Kurdish-Middle Eastern Relations

The Kurds are an indigenous population from Mesopotamia or modern-day south-eastern Türkiye, north-eastern Syria, northern Iraq, north-western Iran, and south-western Armenia. In the early 20th century, Kurds sought self-determination and the establishment of a homeland named Kurdistan, which translates to “Land of the Kurds.” Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Western allies promised a Kurdish state in the Treaty of Sèvres. However, the Treaty of Lausanne did not consider a Kurdish state when defining the borders of modern-day Turkey, reducing Kurds to a population with a minority status. Kurds could not accomplish any substantial advancements toward an independent state since, and their struggle for self-determination continues. 

Online Texts:

• BBC: “Who are the Kurds?”
• National Geographic: “Who are the Kurds?”
• PBS’s Frontline: “A Chronology of U.S.-Kurdish History” 
• Council on Foreign Relations: “The Kurds’ Long Struggle With Statelessness”
• Al Jazeera: “Iraqi Kurdistan & the Syrian-Kurd Pursuit of Autonomy”
• The Economist: “Why Kurds are losing hope of having their own state”
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “Kurds as Peacemakers in the Middle East”
• Wilson Center: “United States Policy and the Kurdistan Referendum: Compounding the Problem”
• The Washington Post: “Actually, President Trump, some Kurds did fight in World War II”
• Foreign Policy: “Forget Sykes-Picot. It’s the Treaty of Sèvres That Explains the Modern Middle East.”
• Foreign Policy: “The Secret Origins of the U.S.-Kurdish Relationship Explain Today’s Disaster”
• Middle East Research and Information Project: “The Kurdish Movement’s Relationship with the Palestinian Struggle”
• The Kurdish Project: This digital nonprofit agency features various resources that target a Western audience and educate them on Kurdish culture, history, and personal narratives.  

Documentaries and Videos:

• Al Jazeera English: “Who are the Kurds? What do they want? And why does nobody want to give it to them?”
• Vice: “Female Fighters of Kurdistan”Council on Foreign Relations: “The Time of the Kurds”
  • “US Congress Foreign Affairs Committees Talk Kurdish Independence”
• Kurdistan: Dream or Reality, directed by Halil Gülbeyaz, 2016 – This documentary captures the Kurdish struggle, seeking to answer the question: “Are the Kurds closer than ever to securing the international recognition they so desire?”

Podcasts:

• BBC: “Kurdistan: A State of Uncertainty”
• NPR’s Throughline: “No Friend But the Mountains”
• Kurdistan in America – This podcast by the Kurdish Regional Government Representation in the United States explores the relationship between the United States and Kurdistan.

Books:

• Being Kurdish in a Hostile World by Ayub Nuri (September 2017)
• The Kurds: A Concise History and Fact Book by Mehrdad R. Izady (January 1992)
• No Friend But the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani (July 2018)
• The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East by David L. Phillips (February 2015)

Kurds & Syria

Syria falls in western Kurdistan. Approximately two million Kurds reside in the Kurdish region of northeastern Syria, or Rojava. The region comprises three cantons, Afrin Canton, Kobane Canton, and Cizre Canton. Founded in 2003, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) is the largest and most active political group for the Kurds in Syria. It began as an affiliate of Turkey’s Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). The second-largest political party is the Kurdish National Council (KNC), which the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government helped launch in 2011. PYD and KNC struggle to agree on the best method to secure Kurdish autonomy. Since the beginning of the Civil War, the Kurdish population in Syria has led the fight against the Islamic State. In 2015, the Syrian government withdrew its troops from the Kurdish region.  

