Kurdistan I, the People the Map Left Out

Between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, more than 30 million people share an identity, language, and history, but still not a State of their own

“There are peoples who lost wars. Others lost borders. The Kurds have spent more than a century trying to prove that a country can also be lost before it ever comes into existence…”

This column opens a series of “six chapters dedicated to Kurdistan”: its history, the division of its territory, the unfulfilled promises, the wars, the powers that intervened, the internal divisions, and the human price paid by a people divided among several States. The six chapters will later form a minilibook of my authorship dedicated entirely to Kurdistan.

“Kurdistan cannot fit into a single column because it did not fit into the map others drew for it either.”

THE KURDISH PEOPLE

The Kurds are an ancient Indo-European-speaking people belonging to the Iranian branch, settled for at least two millennia in the Zagros and Taurus Mountains, a vast region that today crosses Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. There is no academic consensus for stating that they descend directly from a single ancient people, although many Kurds historically identify with the Medes, who dominated parts of the Zagros and northwestern Iran more than 2,600 years ago. For centuries they lived under different empires — Persian, Arab, Seljuk, and finally Ottoman — preserving languages, tribes, principalities, and a distinct cultural identity. Even Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty in the twelfth century, belonged to a Kurdish family. The Kurds, therefore, did not recently arrive in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, or Syria: they inhabited those mountains many centuries before those four States existed with their current borders.

“The Kurds did not cross four borders to settle in four countries; it was the borders of the twentieth century that crossed a land where they had been living for centuries…”

Their current division is, above all, a consequence of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The construction of Turkey and the new States of Iraq and Syria, under strong British and French influence, left Kurdish communities distributed among several countries; Iran, which already contained important Kurdish populations within its historic borders, completed that fragmented map. Religiously, they do not form a single bloc either. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, especially of the Shafi’i tradition, which brings them religiously closer to the majority in Turkey and to a large part of the Sunni Arab population of Iraq and Syria.

In Iran there are important Sunni Kurdish communities, although there are also Shiite Kurds, especially in western areas such as Kermanshah, who share the denomination of the Iranian majority. There are also Alevi Kurds, mainly in Turkey, Yazidi Kurds — particularly associated with northern Iraq and Sinjar — and smaller communities associated with traditions such as Ahl-e Haqq or Yarsan. That is why Kurdish identity has never depended exclusively on religion: language, territory, historical memory, and culture have often been deeper elements of cohesion.

“Perhaps that is one of the great Kurdish paradoxes: they share a historic homeland without completely sharing a religion, and they share an identity even though borders have spent a century trying to teach them that they belong to different worlds.”

That is why today they live mainly in a historic region known as Kurdistan, divided among Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, in addition to important communities in Europe. There are estimated to be between 30 and 40 million Kurds, although estimates vary. They speak different varieties of the Kurdish language and belong to diverse religious traditions. Their political singularity lies in what they still lack: an independent nation-state.

“Sometimes a border does not divide territories: it divides the same memory among several countries.”

After World War I, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire briefly opened the possibility of a Kurdish entity. The Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 contemplated mechanisms that could lead to autonomy and even independence, but that order never consolidated. The Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 recognized Turkey’s new borders without creating Kurdistan. Since then, the Kurds have remained distributed among States that have considered any secession a territorial threat.

“The Kurdish problem began when the map was finished before all the peoples had found a place within it.”

Today there is no single Kurdish policy. In Iraq, the Kurdistan Region has a government, parliament, peshmerga forces, institutions, and broad constitutional autonomy. Nechirvan Barzani holds the regional presidency and Masrour Barzani heads the government. In Turkey, Abdullah Öcalan remains a central figure in the Kurdish movement while the process related to the disarmament of the PKK attempts to open another stage. In Syria, Kurdish forces built their own structures during the war. In Iran, different movements persist.

“There is a Kurdish people; but there is still no single Kurdish strategy…”

There appears one of their great historical weaknesses. Rivalries among organizations, families, parties, and ideological projects have often prevented the construction of a common position. Some have sought independence; others, autonomy, federalism, or greater cultural rights. They have also maintained different relationships with Washington, Moscow, Ankara, Tehran, and Europe. The great powers have supported them when interests coincided and abandoned them when the board changed.

