Kurdish Groups Research Articles

The Kurdish Predicament in US–Turkiye Relations

The United States' partnership with Syrian Kurdish groups has greatly complicated its interactions with Turkiye. While the US and Turkiye initially worked together to dislodge Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, their interests diverged when countering the Islamic State (ISIS) became the main US concern and countering Kurdish autonomy Turkiye's chief aim. Over Turkish objections, the US trained and equipped Syrian Kurdish forces, which became the principal element of the Syrian Democratic Forces - the US-engineered umbrella group that was instrumental in ousting ISIS from its Syrian strongholds and continues to function as a deterrent, backstopped by a light US presence. The Turkish government would now prefer that the Assad regime re-establish its authority in northern Syria and extinguish Kurdish aspirations for autonomy. The US military presence in Syria prevents such an eventuality. If Syrian Kurds see an opportunity to advance Kurdish autonomy, tensions between the US and Turkiye in the region could significantly increase.

Cultural vs. State Borders: Plant Foraging by Hawraman and Mukriyan Kurds in Western Iran.

Plant foraging is a millennia-old activity still practiced by many people in the Middle East, particularly in the Fertile Crescent region, where several socioeconomic, ecological, and cultural factors shape this practice. This study seeks to understand the drivers of plant foraging in this complex region characterized by highly diverse linguistic, religious, and cultural groups. Our study aims to document the wild plants used by Kurds in Western Iran, identify similarities and differences among Hawraman and Mukriyan Kurdish groups in Iran, and compare our findings with a previous study on the Hawramani in Iraq. Forty-three semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in Kurdish villages of Western Iran. The results revealed the use of 44 wild food plant taxa, their preparation, and culinary uses. Among the reported taxa, 28 plant taxa were used by Mukriyani, and 33 by Hawramani. The study revealed a significant difference between the Hawraman and Mukriyan regions in Iran, whereas there is a high similarity between Hawramani Kurds in Iran and Iraq. We found that the invisible cultural border carries more weight than political divisions, and this calls for a paradigm shift in how we perceive and map the distribution of ethnobotanical knowledge.

Memorable Dances from the Days of War: A Study on the Form and Meaning of Kurdish Dances in North-Eastern Iran

Kurdish folk dance is popular among Kurds living in north-eastern Iran and is performed in a circle. In this study, we investigate the formal structure and symbolic meaning of these dances through fieldwork and library research. After identifying, observing, and recording the formal structure of the performance form and movements of dancers in each dance, we refer to the oral information of local people, veteran dancers, and local researchers to discover the symbolic meanings hidden within these movements. The information gathered and the analysis conducted indicate that Kurdish groups and circle dances in north-eastern Iran—in terms of structure, the form of performance, and meaning—are influenced by the purpose of migration of these people from their homeland during the Safavid period to defend and protect Iran’s north-eastern borders.

The Kurdish factor in Saudi Arabia's Middle Eastern policy: an analysis in the context of relations with Iraq and Iran

The subject of the study is the complex relationship between Saudi Arabia's Middle East policy and the Kurdish question. It includes an examination of Saudi Arabia's attitudes, strategies and actions towards Kurdish groups in the region, as well as the factors influencing its approach to this issue. The object of the study, is Saudi Arabia's Middle East policy, that is, it is an analysis of Saudi Arabia's foreign policy objectives, priorities and interests in the Middle East region, with a particular focus on how the Kurdish factor influences or intersects with this policy. This includes an examination of Saudi Arabia's diplomatic relations, security concerns and strategic calculations towards Iraq and Iran, as well as its broader regional ambitions. By analyzing the Kurdish factor, the authors offer an interdisciplinary understanding that bridges the fields of political science, international relations, Middle East studies and Kurdish studies. This interdisciplinary approach allows for a fuller understanding of the complexities surrounding the Kurdish question and its implications for regional dynamics. The article presents a historical analysis of Saudi Arabia's engagement with Kurdish groups in the region, shedding light on past policies, alliances and conflicts. By contextualizing current events within a historical framework, the article offers valuable insights into the evolution of Saudi Arabia's approach to the Kurdish factor. Moreover, the article is able to assess the political implications of Saudi Arabia's approach to the Kurdish factor on regional stability, security and diplomatic relations. By assessing the potential consequences of various policy decisions, the article provides valuable insights into effective strategies for managing the Kurdish issue within the broader framework of Middle East politics.

