W.EST Asia is in a geo-engineering flow since the birth of Israel 77 years ago. The perennial Palestinian issue is in a decisive moment with the hard-line position of the Israeli government with the urge of Arab states on the two-state solution for the expansion of Abraham. After the regional screen loss and the US “maximum pressure” strategy and military threat, a weak and isolated Iran has agreed to interact on its nuclear program. The five decades-old al-Assad regime’s topping has created new paradigms. Although Turkey has ambitions to reopen Syria, President Recep Tayip Erdogan is struggling with an ingestion at home. Regional economic stability may increase due to fall in oil prices in fifth place in 2025. Among this tumor, US President Donald Trump, the global disruptive of “Gaza Riviera” fame, is ready to pay his first visit to the Gulf next month.
How does this regional ruckus affect a century old discovery for the state by Kurds? In the last century, two migrant-based states, ie. Israel and Armenia are created in West Asia. Can Kurdistan next or, be the possibility of brushing under the carpet once again because the weighty developed and the politics of superpower takes precedence? Let us check the possibilities in some detail.
A unrealistic dream
Kurdish are not only the largest minority groups in West Asia, but they are also the largest ethnic minorities in the world without their own kingdom. Estimates vary, but their total population is inserted in 35 million -45 million. Most of them live in Turkey (about 17 million, 20%of the total population), Iraq (9 million, 20%), Iran (8 million, 10%), and Syria (2.5 million, 10%). Kurdish migrants are present in Germany (about 1.5 million) and other Western European countries.
While the Kurds have their sub-divisions, their general identity is shaped by a shared history and the Craigi Geography of the Asia Minor. Anthropological studies placed them as the old Mediterranean Sea and Caucasian Stock, which differ from Turkic, Semitic, or Iranian ethnicity, dominating their existence. While most of the Kurds are Sunni Muslims, they are associated with other regional ethnic minorities, such as Yezidis, ELV and Zorostrianism.
There is a reputation for gritty bravery in the Kurds. Historically, they often either exploit either geo -dominant pawns or are subject to suppression and exclusion. One of the rare occasions when he led the endgeam was in the 12th century, when Kurdish General Salhuddin commanded the Islamic army to free Jerusalem from the Christian Army. The Kurdish search for a state has been uncontrolled. In 1920, to realize the ambition, the Kurds realized that in 1920, on the Treaty of Severes, negotiations were held to eliminate the Ottoman Empire. It promised the Kurds an autonomous kingdom in East Türkiye. However, under Kemal Ataturk, the young Turks thwarted the Kurdistan Homeland Project and instead influenced the vocal Turkish nationalism. Since then, Ankara has suppressed the identity of the Kurds, which was officially called “Mountain Turk”. This repression continues: By the end of 1994, a Kurdish woman MP was sentenced to 15 years in jail for a sentence in Kurdish after swearing in Kurdish-Tark Brotherhood.
Counter -oppression
Türkiye’s repression has been reversed: it led Abdullah öcalan to form the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) formation in 1978, which launched a campaign for Kurdish freedom. Mr. öcalan was caught in 1999 and is still in solitary imprisonment in a Turkish jail. The four decades of No-Hold-Bard struggle killed the estimated 37,000 people. After the recent softness of Ankara’s policies, Sri ofcalan has called for the end of enmity and PKK has declared a ceasefire on 15 March. Turkey has announced a plans for a $ 20 billion socio-economic reconstruction for the southeast of the country, where most of the Kurds live, but also have a political package to bring Kurdi.
The 13-year civil war gave the Kurds of Syria a rare opportunity to fill the Politico-Material Vacuum. With the original American support, a furious Kurdish Self-Defense Force (SDF) was created to fight the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. SDF currently controls about 40% of Syria. This has led to a lot of danger perceptions in Ankara which accuses SDF of helping PKK. Turkey has demanded to investigate the SDF by creating a exclusion area and by creating a militia against it. However, US pressure has prevented it from an anti-SDF military campaign. On March 11, in a potentially far-reaching step, the SDF Commander and the Interim Syrian president signed a basic agreement to integrate the SDF in the new Dialogue Politico-Stretic Architecture. Otherwise, SDF’s good fortune may decrease with the planned attenuation of American military appearance in Syria.
During the rule of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds in the neighboring Iraq suffered cruel pogromes, forcibly exile and even chemical weapons attacks. However, the situation changed in 1991 after the US Operation Desert Storm, which was largely weakened in the Iraqi grip on the Kurds and a Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) was formed in 1992. After the country’s American occupation, the Iraq’s Constitution provided considerable autonomy to KRG, although a 2017 referendum on Kurdiston Regional Freedom, which received 92% support, received 92% support, received 92% support which received 92% support, was allowed to separate the province. Meanwhile, the oil-rich KRG has sought to claim its autonomy, which often create a situation with Baghdad authorities. Following an international arbitration decision, oil exports have been suspended for the last two years through the Kirkuk-Sehan pipeline. Turkish armed forces have also been active in killing the alleged PKK goals in KRG. Iran has also attacked the presence of the alleged hostile US-Israel in KRG. Thus, although KRG has now been over three decades, its existence is still quite difficult.
Iranian Kurds Status
Compared to repression somewhere else in the region, Iranian regime has been marginally gentle for its Kurds, mostly living in the north -west of the country with hill borders with Turkey and Iraq; Some Kurds are also living in Khorasan province in the northeast. These regions lie with geo-seductive defects, forcing the kurds to be selected between Tehran, Ankara or Baghdad. Unlike other Kurdish-Aupadi countries, there are strong ethnic and cultural relations between Kurdish and Persians and some modern Iranian dynasties were partially of Kurdish origin. While Tehran has never employed a level of cruelty against his own kurds as Türkiye or Iraq, it has always been opposed to Kurdish separatism. During the long Persian-Automan wars and recent Iran-Iraq Wars, large-scale Sunni Kurds often suspected to be the fifth pillar of foreign powers. Under the Islamic Republic, Persian efforts, and general economic scarcity, promoted the centrifugal tendency among the Iranian Kurds. The Iranian state may feel encouraged to secure the possibility of US-Israel’s military operations against the Iranian state and Tehran, against Iranian Kurds, against the country’s largest minority Iranian Kurds.
Each of the four countries brightened the possibilities of the Kurdish state due to the recent weakening of the Central Authority in each of the four countries and such proto-sets have already emerged in Iraq and Syria. At the same time, he has neither an integrated ideology such as zionism nor an international political unit to reduce his kingdom for a grand western strategy emerging for West Asia. Their hopes relax on the regional entropy, which creates a favorable position for the construction of a Kurdistan. However, even if such a western surrogate kingdom has been grafted to the Kurdish kingdom, it remains to be seen whether it will face autoimmune rejection (as Israel) or take deep roots from regional powers.
In short, the fate of the kurds currently rotates between its two suitable proverbs: “It is easy to hold a snake with someone else’s hand” and “there is no friend of Kurds (as a nation), except the mountains.”
Mahesh Sachdev retired the Indian ambassador with interest in West Asian Geophysicality. He is currently the chairman of the Eco-Diplomacy and Strategy located in New Delhi.
Published – April 25, 2025 01:59 AM IST