The Kurdish (Issue) is Global–Time to Solve it!.
Washington Kurdish Institute.
The Kurdish “issue” has been at the center of Middle East politics for almost a century since the creation of its current states Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Kurds in Iran were also victims of a regional war in the 16th century which culminated in the current geographic distributions of the region. To this day Kurds struggle for equal rights and fight for self-determination across the Middle East. The largest stateless nation, Kurdistan is divided into four states, and despite the myriad of sympathetic remarks from the international community, an answer to the Kurdish “issue” remains unclear.
The Kurdish fight against terrorism in recent years has highlighted their profile as tough fighters, especially amid the lack of other forces facing ISIS terrorism in Syria and Iraq. Even still, Kurdish opposition to terrorism as a partner of the global coalition has been met with ethnic cleansing campaigns by Turkey in Syria and continued instability in Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan at the hands of Baghdad and Tehran.
$The implications of global policy on Kurdish rights to self-determination$
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire following the first World War, three international treaties written by the old superpowers between 1918 and 1936 established the newly formed states of the Middle East. The lines drawn in these treaties cut through the centuries old Kurdish regions thus dividing the populations with arbitrary borders. With no representation of their own, the Kurds right to self-determination was ignored.
Alas, the same powers today reaffirm their old stance by ignoring the right to self-determination of the Kurds. For example, the international community strongly opposed the Kurdish referendum on independence in Iraqi Kurdistan. Likewise, they do not recognize Kurdish aspirations in Syria, Iran, and Turkey. The Kurds have never stopped fighting for their rights to self-determination, however, they’ve received no support from the international community and, on many occasions, were betrayed.
$Why the Kurdish “issue” is a global one$
This “Kurdish issue” has often been the catalyst to several regional and international events, including wars. The Iran-Iraq war was portrayed by global and local media as a dispute between the two countries over lands and demarcation. However, the former dictator Saddam Hussein (then vice president of Iraq) surrendered the disputed areas to Iran under the Shah in return for Iran cutting support to the Kurdish rebels in Iraq. The agreement is known as the “Algiers Agreement,” where the Shah of Iran betrayed the Kurds and the US. After five years, in 1980, the Iraqi dictator annulled the treaty with the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran, resulting in a bloody war between the two states for eight years.
Moreover, tensions between Syria and Turkey in the late 1990s almost resulted in a war between the two sides. The Syrian regime supported the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), fighting for Kurdish rights in Turkey. Since 2014 the US-Turkish relationship has deteriorated dramatically where Syrian Kurds, labeled as “terrorists” by Turkey, received international aid to fight ISIS. In recent weeks, another major global issue appeared over the Kurds. Turkey and its authoritarian president Erdogan refuse new membership of NATO for both Finland and Sweden. Turkey is accusing both countries of hosting members of the PKK.
The internationality of the Kurdish case goes even further in history when the second resolution 2 (January 30, 1946) of the Security Council of the United Nations was adopted mainly to put pressure on the Soviet Union to withdraw its support to the newly-established Kurdish state. This shows how the Kurds were at the center of the global issues even then.
“The size of the Kurdish lands and the size of the Kurdish people and the division of them between these four major, Middle Eastern countries. I think it makes it not just a Turkish problem, not just a Syrian, Iranian, or Iraqi problem. This is, at the very least, a regional problem. I think in order to make sense of what can be done and what cannot be done, I would like to make an argument for the fact that the Middle East has underlined some fundamental changes.” Says Dr. Mehmet Gurses, Associate Professor of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University.
Let’s call it that, for now, the Kurdish issue; it’s actually one of the largest conflicts in the Middle East, just in terms of population size alone. And I think many people who focus on the Middle East, still don’t actually realize the size and complexity of the problem. It’s also one of the most protracted armed conflicts in the world with Kurdish insurgencies dating back over a century, so way before the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] was even founded. There were Kurdish insurgencies in the 19th century, in all four countries where you have Kurdish minorities. Yet, despite its constancy, the Kurdish issue has never received the attention that it deserves from any administration.
Therefore, any fulfilling solution for Kurds’ right to self-determination will benefit the international community, most especially the US and the European Union (EU). The percentage of Kurds fleeing Europe and becoming refugees is mainly due to the dire situations they live in at home. Furthermore, a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question will benefit the EU by taking advantage of Kurdish natural resources, especially oil and gas, which Turkey will immensely benefit from as well. Likewise, the Kurds have proven time and again to be reliable allies for the West against terror groups. A Kurdish liberty will translate to further cooperation with the West and can develop toward the fulfillment of human rights issues and democratic values already adopted by the West. Given their interest in the region, this alone should make the Kurdish cause a top priority for international discourse for Europeans and the US.
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