The Kurds’ Quest for Independence

The 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement divides the Middle East into British and French zones of influence and delineates the borders of the modern Middle East. Following World War I, the Treaty of Sevres [PDF], signed in 1920, dissolves the Ottoman Empire and proposes the creation of an autonomous Kurdish state. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s new leader, rejects Sevres. It is replaced in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne, negotiated with the new Turkish government, which omits any reference to a Kurdish homeland. The Kurds, inhabiting previously Ottoman territories, are dispersed across the newly demarcated borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and repeatedly revolt against the respective authorities.

Kurds establish the Republic of Mahabad, a short-lived, independently governed state in Kurd-inhabited territories of Iran that came under Soviet control during World War II. Iran reoccupies Mahabad after the Soviet withdrawal in December 1946.

Following unfulfilled promises of autonomy under the rule of Iraqi Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim, Barzani launches a Kurdish rebellion. It continues throughout the decade against successive Iraqi regimes. Iraq’s Baath party, a regional branch of the pan-Arabist socialist movement, comes into power in 1968. In March 1970, the Baathist government details plans for Kurdish autonomy. They are not implemented, and fighting resumes in 1974.

In a census of Syria’s Al-Hasakah Governorate, Kurds who cannot prove their residence in Syria prior to 1945 and those who fail to participate are stripped of their citizenship, rendering them stateless and unable to travel. These Kurds and their descendants are unable to vote, own property or businesses, or legally marry. In April 2011, amid an intensifying uprising, President Bashar al-Assad promises some “unregistered” Kurds citizenship.

Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad establishes a so-called Arab belt along the border with Turkey, displacing Syrian Kurds. The move is designed to weaken Kurdish dominance of resource-rich areas. Assad, a Baathist, seized power in 1970, seven years after the party came to power in a coup.

Abdullah Ocalan founds the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a Marxist organization with the aim of establishing an independent Kurdistan in Turkey’s southeast. Though initially not taken seriously, the PKK steadily gains adherents among disenfranchised Kurds. A military coup takes place in Turkey in 1980, and the PKK leadership flees to Syria. In 1984, the organization begins to use violence against the state and terrorist tactics, and the United States designates it as a terrorist organization in 1997. An estimated forty thousand people have been killed in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict to date, though experts say the overall toll is difficult to determine. Kurds have made up the overwhelming majority of victims.

With the collapse of an autonomy agreement in 1974, Iraq’s Baathist regime, seeking to consolidate government control over the oil-rich regions in the country’s north, displaces hundreds of thousands of Kurdish inhabitants of the area and replaces them with Arabs from central and southern Iraq. Iraqi Kurds, supported by Iran and the United States, revolt against the Baathist regime.

Masoud Barzani takes on the presidency of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq after the death of his father, Mustafa. Barzani has been reelected as KDP president at every subsequent party congress to date. In 2005, he is elected president of the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Saddam Hussein enlists and arms Iranian Kurds, while Iraqi Kurds once again rebel against Baghdad  with Iranian support. Both governments view their Kurdish populations as collaborating with the enemy and retaliate against civilians, destroying villages and carrying out summary executions. These cross-border alliances also deepen divisions and spur clashes between Iranian and Iraqi Kurds.

From February to September, Saddam Hussein carries out the al-Anfal (“the spoils”) campaign, known as the Kurdish Genocide, which includes mass killings, the destruction of thousands of villages, and the use of chemical weapons against civilians. An estimated 50,000 to 180,000 Iraqi Kurds are killed and tens of thousands displaced. On March 16, as many as five thousand Kurds are killed in a sarin and mustard-gas attack on the town of Halabja.

The two leading political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, the PUK, led by Talabani, and the KDP, led by Barzani, fight a civil war that kills more than two thousand Kurds. In 1996, Barzani appeals to Saddam Hussein for assistance as Talabani’s PUK receives support from Iran. The conflict ends with the U.S.-brokered Washington Peace Agreement on September 17, 1998.

