arab belt, aiming at emptying the Al Hasakah region from Kurdish people on the basis of a variety of policies, including the renaming of villages in Arabic or the expropriation of Kurdish land owners.