Who are the Kurds?
By Lauren Kent, CNN
(CNN) — The Kurdish people are an ethnic minority group in the Middle East without an independent state.
Estimates of the population range between 25 million and 45 million worldwide, with most living in the mountainous region that stretches across parts of western Iran, eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and Syria, and Armenia. But there are no official statistics, as the Kurdish people do not have their own state and are spread across the region and beyond.
Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Western Allied powers divided up Ottoman lands and included a proposal for a Kurdish state. But the new Turkish government took control of the entire Anatolian Peninsula after the Turkish independence war. The Kurds were divided between the newly etched borders in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, and they began decades of protest and revolt against their new national authorities.
About half of the region’s Kurds are estimated to live in Turkey, where they are the country’s largest ethnic minority.
Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, but the Kurdish population has diverse religious, cultural, social and political traditions, as well as a variety of dialects of the Kurdish language.
Throughout the region, Kurdish politics and loyalties are fragmented. But many Kurds share a common struggle for more rights, freedoms and autonomy.
Who are Iran’s Kurds?
Kurdish people make up an estimated 8% to 17% of Iran’s population, according to British government estimates. The Kurdish regions in western Iran have long pushed for greater autonomy or independence, as well as improved rights.
In 1946, a short-lived Kurdish state — the Republic of Mahabad — lasted less than a year before it was dismantled by Iranian forces under the shah. It is widely considered the first modern Kurdish republic.
In the decades since, armed Iranian Kurdish groups have fought the Iranian regime, operating from outposts on the Iraq-Iran border, where they have thousands of fighters.
Amnesty International and other human rights groups have detailed widespread human rights abuses against the Kurdish minority in Iran. Teaching of the Kurdish language is restricted, Kurdish names are banned from official registration, and Kurdish activists face arbitrary detention.
Who are the Kurds in Iraq, Turkey and Syria?
In Iraq, Kurdish people form about 15% to 20% of the population and live primarily in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region, run by the Kurdistan Regional Government. The region’s capital is Erbil, Iraq.
In 2017, people in the Kurdistan region as well as some disputed areas captured by Kurdish security forces voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum. But Iraq’s government opposed the vote and declared it illegal.
The United States did not support Iraqi Kurds in their independence referendum.
In Syria, Kurds make up roughly 10% of the estimated population of 24 million.
During his first term, US President Donald Trump authorized the arming of Kurdish elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to help in the fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS.
In Turkey, Kurdish people make up the largest ethnic and linguistic minority, amounting to roughly 20% of the population.
The Turkish state has been fighting for decades against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed Kurdish far-left militant and political organization based in Turkey and Iraq that aims to create an independent Kurdish state. The PKK began using violence in 1984 and was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in 1997.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, the majority of them Kurdish, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long opposed and sought to suppress Kurdish nationalism.
Last month, Erdoğan said an agreement between the Syrian government and the SDF in Syria’s northeast had helped relieve pressure on the ongoing peace process between the Turkish government and PKK militants.
What is the latest in relation to the war in Iran?
The CIA is working to arm Iranian Kurdish forces with the aim of fomenting a popular uprising in Iran, multiple people familiar with the plan told CNN. Several Iranian Kurdish groups have released public statements since the beginning of the war hinting at imminent action and urging Iranian military forces to defect.
Meanwhile, the government of Iraqi Kurdistan has said reports that it is part of a plan to send Iranian Kurdish opposition parties into Iranian territory are “completely unfounded.”
The CIA support for Iranian Kurdish groups began several months before the war, one of the sources and a senior Kurdistan Regional Government official said.
Any attempt to arm Iranian Kurdish groups would need support from the Iraqi Kurds to let the weapons transit and use Iraqi Kurdistan as a launching ground.
“(It’s) very dangerous, but what can we do? We cannot stand against America,” said a senior Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government official. “We are very frightened.”
Urban Coningham, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a London-based think tank, said it’s not surprising that the CIA and likely Israel’s Mossad have been in contact with minority groups in Iran. He noted that they would also probably be speaking to other minority groups such as the Baloch people and the Azeris.
“What I’m surprised by is the fact that (information) has been released now, because it puts a huge target on the back of these groups, both inside Iran and … across the wider region,” Coningham told CNN.
Previous US involvement and betrayals
After a US-led coalition expelled Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991, US President George H.W. Bush urged Iraq’s military and its people to overthrow the dictator. But when the Iraqi Kurds rose up against Hussein, they were given little support. Millions fled their homes as the Iraqi military killed thousands of Kurds.
During the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Kurds were once again allies. Later in Syria, the US-backed SDF was part of the main ground force that pushed ISIS from its headquarters in Raqqa.
But in both conflicts, the support offered by the US faded as the political climate changed. In 2018, the US stood by as Iraqi forces drove the Kurds back from territory they had gained battling ISIS.
And the US drawdown from Syria in 2019 left the Kurdish SDF backed into a corner. Kurdish forces later lost territory to the new Syrian government after the 2024 overthrow of the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
“When Trump or (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu are asking Kurds to fight against the regime, they (Iranian Kurds) will have in their mind the experience of Kurds in Syria,” RUSI’s Coningham said. “I’d be very surprised if they look at the US or the Israelis as reliable partners. Some may feel that it doesn’t really matter, and that all they need is the support.”
The analyst added that any prospect of Kurdish groups working more closely with the US will be “extremely concerning” for the Turkish government.
“The Turks will be extremely worried if the Kurds are able to sort of build momentum from this,” Coningham said. He noted, however, that the formation of some type of autonomous Kurdish state remains an outside prospect.
Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed, the first lady of Iraq and a prominent Kurdish activist, issued a statement Thursday saying that Kurds are too often remembered only when their sacrifice is needed.
“Leave the Kurds alone,” she wrote. “We are not guns for hire.”
CNN’s Nechirvan Mando, Alaa Elassar and Vasco Cotovio contributed to this report.
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