History of the Kurds

Overview

The Kurds are a people whose historical homeland, Kurdistan, extends across parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Their modern history has been shaped by the division of that homeland, campaigns for political rights and self-determination, and the different forms of rule established in each state. Kurdish movements share a national tradition, but their parties, armed forces and political goals have developed in distinct circumstances. The autonomous institutions of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish republic established in Iran in 1946, the struggle between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and Syrian Kurdish self-government are related chapters of that history, not the actions of one organization.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire gave Kurdish statehood a place in postwar diplomacy. The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres offered a route to a Kurdish state. The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on July 24, 1923, replaced Sèvres without creating one. Consolidation of the new borders left Kurdish populations divided among Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Lausanne therefore ended the immediate prospect of statehood raised at Sèvres, but it did not settle Kurdish demands for recognition or self-determination. Those demands continued through political organizing, revolt, negotiation and, in Iraq and Syria, the creation of institutions exercising substantial autonomy.

The history also contains sharp differences among Kurdish leaders. Parties have disagreed over relations with central governments, neighboring states, outside powers and one another. Some sought independence; others pursued federal autonomy, local self-government or cultural and political rights within existing states. These divisions affected Iraqi Kurdish elections, the fate of Kirkuk in 2017 and repeated attempts to establish power sharing among Syrian Kurdish factions. They did not erase a shared attachment to Kurdistan or the significance of events such as the 1988 chemical attack on Halabja across Kurdish society.

Rise

Modern Kurdish nationalism developed amid the Ottoman Empire’s dissolution and the formation of successor states. Sèvres raised expectations of a Kurdish state, while Lausanne removed that prospect from the final settlement. For Kurds divided by the resulting borders, national aspirations thereafter had to contend with four different governments. Political conditions varied: Kurds in Iraq eventually secured a recognized autonomous region; those in Turkey faced long-standing restrictions on their identity; a short-lived Kurdish republic became a landmark in Iran; and Kurds in Syria confronted denial of rights and citizenship under Hafez al-Assad’s regime.

In Iran, the Kurdish republic established at Mahabad in 1946 became a lasting symbol of national self-government, despite its brief existence. Its importance lay in demonstrating that Kurdish leaders could establish a republic, even as enduring statehood remained out of reach. Later Kurdish dissent faced repression by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s regime. Iranian Kurdish politics followed its own course, shaped by conditions inside Iran and by the state’s response to demands for rights. It cannot be reduced to the strategies of parties operating across the border in Iraq or Turkey.

In Turkey, authorities historically suppressed expressions of Kurdish identity, including by banning the Kurdish language and removing Kurdish geographical names. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, emerged as an armed movement with a Marxist-Leninist worldview and a history of working with Soviet Russia. The PKK’s conflict with Turkey became a major part of the country’s Kurdish question, alongside Kurdish political efforts concerned with language, representation, democracy and local government. These forms of political activity had different methods and constituencies. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan led a peace process with the Kurds, but it ended after Turkey’s June 2015 parliamentary election, closing a period of dialogue and leaving the underlying political conflict unresolved.

In Syria, Hafez al-Assad’s regime denied many Kurds rights and citizenship while supporting the PKK until 1998. Syrian Kurdish organizations later confronted the upheaval of the Syrian civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian Kurds fled to Iraqi Kurdistan as fighting intensified. Others developed political and armed institutions in northern and eastern Syria. Their experience connected the Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish populations, but their parties did not merge into a single movement: disagreements over authority, representation and security remained consequential.

Rule and society

The strongest enduring Kurdish autonomous institutions arose in Iraq. Kurdish resistance to Saddam Hussein took place against a regime that used mass killings, forced relocations and chemical weapons in its 1988 campaign against Iraqi Kurds. Saddam launched a chemical-weapons attack on Halabja in retaliation for Kurdish resistance. At least 5,000 people were killed and more than 10,000 wounded. The wider Anfal campaign was a genocide. Its destruction and displacement became central to Kurdish political memory and to the case for secure self-government.

