362 “Prolonged instability and violence or state collapse in Syria and Iraq, as well as major changes in Turkish attitudes, may produce the right conditions for the establishment of a Kurdish state or new autonomous regions.” Kurdish Nationalism’s Moment of Truth? MICHAEL EPPEL T he moment long awaited by Kurdish nation- alists may have arrived. The conditions that arose in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, the deterioration of the state in Syria as a result of the civil war rag- ing there since 2011, and changes in traditional Turkish positions regarding the Kurds in Turkey and the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq have created a his- toric opportunity. The Kurds are now closer than ever to establishing an inde- pendent state or new autonomous regions within the framework of the states that control the ter- ritories they inhabit. The creation of a large independent state is the ultimate vision of the Kurdish national movement. Nonetheless, the leaders of the main Kurdish political forces in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran have repeatedly declared that their objective is the establishment of autonomous Kurdish regions, disavowing any intention of seceding from the existing states. In Iraq, where the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) rules the autono- mous region that has existed since 1991, Kurdish leaders profess their loyalty to Baghdad while at the same time making that loyalty contingent on the preservation of broad autonomy. Since 2003, their strategy has aimed to fortify a de facto “state within a state.” In Syria, Salih Muslim Muhammad, the leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD)—the stron- gest and most active Kurdish political force in that country—stated several times in 2013 and 2014 that the Kurds’ objective is the establishment of an autonomous area within the Syrian state. The principal Kurdish nationalist political forces in Turkey, including the radical leftist organization known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), also speak of autonomy and equality for the Kurds within the Turkish state. Mustafa Karasu, one of the PKK’s senior leaders, declared in May 2014 that the party had abandoned the aim of creat- ing an independent state and is instead seeking the democratization of Turkey, meaning recogni- tion of the Kurds’ right to self-rule. In the same month, leaders of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), the main Kurdish nationalist group in Iran, declared that their new policy aimed to achieve “democratic autonomy for Iranian Kurds.” Since the summer of 2014, an offensive by the jihadist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has threatened the Kurdish areas in both coun- tries, and complicated their relations with Turkey. But the Kurds’ central role in the international military response to ISIS has also strengthened the nationalists’ position. A STATELESS PEOPLE The Kurds, numbering 25 to 35 million, are the world’s largest population group with a developed modern national movement but without a state. Although Kurdish distinctiveness and the signi- fiers kurd and akrad have existed in the discourse of the Kurds and among their neighbors since ancient times and certainly since the beginnings of Islam and the Arab conquest, there has never been an independent Kurdish state in Kurdistan at any time in recorded history. The development of social strata with a modern education and the emergence of a national move- ment among the Kurds were slow and limited during the nineteenth and early twentieth centu- ries. This sluggish pace resulted from historical as well as geopolitical conditions. Kurdistan was a landlocked area divided among strong states, the centers of which were in Anatolia, Iran, and Resurgent Nationalism Third in a series MICHAEL EPPEL is a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Haifa. Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/113/767/362/390239/curh_113_767_362.pdf by guest on 18 April 2022