Online Texts:

• The Washington Institute for Near East Policy: “What U.S. Diplomacy for the Kurds in Syria?”
• New York Times: “Syria’s Kurds Wanted Autonomy. They Got an Endless War”
• Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Persecution and Discrimination against Kurdish Citizens in Syria”
• International Crisis Group: “Syria’s Kurds: A Struggle Within a Struggle”
• Carnegie’s Middle East Center: “The Kurdish National Council in Syria”
• Atlantic Council: “Isolation of the Kurds in Syria”
• Arab Center Washington DC: “Kurdish Dilemmas in Syria”
  • Arab Center Washington DC: “Syrian Kurds Are Hoping for, but Not Banking On, Continued US Partnership”
• The Nation: “Is This the End of Rojava?”
• The Intercept: “In Syria, U.S.-Backed Kurdish Fighters Face Trump’s Withdrawal — and the Legacy of Their Own Mistakes”

Documentaries and Videos:

• Vox: “How the Kurds became a key player in Syria’s war”
• Vice: “Rojava: Syria’s Unknown War” 
• Roza: The Country of Two Rivers directed by Kudbettin Cebe (January 2017)

Podcasts:

• The Economist: “The enemy of their enemy: the Kurds ally with Syria”
• Radicals in Conversation: “Rojava and the Kurdish Women’s Movement”
• Al Monitor’s On the Middle East: “Interview with Ibrahim Hamidi”

Books:

• The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts by Harriet Allsopp and Wladimir van Wilgenburg (July 2019)
• Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War by Michael Gunter (November 2014)
  • Rojava: Revolution, War, and the Future of Syria’s Kurds by Thomas Schmidinger (June 2018)
• The Daughters of Kobani by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (June 2021)
• Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women’s Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan by Michael Knapp, Anja Flach, and Ercan Ayboga (November 2016)

Kurds & Türkiye

In the geography of Kurdistan, Türkiye falls in northern Kurdistan. Nearly one-fifth of Türkiye’s population share a Kurdish identity, housing the largest Kurdish population in the world. In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the Turkish government recognizes as a terrorist organization. PKK poses a challenge to Turkish authorities as they demand a Kurdish state. 

Online Texts:

• Council on Foreign Relations: “Conflict Between Turkey and Armed Kurdish Groups” 
• International Crisis Group: “Türkiye’s PKK Conflict: A Visual Explainer”
• International Crisis Group: “Turkey’s PKK Conflict: A Regional Battleground in Flux”
• Foreign Policy: “Erdogan’s Long Arm Threatens Kurdish Exiles in Sweden”
• The Wall Street Journal: “Growing Kurdish Unity Helps West, Worries Turkey”
• Middle East Research and Information Project: “The Kurds in Turkey”
• Smithsonian Magazine: “Kurdish Heritage Reclaimed”
• BBC: “Turkey Kurdish strikes: A population living in fear”
• Center for American Progress: “The State of the Turkish-Kurdish Conflict”
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “Turkey’s Kurdish Conflict and Retreat From Democracy”
• Washington Post: “Who are the Kurds, and why is Turkey attacking them?”

Documentaries and Videos:

• Washington Post: “The complex history of Turkey and the Kurds, explained”
• Bakur: Inside the PKK, directed by Çayan Demirel, 2016 – This documentary offers an exclusive look at the Kurdish separatist group, PKK. 

Podcasts:

• LSE Middle East Centre Podcasts: “Understanding Insurgency: Popular Support for the PKK in Turkey”
• International Crisis Group’s War & Peace: “Understanding the Latest Escalation in Türkiye’s PKK Conflict”

Books:

• Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence by Aliza Marcus (August 2007)
• Understanding Insurgency: Popular Support for the PKK in Turkey by Francis O’Connor (August 2021)
• Kurdish Documentary Cinema in Turkey: The Politics and Aesthetics of Identity and Resistance edited by Suncem Koçer and Can Candan (October 2016)
• Prison Writings: The Roots of Civilization by Abdullah Öcalan (March 2007)
• The Political Economy of the Kurds of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic by Veli Yadirgi (July 2017)

Kurds & Iraq

Kurds comprise 15-20% of the population in Iraq, or southern Kurdistan. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) governs Iraq’s Kurdistan population from Erbil. Revenues from oil fund the Kurdish government; however, the KRG and Iraqi government dispute the ownership of this resource. In 1970, the Iraqi government and Kurdish opposition forces signed an autonomy agreement that granted an autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. The arrangement failed four years later, and the region became violent. The Kurdish people struggled against the Iraqi government as well as amongst themselves. In the early 1990s, the Iraqi government withdrew its armed forces from the region. Following the elections of 2003, the KRG governed Iraqi Kurdistan independently. 

