With a population exceeding 30 million, the Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own state. Instead, they are spread across Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.
Kurds have been struggling for autonomy for more than a century, and all four of these countries in one way or another have denied them greater autonomy or full independence. Often times, the result was violent conflict and repression. This history has a clear lesson: without addressing the Kurds’ cultural, linguistic, and political demands, achieving peace and stability in the Middle East is impossible.
After World War I, the British and French partitioned the Middle East through the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The deal placed many Kurdish-inhabited areas under French control, while the British were slated to control the region east of Kirkuk. Additionally, the European powers planned on turning the Kurdish-populated southeastern part of what is now Turkey into a new Armenian state.
Yet, the British and French never got a chance to fully implement their plan. Instead, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, one of Turkey’s founding fathers, reorganized the remnants of the Ottoman army, launched the Turkish War of Independence, and reclaimed the territory that would become modern Turkey.
Almost immediately, however, some Kurdish-inhabited areas balked at the ethnic nationalism and aggressive secularism of the new Turkish Republic. They demanded autonomy and the recognition of Kurdish identity. The Turkish state refused, resulting in several Kurdish rebellions during Turkey’s first two decades of existence. The most significant was the Dersim uprising in 1937 and 1938, which the Republic brutally suppressed.
Despite the ability of Atatürk’s government to put down the rebellion, the Turkish state grew to fear Kurdish uprisings, leading to policies that included the criminalization of identifying as Kurdish.
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Turkey was not the only place where Kurds were experiencing repression and seeking greater autonomy. Beginning in 1925, Iranian leader Reza Shah, and later his son Mohammad Reza Shah, pushed to “modernize” their country, which included reducing regional power and institutionalizing Persian national hegemony. As part of this effort, Mohammad Reza Shah’s government restricted Kurdish cultural expressions, such as the use of the Kurdish language and traditional dress.
Kurds defied this effort, seeing it as an affront to their cultural freedom. In 1946, they rebelled and formed the Kurdish Mahabad Republic with Soviet backing. Yet, this republic collapsed quickly following the withdrawal of Soviet support and the subsequent execution of Qazi Mohammad, the head of the Republic, by the Shah’s security forces. The move symbolized the country’s zero-tolerance approach to Kurdish autonomy.
During the 1960s, Syria joined in the marginalization of Kurds. Similar to Turkey and Iran, the Syrian government, controlled by the Ba’ath Party, embraced nationalist policies, which imposed a singular Arab identity and systematically excluded minorities. In 1962, a government census stripped tens of thousands of Kurds of their Syrian citizenship, rendering them stateless. Stateless Kurds—referred to as ajanib (foreigners)—were denied basic rights such as property ownership, education, and access to government jobs.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Kurdish quest for greater autonomy in the region intensified and resulted in armed conflicts in multiple countries. In 1978, Turkish Kurds formed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist-Leninist insurgency seeking an independent Kurdistan. It waged an armed struggle against the Turkish government, which resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, but no success in gaining autonomy.
In the 1980s, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, who led the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), also emerged as a major figure in the Kurdish struggle for autonomy. Ghassemlou advocated for “democracy in Iran, autonomy in Kurdistan.” His vision sought to integrate Kurdish demands into a broader democratic framework, emphasizing peaceful negotiations over violent confrontation. However, in 1989, Ghassemlou was assassinated, allegedly by Iranian agents during a meeting intended to discuss the Kurdish issue.
The assassination came on the heels of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein using chemical weapons to brutally crush a Kurdish push for autonomy. The ruthless brutality by Iraq and Iran displayed the lengths to which the region’s governments were willing to go to silence the Kurds. It also reflected the broader challenge stymieing the Kurds — they were demanding autonomy from four states that fiercely guarded their territorial integrity.
Yet, in 1991, Hussein’s loss in the Gulf War proved to be a turning point, resulting in de facto Kurdish self-rule in northern Iraq. In 1992, the first free elections in Iraq’s history were held in the Kurdish autonomous zone. Though the two dominant Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) soon fell into a civil war, an eventual peace deal reunified the territories they control in northern Iraq.
