The year 2023 marked the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne that dashed the Kurdish ambitions of greater territorial autonomy. Signed in 1923, the treaty of Lausanne carved the borders of modern Turkey and formalized the de facto division of lands inhabited by Kurdish people among Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. The Kurds, being used as pawns during the negotiation process of 1923 and got their lands forcibly incorporated in the four nation states that shattered their aspirations of a sovereign ‘Kurdistan’. The prospects of an independent Kurdistan stands as a debatable issue among political experts and policy makers alike. Numerous conflicting views and propositions have been presented so far, as to whether it should be a federation or an autonomous state carved up between other states but none proved effective in catering to the collective demands of the Kurdish people. So far the Kurdish experience with an independent Kurdistan took various forms such as the ‘Republic of Mahabad’ (1946) in Iran, the self proclaimed ‘Republic of Ararat’ (1927-31) in Turkey and ‘Red Kurdistan’ (1923-29) in the former USSR, but all short lived. The centenary of Lausanne calls into question the grim reality that even in a century’s time the Kurdish plight of statelessness remains unaddressed, posing a grave challenge for the security and stability in the Middle East.
Who are the ‘Kurds’?
The Kurds are the largest stateless ethnicity in the world whose struggle for independence and autonomy still remains a source of conundrum in the Middle East. The Kurdish fight for self-determination has some amount of commonality to the case of Spain’s Catalonian referendum and the Scottish referendum in the United Kingdom. Being the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East after Arabs, Persians and Turks, the Kurds have long been subjected to marginalization and persecution. If made a parallel comparison, the state of Israel had an initial population of 6 million people at the time of its formation which is much smaller than an estimated population of 35 to 45 million Kurds.
Making up sizable minorities in Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey, the Kurds are the world’s largest ethnic group without a state. With an estimated population between 30 and 45 million, the Kurdish history is a testimonial of a century old struggle for autonomy, rights and fight for an independent Kurdistan. The ethnonym Kurd is possibly derived from the Middle Persian term kwrt used for nomads or tent-dwellers. Since the 10th century, Arab geographers like Al-Masudi recognized Kurds as people with a distinct language. The Kurds speak the Kurdish and the Zaza- Gorani languages, belonging to the branch of Iranian languages.
Scattered as regional minorities across Southwest Asia, the Kurds comprise 18 to 25% population in Turkey, 10% in Iran, 15 to 20% in Iraq and 9% in Syria. As per recent emigration records, around 1.5 million Kurds live in Western nations, with Germany accommodating almost half of the population. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslim who are adherents of Shafi’i school and a significant minority follow the Hanafi school and Alevism. Beside Sunni Islam millions of Kurds align their faith to Shia Islam and Alveism, an heterodox Islamic tradition following mystical Islamic teachings of Haji Bektash Veli. A notable number of Kurdish people also adhere to Yarsanism and Yazidism while in recent years a rising number of Kurds have also converted to Zoroastrianism.
A Historical Background
Sykes- Picot Agreement
The Anglo-French rivalry in the post-Ottoman order sowed the seeds of subsequent conflicts in the region, owing to the strategic feuds over the political arrangement for the inhabitants of Syria, Kurdistan, Mosul and Turkey. Having its roots in the Sykes-Picot agreement, Kurdish nationalism prominently emerged post World War I, as the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was marked by the forced repression of Kurdish Independence movements, causing a historical integration of the Kurds. Signed in 1916, Sykes-Picot Agreementwas a private wartime treaty that determined the post war partition of the Ottoman provinces among Britain and France. Kurdistan’s future got jeopardized amidst the political aspirations of two great imperial powers that dominated the peace conference. British political secretary to the India office Arthur Hirtzel underscored that without settling the Kurdish question, the region would not witness stability and the formation of an autonomous Kurdistan would ultimately bolster Britain’s position. However, under the impression of Mark Sykes and Francois Georges Picot the idea got rejected.
Treaty of Sevres
In the aftermath of the first world war, the Treaty of Sevres was one of the series of treaties that was signed between the Allied powers and the Central Powers. Signed on 10 August 1920, the Treaty of Sevres signed between the Allies and the Ottomans allocated large parts of the Ottoman Empire to the United Kingdom, France, Greece and Italy also creating large occupation zones within the empire. Marking the initiation of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, the treaty also made way for the British mandate for Palestine and the French mandate for Syria. Kurds sought self-determination and autonomy in the treaty of Sevres but post World War I Kemal Atatürk turned aside such an outcome. Hence, the treaty of Sevres got replaced by the treaty of Lausanne.
Treaty of Lausanne
Signed on 24 July 1923, in the Palais de Rumine, in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Treaty of Lausanne settled the conflicts that persisted between the Ottomans and the Allied powers since the beginning of the first world war. Replacing the unratified Treaty of Sevres, the treaty of Lausanne marked forcible population exchange between Turkey and Greece, allowed unrestricted civilian movements through the Turkish straits along with Turkey giving up its Ottoman-era claims to Iraq and Turkey. Enacting the division of the Kurdish population among four nations- Iran, Iraq Turkey and Syria the treaty of Lausanne shattered the aspirations for a greater ‘Kurdish state’.