Finland’s approaches to joining NATO

For the region of Northern Europe the beginning of 2022 was marked by an important event — the application of Finland and Sweden for membership in the NATO military alliance. For both countries the move signified the end of decades of the neutrality policy, and the North Atlantic Alliance expansion would be relatively significant for the first time since 2009. One of the main features of Finland’s and Sweden’s process of joining NATO was the desire of both countries’ administrations to achieve the Alliance membership simultaneously. Due to certain difficulties that had risen on the international level and prevented Sweden from becoming a member of the organization swiftly, the Finnish administration made the ultimate decision to join NATO independently from Sweden. The decision was connected with the abandonment of the principle of “special relations” between Sweden and Finland. The approval of the NATO membership bill during its ratification in the Finnish parliament was not unanimous. Several lawmakers spoke out against the country’s integration with NATO. This and other factors testify to the controversial attitude to NATO in the Finnish society. “The Kurdish issue” was among the important aspects of Finland’s North Atlantic Alliance joining process. Prior to 2022 Finland along with Sweden adhered to the position of supporting various Kurdish groups that were recognized in Turkey as terrorist organizations. Finland also took in a lot of Kurdish refugees and provided political asylum to some of them. The Turkish authorities were dissatisfied with those actions hence in May 2022 Turkey blocked the NATO membership application of the Finnish republic. “The Kurdish issue” was not fully resolved, but the sides managed to reach a compromise.

A Qualitative Study on Threat Perceptions and Attitudes towards Syrian and Kurdish Minority Groups Living in Turkey

In this research consisting of two studies, the threat perceptions and positive and negative attitudes of Turkish citizens who define their ethnic identity as Turkish towards Syrian and Kurdish minority groups living in Turkey were examined with a qualitative method. In Study 1, in which 360 university students between the ages of 18-50 (Mage= 22.53; SD = 4.19) participated, an open-ended question was asked to the participants as to what kind of a threat you think the Syrian minority group living in Turkey could pose to the country and the participants' responses were grouped under 7 categories and 27 themes. In Study 2, in which 406 university students aged between 18-47 (Mage= 22.50; SD = 3.39) participated, the participants were asked two open-ended questions about what they think about the Syrian minority group living in Turkey and the Kurdish minority group living in Turkey, and the answers were grouped under 10 categories and 39 themes. Compared to the Kurdish group, the Syrian group is seen as a more serious threat. In addition, positive attitudes towards the Kurdish group were expressed more frequently compared to the Syrian group. The categories and themes identified in this study, which comparatively examines the views of the two largest minority groups living in Turkey, will provide resources for researchers focusing on minority-majority relations in the country and will be useful for the authorized parties in the process of developing policies that will facilitate the integration of minority groups into society.

Russia and the Kurds: A Soft‐Power Tool for the Kremlin?

AbstractRussia has been the Kurds’ patron for more than two centuries, motivated primarily by the cynical desire to use them against adversaries in broader great‐power games while casting itself as a champion of the Kurdish cause. Russia's longstanding and multifaceted relationship with the Kurds demonstrates that when it comes to geopolitics, the United States has more than brute force to contend with. The Russian state also utilizes soft power as an authoritarian state defines it: a tool of pragmatic leverage. While the Kurds are not a monolith, they are anxious about the trajectory of US politics and feel they cannot rely on anyone. The Russian state has opportunities to undermine American interests in places such as Syria and Iraq through its connections with Kurdish groups. This article reviews tsarist, Soviet, and post‐Soviet policies toward the Kurds, including Kurdish communities in Russia. It concludes with a discussion about implications for the United States, given that Moscow will not let go of its Kurdish card, including in the context of the Ukraine invasion.