The Kurdistan Region developed its own political and security institutions, dominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The parties cooperated in governing the region and advancing Kurdish claims, while retaining rival leaderships and power bases. Their joint Kurdistani List won a majority in the July 25, 2009, regional election, although its representation fell from 89 seats to roughly 60. Nawshirwan Mustafa’s Change List became a major opposition force, winning an estimated 25 to 27 seats and a majority of the popular vote in Sulaymaniyah, traditionally a PUK stronghold. The results showed both the durability of KDP–PUK influence and public demand for political competition within the autonomous region.

Kirkuk occupied a particular place in Iraqi Kurdish nationalism. Kurds regarded the city and its province as part of their historical homeland and sought redress for earlier displacement and Arabization. Kurdish authorities controlled Kirkuk in practice after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003: Kurdish officials governed the city and provided much of its security. The city’s value as a symbol of Kurdish unity reached beyond its oil resources. A referendum scheduled for December 2007 was to let the province’s residents decide whether Kirkuk would join the Kurdistan Region or remain outside it. The vote did not take place, leaving the issue unresolved.

When Islamic State advanced through Iraq, forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government fought it and captured Kirkuk. Their control of the city strengthened Kurdish aspirations but increased tensions with Baghdad. In September 2017, the Kurdistan Regional Government held a historic independence referendum. The vote expressed the demand for statehood, yet its aftermath exposed the region’s political and military vulnerability. On October 16, 2017, Iraqi forces advanced on Kurdish-held Kirkuk with support from Iran-backed Shiite militias. Kurdish parties split during the crisis, and one faction coordinated with Iraq’s central government. The loss of Kirkuk dealt a severe blow to the referendum’s immediate prospects and showed how divisions among Kurdish leaders could shape the outcome of a national confrontation.

Syrian Kurdish governance developed under different conditions. The Democratic Union Party became a powerful actor, but imposed conscription, arrested opponents and closed offices of parties affiliated with the Kurdish National Council. The KDP supported the creation of a 6,000–7,000-strong Rojava Peshmerga force in 2012. Masoud Barzani backed an Erbil agreement that year to reconcile rival Syrian Kurdish factions. The Erbil agreements of 2012 and 2013 and the Duhok agreement of 2014 failed to establish durable power sharing. Those failures reflected substantive disputes over political authority and security forces, even as Kurdish communities faced war and displacement.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) brought together Kurds, Arabs, Syriac Christians, Turkmen and Yazidis in the campaign against Islamic State. Syrian Kurdish forces fought alongside U.S. special operations forces, making the SDF a central American partner in that campaign. By 2024, U.S.-backed SDF forces controlled much of eastern Syria, where Kurds exercised de facto autonomy. Their military role did not settle disputes over Syrian Kurdish governance or relations with Turkey. Turkey invaded Afrin in 2018, displacing 160,000 Kurds from the area. The invasion added another major episode of displacement to Syrian Kurdish history.

Jews under its rule

There has been no single Kurdish state whose rule defines the history of Jews across Kurdistan. Jewish communities lived among Kurdish populations in several parts of the region, under the authorities that governed those territories. The history of Jews in Kurdistan is consequently both a local history of longstanding communities and a wider history of migration, language and relations with neighboring peoples. In Iranian Kurdistan and nearby areas, Jewish communities used Neo-Judeo-Aramaic varieties and produced literature in them. Their settlements extended beyond the province bearing the name Kurdistan into other towns and villages of northwestern Iran.

Relations between Israel and Kurdish communities developed from Israel’s early years of independence. Israeli contacts with Iraqi Kurds included clandestine support during the 1960s and 1970s. The relationship reflected shared interests and the experience of Jews and Kurds as minorities facing persecution in parts of the Middle East. It did not make Kurdish parties instruments of Israel: those parties pursued their own aims within the political conditions of Iraq and the wider region.

