Title: Iraq and Syria:Kurdish Autonomous Regions Under Threat
Author: FABRICE BALANCHE:
Place of publication: France
Publisher: FABRICE BALANCHE • LEC T U RER
AT T HE U NI VER SI T Y OF LYO N 2
Release date: 2023

n November of 2022, Turkey bombed Kurdish forces in Syria and the #PKK# (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) in Northern Iraq in retaliation for the attack in Istanbul that the Turkish president, Recep Tayeb Erdogan, attributed to the PKK. Turkey declared its intention to launch a major ground offensive against the Syrian Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES). At the same time, Iranian missiles were fired at the headquarters of Iran’s opposition party which is in exile in Iraqi Kurdistan. In December 2022, during the official visit to Tehran by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Soudani, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also threatened to launch an offensive against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) if the Iraqi government did not improve its control over the border with Iran 1 . The Iranian regime claims that the Kurds, and more particularly the Kurdish refugees in Iraq, are responsible for the anti-regime demonstrations that have swept Iran since the murder of the young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, by the religious police. The simultaneous actions by Turkey and Iran against Kurds in Syria and Iraq attest to a common desire to curtail, or even eliminate, their autonomy. Both countries have large Kurdish minorities (20% in Turkey and 10% in Iran) and they have no desire to see these minorities claim autonomy as well.[1]