Kurdish Statehood and Islamist Political Concept

The article is devoted to the situation in the international Kurdish movement in the context of the growing popularity of Islamist ideas and concepts. For a long time, the leftist doctrine was considered to be the prevailing trend among the Kurds, but after 2011 and the appearance on the regional arena of such major players as ISIS and other radical religious organizations based in Syria and Iraq, ultra-conservative parties and movements gained momentum. In fact, today there is a confrontation between the evolving leftist doctrine, represented by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Syrian Rojava, and the Islamic concept of the caliphate (the territory of universal social harmony, built on the principles of Sharia). During the period of the greatest power of ISIS, several Kurdish groups supported the Islamists and, being part of the extremist international movement, managed to seize signi fi cant territories in Northern Syria and Central Iraq. Later, however, left-wing organizations went on the o ff ensive and returned to their pre-war status. In this regard, it is important to understand exactly what socio-economic reasons led to the growth of the Islamists in fl uence and what the prospects for religious radicals within the international Kurdish movement are.

Population genetic study of 17 Y-STR Loci of the Sorani Kurds in the Province of Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

BackgroundThe Kurds as an ethnic group are believed to be a combination of earlier Indo-European tribes who migrated and inhabited a mountainous area thousands of years ago. However, as it is difficult to describe the precise history of their origin, it is necessary to investigate their population relationship with other geographical and ethnic groups.ResultsSeventeen Short Tandem Repeat markers on the Y chromosome (Y-STR) included in the AmpFLSTR™ Yfiler™ PCR Amplification Kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) were used to type DNA samples from the Sorani (Central) Kurdish population in Sulaymaniyah province. One hundred fifty-seven haplotypes were obtained from 162 unrelated male individuals. The highest and lowest gene diversities were DYS385a/b (GD = 0.848) and DYS392 (GD = 0.392), respectively. The haplotypes were used to predict the most likely haplogroups in the Sulaymaniyah population.ConclusionHaplogroup prediction indicated predominance (28%) of subclade J2 (44/157) in the Sorani Kurds, northeast of Iraq. The pairwise genetic distance results showed that the Kurdish group clustered along with Asian populations, whereas the furthest countries were Europeans and Africans.

1947 Türkiye-Ürdün Dostluk Antlaşması ve Türkiye-Suriye İlişkilerine Etkileri

Türkiye ve Ürdün arasındaki ilişkilerin geliştirilmesi amacıyla Kral Abdullah 1947 yılında Türkiye’ye gelerek Ankara ve İstanbul’u ziyaret etmiş, ziyaret sürecinde iki ülke arasında Ankara’da dostluk antlaşması imzalanmıştır. Hem Kral Abdullah hem de İsmet İnönü tarafından antlaşmanın büyük Suriye oluşumuyla ilgili olmadığı belirtilmiş ve Suriye’nin bu antlaşmaya dair olumsuz düşüncelerinin yok edilmesi adına, Birleşmiş Milletler (BM) vurgusu yapılarak antlaşmanın amacının bölge huzurunu sağlamak olduğundan bahsedilmiştir. Ancak antlaşmanın ardından, konunun basında yer almasıyla Suriye’deki Arap milliyetçileri, antlaşma üzerinden dış politikada Türkiye’ye olumsuz bir üslup kullanmaya başlamıştır. Aynı zamanda 1947 Türkiye-Ürdün Dostluk Antlaşması ve Kral Abdullah’ın antlaşma hakkındaki söylemleri Arap milliyetçilerinin ülkedeki özellikle Türk azınlıklarına karşı sert tutumunu arttırmıştır. Böyle bir kargaşa ortamında bulunmak istemeyen yatırımcı Ermenilerin, Sovyet Rusya yerine daha demokratik olan Türkiye’ye gitmeyi tercih etmeleri, ekonomisi iyice daralmış olan Suriye’yi çok rahatsız etmiştir. Bu nedenle Suriye bu kargaşa ortamının dışarıya aksettirilmesini önlemek için Lazkiye (özellikle, Bayır, Bucak ve Hazine nahiyelerindeki), Fırat ve Cezire’ye yabancıların girmesini yasaklamıştır. 1947’nin sonlarına gelindiğinde bu dostluk antlaşması sonrasında Sovyet Rusya’nın maddi desteğiyle Ermeni ve Kürt grupları Suriye’nin kuzeyinde ilk kez milis güç olarak kullanılmaya başlanmıştır. Bu durum zaman içerisinde Türkiye’nin güney sınırını hareketlendirmiştir.
 Çalışmada 1947 Türkiye-Ürdün Dostluk Antlaşması’nın imzalanması sonrasında Türkiye-Suriye ilişkilerinde yaşanan krizin temellerinin ne zaman ve nasıl atıldığı tespit edilmiştir.

