Kurdish Policy Analysis

The Forgotten Nation Reenters the Global Spotlight

Every major war in the Middle East eventually brings the Kurdish question back into global focus. The recent Iran conflict has once again thrust the Kurds into international headlines, reminding the world that one of the region’s largest and oldest nations still exists without an independent state.

Despite numbering between 30 and 45 million people, the Kurds remain divided across four countries — Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria — a geopolitical fragmentation rooted in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the colonial restructuring of the Middle East after World War I.

Tracing their ancestry to the ancient Median Empire of the 7th century BC, the Kurds possess a historical continuity that predates many of the modern states governing them today.

Yet for much of the world, the Kurdish story remains poorly understood. To explore the geopolitical, historical, and civilizational dimensions of the Kurdish question, economist and Kurdish scholar Jamal Mamkhezri offered a sweeping assessment of Kurdish identity, statelessness, repression, and survival across the modern Middle East.

The Largest Stateless Nation on Earth

According to Mamkhezri, the Kurds constitute the world’s largest stateless nation. Indigenous to the mountainous region historically known as Kurdistan, the Kurdish homeland stretches across:

• southeastern Turkey,
• northwestern Iran,
• northern Iraq,
• and northeastern Syria.

The Kurds speak Kurdish, an Indo-European language closely related to Persian and Pashto, with major dialects including:

• Kurmanji,
• Sorani,
• Hewrami,
• and Zazaki.

Religiously and culturally diverse, Kurdish communities include Muslims, Yazidis, Christians, Jews, and followers of Yarsanism. This diversity reflects Kurdistan’s historic role as a civilizational crossroads between Persia, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant.

From the Medes to Modern Kurdistan

The Kurdish national narrative traces its roots to the ancient Medes, an Iranian people who established a powerful empire centered in the Zagros Mountains during the 7th century BC. The Median Empire once stretched from Anatolia to Central Asia before its incorporation into the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 549 BC.

For many Kurdish nationalists, this ancient legacy forms the foundation of Kurdish historical identity and claims to nationhood. The Kurdish calendar itself begins in 612 BC, marking the Median conquest of Nineveh — the capital of the Assyrian Empire.

In modern times, Kurdish aspirations for statehood briefly materialized in 1946 with the establishment of the Republic of Mahabad in Iranian Kurdistan under Qazi Mohammad. The republic survived less than a year before Iranian forces crushed it and executed its leadership. Yet Mahabad remains one of the most powerful symbols of Kurdish nationalism.

How Colonial Borders Divided Kurdistan

The modern Kurdish crisis is inseparable from the post-World War I partition of the Middle East. The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres initially promised Kurdish autonomy and the possibility of independence. However, the treaty was never implemented.

Instead, the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne erased Kurdish statehood from international diplomacy entirely. The result was the fragmentation of Kurdistan among Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran — borders shaped largely by British and French strategic interests under the secret 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement.

For more than a century, each of these states has opposed Kurdish independence out of fear that Kurdish self-determination could destabilize regional territorial integrity. The consequences continue to define Middle Eastern geopolitics today.

Iraq: The Only Successful Kurdish Autonomy Project

Among all four states containing Kurdish populations, Iraq remains the only country where Kurdish autonomy has achieved constitutional recognition. Following the 1991 Gulf War and the establishment of a Western-enforced no-fly zone, Iraqi Kurds gradually built self-governing institutions.

After the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government was formally recognized under Iraq’s 2005 constitution. Today, the Kurdistan Region possesses:

• its own parliament,
• presidency,
• cabinet,
• security forces,
• and the powerful Peshmerga military structure.

This autonomy emerged from decades of immense suffering under Saddam Hussein’s regime. During the 1987–1988 Anfal campaign, Iraqi Kurdish civilians were subjected to mass killings, village destruction, forced displacement, and chemical warfare.

