Kurdish discontents are growing

In September 2017 the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held a referendum on independence for the autonomous enclave it administers in northern Iraq. Despite a 92.73% vote in favour, the initiative failed, both because Iraq’s central government in Baghdad refused to ratify the result and because neither the great powers (the United States and Russia) nor neighbouring states (Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey) were willing to countenance Iraq’s break-up. This failure weakened the KRG, which has since had to concede significant territory to central government forces, including the strategic city of Kirkuk.

Further west, in northeastern Syria, the outlook is equally bleak for the Kurdish entity known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, set up a decade ago, which is under constant threat from the Syrian regime as well as repeated attacks by the Turkish army.

But while Kurdish territorial ambitions may be thwarted by international power games, they are also complicated by rivalries between Kurdish leaders.

It’s impossible to talk about stability in the Middle East without taking account of the anomaly of the Kurdish situation. After the first world war, the region was reshaped, with control going from dynastic empires to new states based on ethnic criteria, such as Turkey and the Arab countries, including Iraq and Lebanon. On the map, the Kurds were a ‘people without a state’, divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran – countries which failed to respect, and sometimes even to recognise, Kurds’ fundamental rights. This situation led to numerous revolts that were in turn forcibly suppressed.

However, in recent years, the weakening or collapse of the Iraqi and Syrian states have given the Kurds new opportunities, not least because their various military forces in Iraq and Syria became the main allies of the US-led international coalitions, in 2003 against Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime and, since 2014, against ISIS. This latter (...)

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