Domestic upheaval and political changes throughout the region have made Kurds critical players on many fronts, particularly in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

In Iraq, sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia Arabs threatens the country's unity even as the Islamic State's control recedes. The Kurdish region has been largely unharmed by the sectarian fighting, and Kurdish peshmerga forces halted the initial advance of Islamic State militants into their autonomous region. Amid the fighting, the Kurds deployed forces farther south, filling the void left by the retreating Iraqi military. The Kurds have taken control of Kirkuk, an oil-rich region to which they have long laid claim. Tensions between Erbil and Baghdad peaked in 2014 over oil-revenue sharing between the regional and federal governments. Though resolved later that year, the dispute exposed a widening rift.

Their dispute came to a head in September 2017, when the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held a referendum on independence, extending voting to Kirkuk city and governorate as well. Iraq's neighbors opposed the referendum, fearing that Iraqi Kurdish independence would inspire their own Kurdish minorities to seek autonomy. The move was also denounced by the United States and other Western powers, which have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and lost thousands of lives trying to keep Iraq unified. Some Iraqi Kurdish groups oppose it as well, fearing that an independent Kurdistan would perpetuate KRG President Masoud Barzani’s rule. The measure passed overwhelmingly, which Barzani believed would give him a strong hand to negotiate over boundaries and resources. While Baghdad has refused talks and demanded that the referendum be annulled, Kurdish officials have not made any unilateral moves toward independence.

In Syria, civil war between the Assad regime and its supporters and myriad antigovernment groups has killed more than 320,000. The Islamic State, which is fighting against both government and antigovernment forces, controls territory in the north and the east. The Kurds have not taken a side in the civil war but, filling the void after Syrian government forces left the area, have established self-rule in two regions. The PYD has governed since mid-2012, and its military arm, the People's Protection Unit (YPG) has been fighting against the Islamic State, with support from U.S.-led air strikes. The coalition's support for the PKK-affiliated group has caused tensions between the United States and Turkey, a NATO ally. As the major component of a mostly Kurdish fighting force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, the YPG has made significant gains since expelling the Islamic State from the northern Syrian town of Kobani in 2014 and raced to consolidate its territory and capture Raqqa in 2017. Rights groups have compiled evidence of Kurdish efforts to alter the demographics of the captured territories, including the razing of some Arab villages.

Meanwhile, Turkey's negotiations with the PKK and its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, to end the insurgency, which has killed forty thousand people since 1984, have ended, and along with it a cease-fire that brought calm to Kurdish-majority regions in the southeast. The ruling AKP shifted away from aiming to integrate Kurds into Turkish society—ending a ban on broadcasting and teaching in the Kurdish language—to courting Turkish ultranationalists and seeking to expand the powers of the presidency, held by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The HDP, a pro-Kurdish party, played a role as mediator in the peace process, but its leaders and thousands of its members have since been jailed over alleged ties to militants.

Iran's Kurds have received less international attention than their Iraqi, Syrian, and Turkish brethren. Experts attribute this partly to internal disunity, but mostly to the Iranian regime's political repression and limits on international media coverage. In 2011, the government carried out a massive military campaign against the Kurdish guerrilla group Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), which left hundreds dead, including civilians. Iran has routinely executed Kurdish activists.