The Kurdish Struggle for ‘Greater Autonomy’
The Kurds extensively despise the Sykes-Picot as a moratorium of an independent Kurdistan by the then great powers in the aftermath of the first world war. An autonomous state, if formed in the early twentieth century would have served as a dwelling place for millions of Kurds and avoided the risk of subsequent violence that followed and is still visible in today’s Middle East that stemmed from the Sykes-Picot. The demand for Kurdish sovereignty is concomitant to various regional and international actors. The aspirations for an independent Kurdistan exist as a dream frozen in the interregional power rivalry among Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
Between the 1920s and 1930s, Kurdistan witnessed several fervid revolts, following which the area of Turkish Kurdistan was put under martial law. Advanced by the United Kingdom, the Kurds proclaimed independence in 1927, establishing the ‘Republic of Ararat’ in the eastern part of Turkey. Although the republic was short-lived as it witnessed a poor defeat against the Turkish armed forces in 1931. In Iraq the Kingdom of Kurdistan existed from 1922-1924 up until the Baathist administration tyrannically foiled the spirited Kurdish nationalist ambitions in Iraq, which led to a blazing war in the 1960s. In the aftermath of the Gulf wars (1991-2003), the fall of the Saddam Hussain regime and the subsequent decentralization of Iraq sprung up hopes for establishing an independent Kurdistan.
Leveraging the persisting animosity between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (YNK), the army of Iraq aided by the Iranian state sponsored Shia militants, the Popular Mobilization Forces (Al-Hashd Al-Sha’abi) ambushed and reclaimed the oil rich city of Kirkuk from the Kurds. Owing to the commercial ventures of the transnational firms in the regional oil and gas resources, the geopolitics of the region is marred by proxy wars among international powers in Syria. All of these factors are handicapping the realization of the dream of an independent Kurdistan.
Kurdish Regional Government (KRG)
In the 1990s, for the first time in over a hundred years the Iraqi Kurds were offered their own governance in Iraq in the form of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). However, the dream of what many call “Greater Kurdistan” is still a far cry. The regional government of Kurdistan adheres to the model of progressive nationalism, projecting heterogeneity and diversity among several varying religious and ethnic minorities such as Arabs, Assyrians, Christians, Jews, Turkmens and Yezidis. KRG’s unorthodox nationalism forges an ‘imagined community’ that advocates a multilingual nation state.
Alleging Baghdad’s federal parliament to be a chauvinistic, sectarian parliament KRG’s leader Masoud Barzani aspires to create a novel Kurdistani community that would have its roots in liberal multiculturalism and political pluralism. Redrawing the borders of the Sykes-Picot agreement that lays down the foundational division of today’s Middle East, the Kurds aspire to integrate with the international economy and become a member of the liberal democracy club. Proving to be an anchor of stability, the semi independent state of Kurdistan in Iraq hosts millions of asylum seekers, parallely battling the extremist Islamic State (ISIS) in the region. The KRG’s political trajectory could serve as an encouraging example for Turkey and Iran to liberalize their political systems and meet the collective demands of the Kurdish people residing within their territories.
Conclusion
The absence of a coherent Kurdish nationalist discourse along with the apparent disunification, extensive fragmentation and persisting power rivalries among the Kurdish leadership has played a decisive role in paralyzing the aspirations of an autonomous Kurdistan. In the course of hundred years, these internal facets have been more responsible in hindering the Kurdish aspirations than the willingness of international actors to accommodate the Kurdish demand of territorial autonomy. Prominent figures like Sharif Pasha and Amin Ali Badrkhan have made significant efforts in the past, in order to voice the rights of the Kurdish community at the international level but their concerted efforts met with failure as the community chiefs in the Kurdish majority areas lacked coherence in representation and decision making. Although such historical incidents sheds light on how personal interest, partisan politics and rivalries persisting within the Kurdish leadership can impede the aspirations for greater Kurdish sovereignty. However, it doesn’t not completely absolve the international actors from the wrongdoings done to the Kurdish community in the Middle Eastern region.
Finding a viable solution for the Kurdish plight of statelessness can be the panacea for existing political disputes among various Arab nation states. A solution that has a consensus among all stakeholders concerned can vitally aid to consolidate peace, harness regional stability and guard these states against their vulnerabilities in dealing with external powers at the global stage. Moreover, Kurdish leaders need to get over the internal power rivalries and reconcile their own failures and shortcomings that prevented the realization of a sovereign Kurdistan till this date. Triumphing the secular and egalitarian values, Kurdish progressive politics can make way for the regional, political and economic consolidation of the community and can accelerate the process of political reconciliation among the leaders of the Shia Iraq and the Sunni Arab nations in the Middle East. The Kurds also entail a long lineage of great poets. Growing up under the reign of Saddam Hussein whose Ba’ath party used to recognise the Kurds as Iranian settlers, works of Abdulla Pashew, articulates his longing for a homeland and portrays disappointment for the inaction of the Kurdish politicians. Pashew, who is arguably the most popular living Kurdish poet, writes in his poem called Graveyard,
Why be afraid of the graveyard?
At least in that land,
silent as a weighing scale,
I can settle in a little house of my own
that will let me forget the migration from warren to warren,
a little house
for which I will never pay rent,
for which no one will ever ask me to return the key.
Writes Afifa Iqbal
Poli-ticking Me Off 
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