In 1980, PKK leader Ocalan finds refuge under Hafez al-Assad’s protection in Syria. In 1998, under military pressure from Turkey, Syria signs the Adana Agreement, which commits to ending support for the PKK, and Ocalan flees. With U.S. help, Ocalan is apprehended by Turkish forces in Nairobi in 1999, and he is sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Ocalan’s arrest sparks Kurdish protests throughout Turkey and across Europe. Following his capture, the PKK declares a unilateral cease-fire, which ends in June 2004.

U.S. forces invade Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein. Kurds play a central role in drafting the interim Iraqi constitution, which recognizes the autonomy of the KRG within the new federal system. Talabani is named the first Kurdish president of Iraq. Kurdish parties participate in 2005 elections and are included in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s unity government in 2006. The KRG remains a part of the federal Iraqi state through the present.

Syrian Kurds take to the streets in Qamishli after Syrian forces open fire on a procession mourning nine Kurdish youths who died in a brawl between Arabs and Kurds at a soccer match. Syrian forces crack down on mass demonstrations, which spread to neighboring towns as well as Aleppo and Damascus, and also inspire protests by Kurds in Europe.

Direct official negotiations between the Turkish government and jailed PKK leader Ocalan seek to bring an end to three decades of conflict, which has killed an estimated forty thousand people. Secret negotiations in Oslo that began in 2009 were revealed when a tape was leaked in 2011.

Amid the country’s civil war, the Kurdish PYD unilaterally declares three autonomous cantons in Syria’s north known as Rojava (Western Kurdistan).

Aiming to establish a caliphate in the Levant, the self-proclaimed Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim jihadi group, takes control of large swaths of Iraq, including Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and territory controlled by the semiautonomous KRG. Iraqi national forces and the KRG’s peshmerga buckle in the face of Islamic State advances. However, in June, the peshmerga take control of the long-disputed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

YPG forces and allied Arab rebels cap a monthslong offensive against the Islamic State by capturing Tel Abyad, a Syrian town along the border with Turkey that was a transit point for the Islamic State’s capital, Raqqa. The campaign expands the territory controlled by the Kurds in northern Syria and consolidates it from three noncontiguous regions to two.

After years of supporting Syrian rebels, Turkey intervenes directly in northern Syria, backing Arab fighters against the Islamic State. Part of the motivation is to restrict Syrian Kurds from connecting their two cantons, and that goal was largely achieved during the seven-month operation. The Turkish deployment of troops and advisors halts a Kurdish advance west of the Euphrates River and creates a complex front line that includes the two opposing U.S. allies and Russia- and Iran-backed forces loyal to the Assad regime.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump approves a plan to arm the Syrian Democratic Forces, a militia dominated by the YPG, directly via the Defense Department as the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State prepares to seize Raqqa. The move angers Turkey, which has previously tried and failed to promote its proxies to take the lead in Raqqa.

After a monthslong battle that kills dozens of civilians, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels have gained “total control” of Afrin, a city in northern Syria previously held by YPG forces. Tens of thousands of civilians flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

The SDF take control of areas around the town of Baghouz, near the Iraq-Syria border, the last populated area held by the Islamic State. An SDF spokesperson declares the “total elimination of [the] so-called caliphate,” and U.S. officials say it marks the end of the Islamic State’s territorial rule. But they warn that Islamic State fighters still pose a threat.

Following alleged attacks by the PKK on Turkish bases, Turkey begins air and land campaigns against PKK targets in Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey had begun growing its military presence in Iraq the previous year, following the killing of a Turkish diplomat that Ankara blamed on the PKK. Baghdad criticizes Ankara’s moves as an assault on Iraq’s territorial integrity, while the KRG, which has strong economic ties with Turkey, expresses concerns over civilian casualties. At least seven civilians are reportedly killed. Still, Turkey sets up new bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, something the KRG has long allowed Ankara to do.

A Turkish military mission to rescue thirteen of its nationals captured by PKK forces fails, with all of the captives found dead. Ankara says they were executed by the PKK, but the guerrilla group blames a Turkish bombing campaign. A U.S. State Department statement on the incident does not assign blame to the PKK, prompting backlash in Turkey. Secretary of State Antony Blinken later walks back the assertion of doubt in the initial statement. Still, the rift between Washington and Ankara deepens.