Do Members of Disadvantaged Groups Possess a Motivation of Favouritism towards Advantaged Groups?

There are several studies suggesting that disadvantaged groups display positive attitudes towards advantaged groups. System Justification Theorists have conceptualised that attitudes as out-group favouritism, whereas Social Identity Theorists have described it as the attitude of members identifying with the advantaged group, reflecting in-group favouritism. As the level of participants’ identification with both groups is not measured in those studies, it is not clear enough which theory they support. This study, conducted with 145 people living in Turkey and define themselves as Kurdish, aims to examine the attitudes of the participants towards the disadvantaged Kurdish in-group and the advantaged Turkish out-group in terms of the participant’s level of identification with both groups and the identity management strategies (individual mobility, social competition, superordinate re-categorisation) followed by the participants. For this purpose, the participants dividing into three clusters depending on their level of identification with both groups were compared in terms of their intergroup attitudes and the strategies they followed. The results indicated that the participants who identified with the Turkish group on a higher level had favouritism towards Turks and followed the individual mobility and superordinate re-categorisation strategies. On the other hand, the participants who identified with the Kurdish group on a higher level had favouritism towards Kurds and followed the social competition strategy. These results support Social Identity Theory, suggesting that disadvantaged group members’ positive attitudes towards advantaged groups reflect in-group favouritism, not out-group favouritism. This is because they identify themselves through advantaged groups as a result of certain strategies.

Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy Toward Syria: The Return of Securitization

:Since 2015, Turkey gradually has been moving toward a more nationalist discourse and direction in its foreign policy. This sharply contrasts with the liberal foreign policy orientation that Turkey implemented during the first decade of the Justice and Development Party government, as well as its idealistic assertiveness during the Arab Spring. In the Syrian conflict, Turkey has turned away from its initial goal of helping the anti-Assad opposition to a strategy that aims to restrain the territorial gains of separatist Kurdish groups. This transformation of strategic orientation is a product of emerging security threats, as well as changes in domestic politics including Turkey’s new presidential system. Rather than representing a return to rationality and realpolitik, the new orientation rests upon the traditional fears of disintegration and the culture of insecurity that the AKP governments had attempted to overcome. The Kurdish question has returned to its traditional position as the primary foreign policy challenge, and in reversing its original reformist agenda the AK government has embraced a military response to cope with this challenge, as demonstrated through numerous military land operations it has conducted in Syria. This new orientation has caused major frictions in relations with the United States and Europe, whereas it has led to a strategic rapprochement with Russia.

Negotiating the meaning of Kurdishness: the construction of a secular Kurdish identity perception by Kurdish political and intellectual elites in Turkey

This article examines the process of the construction of a secular Kurdish perception of identity by Kurdish political elites since the 1960s. It argues that despite the variance in group-making tactics employed by different Kurdish political groups or figures, something has remained unchanged: the construction and promotion of a secular Kurdish identity perception, which dissociates Islam from the cultural content of Kurdish ethnic identity. Kurdish political and intellectual elites in Turkey, during and after the 1960s, took a radical stance against religion and started to construct and promote a Kurdish ethnic identity perception based only on certain myths, ruling out Islam from the cultural content of Kurdish ethnic identity. Although Kurdish political elites adopted a friendlier language towards religion after the 2000s, in response to certain political and practical challenges, they never gave up on this secular Kurdish identity perception.

Good radicals? Trajectories of pro-Kurdish political and militant mobilisation to the wars in Syria, Turkey and Iraq

ABSTRACT This article explores the interrelation of volunteering, violence and ideology by studying the pro-Kurdish political and militant mobilisation to the wars in Syria, Turkey and Iraq. Focusing especially on the trajectories, motives and reflections of foreign volunteers in different Kurdish militant groups, I argue that ideology is neither a precondition nor a necessary reason for mobilisation to an armed group. In many cases, it is the other way around, as mobilisation to violence is often the source of ideological conviction.