The 1990s were also marked by more democratic representation for Kurds in Turkey, with the formation of pro-Kurdish parties. As in Iraq, however, this advance was something of a mixed bag as the Turkish government kept outlawing these parties for alleged ties to the PKK, which Turkey and its western allies had designated a terrorist organization.
Yet, while progress has been slow and far from linear, the Kurdish quest for autonomy has advanced significantly over the last two decades. In 2005, the new Iraqi constitution granted the Kurdish territory in Northern Iraq federal status, marking a historic moment in Kurdish self-determination. Then the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) emerged in the 2010s in Turkey as a powerful political force, successfully integrating Kurdish demands into a broader platform of democracy, pluralism, and minority rights.
Maybe most significantly, as civil war engulfed Syria, the Assad regime withdrew its forces from Kurdish-majority areas in the north to focus on the war’s primary battlefronts, which resulted in de facto autonomy. In 2012, the Democratic Union Party (PYD)—an affiliate of the militant PKK in Turkey—declared self-rule in northeast Syria. Its military wing emerged as the dominant force in the region. The YPG’s secular and egalitarian ethos, including its commitment to gender equality and women’s participation in combat roles, garnered significant international attention and sympathy. The YPG cemented this support from the West in 2014 when it successfully repelled an ISIS assault.
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This advancement, however, also triggered events that exposed why Kurdish autonomy has been so hard to achieve: after historic peace talks between the Turkish government and the PKK collapsed in 2015, it hardened Turkey’s conviction that the YPG and PKK were a single organization. Turkish officials feared that a unified Kurdish state on their border could be a security risk. The result was Turkish security forces undertaking offensives into northeastern Syria.
In 2017, another move toward Kurdish autonomy provoked a similar backlash, this time in Iraq. Sensing an opportunity amid the weakening of central authorities in Syria and Iraq and growing international support for the Kurds in Northern Syria, the President of the Iraqi Kurdish territory held a controversial independence referendum. Yet, instead of achieving true independence, the referendum prompted a swift military response from Baghdad and regional powers such as Iran and Turkey, who vehemently opposed the creation of independent Kurdish state.
The violent response encapsulated how for a century, Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria had pushed for autonomy, only to see gains often end in setbacks as regional governments perceived too much of a threat to allow for Kurdish self-rule.
Nonetheless, in three of the four countries, Kurds have made significant gains. Iraqi Kurds have achieved a measure of autonomy, Syrian Kurds have established de facto self-rule, and Turkish Kurds have gained substantial political representation. Only Iranian Kurds face a political landscape dominated by authoritarianism with limited avenues for negotiation or compromise.
The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has created a new crossroads for Kurdish autonomy. The Kurds now hold significant leverage, controlling key territories and enjoying American support. It’s bolstered by a newfound push for Kurdish unity as evidenced by a recent meeting between rival Kurdish groups. As it has for a century, however, the Turkish government remains a major impediment to Kurdish ambitions. It is a major backer of the post-Assad Syrian authority, with which the YPG will need to negotiate to determine if Kurdish Northern Syria can maintain its autonomy.
Overall, one thing remains clear: durable peace in the Middle East requires addressing Kurdish demands, lest the pattern of uprising and violent repression continue. The last century has exposed that no amount of repression will stop the Kurds’ push for freedom and autonomy. Simultaneously, however, this history suggests that given the opposition from regional states and the fragmentation of Kurdish leadership, a unified Kurdish state may be impossible. In fact, it could actually exacerbate armed conflict between Kurdish militias and the surrounding states. The best hope lies in pluralistic, multi-ethnic political systems, where all major ethnic and religious groups—Turks, Arabs, Persians, and Kurds—have equal access to constitutionally guaranteed political and cultural rights and freedoms.
Sefa Secen is assistant professor of political science at Nazareth University in Rochester, N.Y. Serhun Al is associate professor of political science at Izmir University of Economics in Turkey.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