Later Israeli engagement continued across changing regional circumstances. Saddam Hussein’s regime persecuted Iraqi Kurds and was also hostile to Israel. Hafez al-Assad’s regime denied rights and citizenship to many Syrian Kurds while opposing Israel. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s regime crushed Kurdish dissidents. Turkey’s history was more complex: it maintained relations with Israel for decades while suppressing Kurdish identity at home. In 2024, Israel’s foreign minister called for stronger political and security ties with Kurdish communities facing pressure from the Iranian regime and Turkey. These ties form part of Kurdish diplomatic history, alongside the Kurds’ separate relationships with their home states and other foreign powers.

Decline

Kurdish history is not a continuous decline. What repeatedly declined were particular prospects for statehood or agreements for shared rule. Lausanne ended the opportunity offered at Sèvres without resolving the national question. The Kurdish republic established in Iran in 1946 did not endure. The missed Kirkuk referendum of 2007 left a central Iraqi Kurdish demand unsettled. The breakdown of Turkey’s peace process in 2015 ended a period in which negotiation had offered a possible route through a long conflict. In Syria, successive agreements failed to bring rival Kurdish parties into a durable power-sharing arrangement.

The events of 2017 marked a decisive setback for Iraqi Kurdish independence efforts. Kurdish forces had defended the Kurdistan Region against Islamic State and controlled Kirkuk, a city with exceptional national significance. The September referendum raised expectations of independence. Iraq’s subsequent advance on Kirkuk, aided by Iran-backed militias, changed the balance of power within weeks. Coordination between one Kurdish faction and Baghdad underscored the limits of treating Kurdish parties as a unified political command. The confrontation did not erase the institutions of the Kurdistan Region or Kurdish demands for self-determination, but it narrowed the immediate path opened by the referendum.

Syrian Kurdish gains likewise remained exposed to conflict among local parties and pressure from neighboring states. SDF control in eastern Syria gave Kurds an unusual degree of de facto autonomy, while its multiethnic composition tied governance to the needs of several communities. Disputes involving the Democratic Union Party and its Kurdish opponents weakened claims to unified representation. Turkey’s 2018 invasion of Afrin displaced a large Kurdish population and demonstrated the fragility of territorial gains made during the Syrian civil war. Kurdish communities in Iran and Turkey faced their own state policies and political constraints; their circumstances could not be settled by developments in Iraq or Syria alone.

Legacy

The post-Ottoman settlement remains a reference point for Kurdish national movements. Sèvres placed statehood within reach of international diplomacy; Lausanne replaced it and left Kurdistan divided among four states. Kurdish claims to self-determination endured because the borders did not resolve questions of political representation, language, security and government. The 1946 republic in Iran, Iraqi Kurdish resistance to Saddam Hussein, the development of the Kurdistan Region and Syrian Kurdish autonomy each gave those claims a different historical form.

Halabja remains among the clearest demonstrations of the danger Iraqi Kurds faced under Saddam’s rule. The mass killings, forced relocations and chemical attacks of 1988 gave lasting force to demands for protection and autonomy. Kirkuk carries a different, though closely connected, meaning: its place in Kurdish historical memory made it a symbol capable of drawing support across party divisions. The failed 2007 vote and the 2017 confrontation also showed how unresolved territorial questions and rival party decisions could defeat a shared objective.

Contemporary Kurdish politics continues through distinct movements in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. The KDP and PUK built and competed within the Kurdistan Region’s institutions; opposition parties challenged their dominance. The PKK’s conflict with Turkey followed a separate course, including the peace process that collapsed in 2015. Syrian Kurdish forces played a major role against Islamic State while Syrian Kurdish parties contested how autonomy should be governed. These experiences belong to one people’s history, but their outcomes depend on different states, institutions and alliances. Together they explain why Kurdish self-determination remains a significant question in the Middle East long after Lausanne.