The Kurds

The Kurds are the world’s largest ethnic group without a state of their own. Since their best hopes for independence were dashed a century ago, they’ve lived as minorities dispersed across a handful of countries in the Middle East, subject to ill treatment by Arab- and Persian-dominated governments. Territorial gains by Kurdish fighters in the war in Syria and the overlapping battle against Islamic State in Iraq raised the possibility that an independent homeland was within reach for the Kurds. But with governments of the countries where they live adamantly opposed to a sovereign Kurdistan, those prospects have dimmed again.

The strongest push for statehood has come from Iraq’s Kurds, who in an October referendum voted for independence. In response, Iraq’s national government dispatched troops who retook territory beyond the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region that Kurdish forces had expanded into in 2014. The Kurds had moved into those areas, which included the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, after the Iraqi army fled in the face of Islamic State attacks. In Syria, the Kurdish force known as the YPG has been under periodic attack by Turkey. During the civil war and battle against Islamic State in Syria, the YPG gained control of cantons in the north and has been pushing to link them to create a contiguous zone of “self administration.” Turkey fears that the group’s advances will encourage separatism among its own Kurds and accuses the YPG of working hand-in-hand with Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, from which it is an offshoot. Turkish officials have strongly objected to U.S. support of the YPG. In 2015, Turkey resumed its fight with the PKK, which the U.S. and European Union consider a terrorist organization. That ended a three-year truce and reconciliation effort.