The 1988 chemical attack on Halabja killed thousands of civilians in one of the deadliest chemical attacks against civilians in modern history. Although Iraqi Kurdistan has become the most politically successful Kurdish entity in modern history, tensions with Baghdad remain unresolved over:

• oil revenues,
• disputed territories like Kirkuk,
• federal authority,
• and Kurdish independence aspirations.

In 2017, Iraqi Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence in a referendum rejected by Baghdad, Tehran, Ankara, and Western powers including the United States.

Iran’s Kurdish Challenge

The Iran war has once again exposed the strategic importance of Kurdish regions along Iran’s western frontier. Iranian Kurds remain among the most politically sensitive minorities inside the Islamic Republic.

According to Mamkhezri, Kurdish areas in Iran are heavily militarized and economically marginalized, while Kurdish political activism is frequently treated as a national security threat. Several Kurdish opposition movements operate against Tehran, including:

• the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan,
• PJAK,
• Komala,
• and other nationalist and leftist organizations.

The recent formation of a unified coalition among several Iranian Kurdish groups marks one of the most significant Kurdish political coordination efforts in decades. For Tehran, however, Kurdish nationalism represents more than separatism. It represents the possibility of geopolitical fragmentation during a period of regional instability and confrontation with Israel and the West.

Turkey and the Kurdish Insurgency

Turkey hosts the largest Kurdish population in the world, estimated at between 15 and 20 million people. For decades, the Turkish state denied the existence of a distinct Kurdish identity, referring to Kurds as “Mountain Turks.”

The Kurdish language was heavily restricted, and Kurdish political activism often criminalized. This environment gave rise to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), founded in 1978 by Abdullah Öcalan. The resulting conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants has lasted for decades and reshaped Turkish domestic politics, regional security, and NATO geopolitics.

Although some cultural restrictions have eased in recent years, Kurdish politicians, journalists, and activists continue to face arrests and legal crackdowns. For Ankara, Kurdish nationalism remains one of the country’s most sensitive security concerns.

Syria and the Rise of Rojava

The Syrian civil war created another historic opening for Kurdish self-rule. In northeastern Syria, Kurdish forces established the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria — widely known as Rojava. Supported militarily by the United States during the war against ISIS, the Syrian Democratic Forces emerged as one of the region’s most powerful non-state actors.

Under the leadership of figures like Mazloum Abdi, Kurdish authorities implemented systems of local governance emphasizing decentralization and multi-ethnic administration. However, Rojava’s long-term future remains uncertain. Turkey views many Syrian Kurdish groups as extensions of the PKK and continues to oppose the consolidation of Kurdish autonomy along its border.

Why the Kurdish Question Matters Geopolitically

The Kurdish issue sits at the intersection of nearly every major Middle Eastern conflict:

• Turkey’s internal security struggles,
• Iran’s ethnic tensions,
• Iraq’s fragile federal system,
• Syria’s fragmentation,
• U.S. regional strategy,
• and Israeli-Iranian rivalry.

No other stateless nation possesses comparable demographic size, military capability, geographic continuity, and geopolitical relevance. At the same time, Kurdish movements remain internally divided by ideology, tribal politics, regional loyalties, and differing relations with global powers. This fragmentation has historically limited the emergence of a unified Kurdish state.

Yet every major regional war continues to revive the same unresolved question: Can the Middle East permanently avoid addressing Kurdish self-determination?

Conclusion: The Nation That Refuses to Disappear

For more than a century, the Kurdish question has survived empires, dictatorships, wars, genocides, and geopolitical realignments. The Kurds remain divided across artificial borders created after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, yet their political aspirations continue to shape regional power dynamics.

From the mountains of Kurdistan to the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, the Kurdish struggle is no longer simply an ethnic issue. It is one of the defining geopolitical questions of the modern Middle East. And as regional tensions intensify once again, the world is being reminded that the largest stateless nation on Earth has not disappeared — it has merely been waiting.

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