Yazidis or Kurds? The fight over identity in Armenia and Iraq

Amberin Zaman

Jul 23, 2024

Women worshippers stand at the altar, they pray and tie knots in pieces of cloth that represent their wishes, during their visit to the new Yazidi Temple in the village of Aknalich, 35 kilometres from the Armenian capital Yerevan, on October 11, 2019. — KAREN MINASYAN/AFP via Getty Images

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CHARCHAKIS, Armenia — Sevdin Khudoyan, a farmer-turned-mechanic, has no doubt about who he is. “I am a Kurd and a Yazidi,” Khudoyan asserted over coffee and a spread of fresh berries in his family kitchen in this pastoral village 70 kilometers (44 miles) north of Yerevan. “Yazidis, Kurds, we are the same people,” Khudoyan explained as his mother Altun nodded in agreement.

Further south in the village of Aknalich, journalist Temur Khudoyan is adamant that he and his people are Yazidis and “nothing else.” “We do not accept that we are Kurds,” he said as he gave this reporter a tour of a gleaming white-marble Yazidi temple that was inaugurated in 2019 amid much fanfare.

The question of how to identify themselves — as Yazidis or Kurds, or both — is sowing divisions among Armenia’s largest ethnic minority. Even siblings are split over the answer, and outside forces are seizing on the fissures to advance their own agendas.

For many, it’s all about survival.