Online Texts:

• The official website of the Kurdistan Regional Government: https://gov.krd/english/
• Ministry of Planning Kurdistan Regional Government: “Kurdistan Region of Iraq: A Vision for the Future”
• International Crisis Group: “Iraqi Kurdistan Twenty Years After”
• The Washington Institute for Near East Policy: “The Rise and Fall of Kurdish Power in Iraq”
• Associated Press: “Kurds remain biggest winners from US-led invasion of Iraq” 
• Smithsonian Magazine: “Inside the Daily Lives of Iraq’s Kurds”
• Vox: “6 essential facts about Iraq’s Kurds”
• Middle East Eye: “What you need to know: The Kurds in Iraq”
• NPR: “Why Does The U.S. Like Iraq’s Kurds But Not Syria’s?”
• Foreign Policy: “Iraqi Kurdistan’s House of Cards Is Collapsing”

Documentaries and Videos:

• PBS NewsHour: “Could the fight against ISIS give Kurds more autonomy?”
• Al Jazeera English: “Independence and the Iraqi Kurds”
• Al Jazeera’s The Stream: “Will the Kurds break free of Iraq”

Podcasts:

• BBC: “Iraq’s Kurds: From Flight to Freedom” 
• Center for Strategic and International Studies: “Iraq – The View from Kurdistan”

Books:

• Invisible Nation: How the Kurd’s Quest for Statehood is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East by Quil Lawrence (April 2008)
• The Miracle of the Kurds: A Remarkable Story of Hope Reborn in Northern Iraq by Stephen Mansfield (January 2014)
• Kurdistan on the Global Stage: Kinship, Land, and Community in Iraq by Diane E. King (December 2013)

Kurds & Iran

Kurds reside in Western Iran, sharing borders with Iraq and Turkey. The Kurdish region of Iran comprises three provinces: the Kordestan Province, the Kermanshah Province, and the West Azerbaijan Province. The Soviet Union aided Kurds with the establishment of a Kurdish state in Mahabad after World War II. However, after the Soviets left Iran, the state collapsed. Following the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the consequential rule of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Kurds fell into armed conflict with the Iranian government. As the Kurds and the Iranian government continue to share strained relations, the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) rose to power as a political militant organization fighting for Kurdish autonomy in the three Iranian provinces. 

Online Texts:

• Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization: “Iranian Kurdistan”
• Human Rights Watch: “Iran: Brutal Repression in Kurdistan Capital”
• The Washington Post: “At the center of Iran’s uprising, Kurds now face a mounting crackdown”
• Amnesty International: “Iran: Human Rights Abuses Against the Kurdish Minority”
• Middle East Eye: “Why Iranian Kurds have been resistant to the regional turmoil – so far”
• Al Arabiya: “Are Kurds really treated equally in Iran?”
• Time: “Why It’s Vital to Center Kurdish Voices in the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ Movement”
• The Guardian: “How the death of a Kurdish woman galvanised women all over Iran”
• Al Jazeera: “Iran’s Role in the Kurdistan Region”
• The New Arab: “The double discrimination faced by Kurdish women in Iran”
• CNN: “From protester to fighter: Fleeing Iran’s brutal crackdown to take up arms over the border”

Documentaries and Videos:

• Washington Institute for Near East Policy: “Kurds against the Iranian Regime: Internal and Regional Implications”
• The Middle East Institute: “The Kurds of Iran: A Look at their Past, Present and Future”
• Center for Strategic and International Studies: “The Kurdish Roots of Iran’s Freedom Movement”

Podcast:

• NPR’s All Things Considered: “How the Kurdish people’s situation factors into protests over woman’s death in Iran”
• The Majlis: “The Kurdish Struggle and the Ongoing Protest in Iran”

Books:

• Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making of Kurdish Identity by Abbas Vali (May 2014)
• The Political Development of the Kurds in Iran: Pastoral Nationalism by F. Koohi-Kamali (September 2003)
• The Forgotten Years of Kurdish Nationalism in Iran by Abbas Vali (June 2019)