The Kurdish genocide in Iraq: the Security-Anfal and the Identity-Anfal

ABSTRACT From February to September 1988, Iraqi Kurds were subjected to a genocidal operation by the Iraqi government, known as the Anfal operation. The operation lasted just over seven months but it had a devastating impact on most parts of rural Kurdistan in Iraq, resulting in the killing of thousands of Kurdish civilians. Most scholars have overlooked the multiple strategies, dimensions of and motivations for the operations and have mostly focused on and/or examined the military and genocidal dimensions of the operation. This article examines some of data and documents as well as secondary sources related to the Anfal operation directly or indirectly. It scrutinizes the pattern of casualties and disappearances of the Kurdish civilians during operations in order to identify and explain the motives of the Iraqi state. It argues that although the Iraqi government’s objectives and intentions were multidimensional, two dimensions were the primary ones; the first one security and the second identity. In the Security-Anfal the intention was to overcome the Kurdish rebel groups; however, in the Identity-Anfal the key motive was the de-Kurdification of the Kirkuk province in order to Arabize the areas of Iraqi Kurdistan that were strategically significant economically and politically.

Self-Categorization Mediates the Relationship between Prejudiced Attitude and Well-Being among Kurdish and Arabic Ethnic Groups

Self-Categorization Mediates the Relationship between Prejudiced Attitude and Well-Being among Kurdish and Arabic Ethnic Groups

The archive as an artefact of conflict: the North Iraq Dataset

ABSTRACT An uprising in the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq in 1991 against the rule of the central government led to the overthrow of the Baʿth regime’s institutions. During the revolt, members of the public and of Kurdish political groups seized large amounts of official records. The regime responded to the revolt brutally and retook the regions within three weeks. However, the records, the bulk of which were created by the government’s security offices, had been hidden away. In the following two years, Kurdish groups reached agreements with the United States government and an international non-governmental organization to ship the records to the US, where they were formed into an archive. Approaching the archive as a site of political struggle, this paper explores how the capture, movement and de-territorialization of the records have shaped the archive. The trajectory of the records illustrates the ways in which their value and potential uses shifted within new socio-political contexts that emerged as a result of the conflict.

Turkish vision for the Middle East after 2014

Turkish vision for the Middle East after 2014

Review of Joanna Bocheńska (ed.), Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities: The Call of the Cricket

The academic field of Kurdish studies has experienced considerable growth in recent years. Compared to the later decades of the 20th century that were characterized by the scarcity and scattering of resources and researches on Kurdish subjects, today one can find an ever-growing variety of studies in international languages to satisfy his/her own curiosity on this matter. Recent political developments in the region (i.e. the involvement of Kurdish groups in the resistance against the ISIS, the relative self-determination of the Kurds in Syria, the resurgence of armed conflict in Turkey since 2015 after the failure of the so-called “peace process”, and the referendum on the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan in 2017) have raised academic interest and increasingly put the Kurds on the world agenda. By itself, this can be heralded as a positive development in Middle Eastern studies at large; however – and this is the main argument and the foundational stance the of the book here reviewed – this recent attention has been predominantly structured along narratives of “conflict and resistance” that often prevent us from seeing other aspects of Kurdish culture and society. Indeed, the amount of academic production related to the Kurdish culture at large is significantly, and perhaps disproportionately, lower than that regarding geopolitical, political and military aspects. Nevertheless, now – in the nick of the time – the volume entitled Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities: The Call of the Cricket has emerged with the aim of counterbalancing the above disproportion.

Turkey’s Rapprochement with Russia: Assertive Bandwagoning

ABSTRACT Despite Russia’s increasing clout and assertiveness in its region, Turkey has chosen to improve its relations with Russia, rather than balance against it through its Western allies. Turkey’s unexpected strategic partnership with Russia is best seen as an example of bandwagoning for profit. It is an assertive bandwagoning with the objective of countering Kurdish separatism, an imminent problem in the Turkish ruling elite’s ranking of threat perceptions. The empowerment of Syrian Kurdish groups under the protection of the United States has moved Turkey closer to Russia. A long-term alliance between the two, however, depends on reconciliation of their differences which are deeply rooted in historical and geo-political factors.