“Powerful allies usually lend umbrellas; they rarely provide the roof…”

Then the uncomfortable question emerges. In 1947, the United Nations recommended through Resolution 181 dividing the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State. Israel proclaimed its independence in 1948. If the twentieth century could imagine new territorial formulas after wars, empires, and tragedies, why should the twenty-first century consider it impossible even to discuss a political solution for tens of millions of Kurds? The comparison does not mean that both cases are equivalent.

“Borders seem eternal until the day history decides to debate them again.”

If an independent Kurdish State ever ceased to be merely a historic aspiration, Iraq would appear to be the most plausible starting point.

There it would not be necessary to invent a State from scratch, but rather to transform an existing autonomy into a new legal relationship with Baghdad and the international community. The path would require resolving borders, oil, citizenship, security, external recognition, and internal divisions. In addition, Turkey, Iran, and Syria would fear that Iraqi independence would fuel similar aspirations among their Kurdish populations.

“A new State needs more than a flag: it needs neighbors capable of accepting that it exists.”

The decisive question is not only how to achieve independence, but how to build by 2050 a viable country, initially located on the territory of today’s Iraqi Kurdistan and capable of housing around 20 million inhabitants.

The path could begin with the political unification of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah under a single government, parliament, budget, judicial system, and integrated security forces; continue with a constitutional and territorial agreement negotiated with Baghdad; and be accompanied for two decades by an enormous policy of infrastructure, housing, water, electricity, hospitals, universities, roads, industry, and employment. The population would not have to be reached by forcibly relocating Kurds from Turkey, Iran, or Syria, but through demographic growth and absolutely voluntary immigration, offering citizenship and opportunities to those who freely wish to settle there, including the diaspora.

Oil and gas could initially finance part of that transformation, but Kurdistan would need to diversify into agriculture, manufacturing, energy, logistics, technology, and services so as not to become simply another State dependent on hydrocarbons. If over the next twenty-five years it managed to build trustworthy institutions, gradually receive millions of new citizens, and convince Baghdad, Ankara, Tehran, and the great powers that its existence increases — rather than reduces — regional stability, then Kurdistan 2050 could cease to be merely a historical claim and begin to resemble a State project.

“Kurdistan will not reach 2050 by gathering twenty million Kurds within a border; it will get there by building a country stable, prosperous, and free enough for millions of Kurds to want to cross it voluntarily.”

The United Nations does not automatically recognize the right of any minority to separate and form a new country. International law protects self-determination, but also the territorial integrity of States. That is why a lasting solution could hardly be imposed from outside. It would have to begin with a Kurdish consensus on the final objective, continue with negotiations with Baghdad, and seek international guarantees that reduce the fears of neighboring States. Before asking for a border, the Kurds would have to agree on what they wish to build behind it.

“Independence begins long before a new color appears on the map…”

Thinking about a Kurdish State by 2050 would require beginning now not by drawing new borders, but by first building a viable State within the existing borders.

Iraq offers the most realistic platform: its Constitution formally recognizes the Kurdistan Region as a federal region and grants it broad legislative, executive, judicial, and security powers. With 6.52 million inhabitants, public spending of around 14–16.5 trillion Iraqi dinars annually, and oil reserves that the Regional Government itself estimates at approximately 45 billion barrels, there is an institutional and economic base from which to advance.

Between 2025 and 2035, a genuine fiscal pact with Baghdad should be consolidated, Kirkuk and the disputed areas should be resolved through negotiation, the peshmerga forces should be unified under institutional command, dependence exclusively on oil should be reduced, and investment should be made in electricity, water, roads, universities, industry, agriculture, and technology. Between 2035 and 2045, a cross-border Kurdish economic community could be built, respecting the sovereignty of Turkey, Iran, and Syria, through trade, culture, education, and mobility. Only between 2045 and 2050 would it make sense to discuss, through international agreements and democratic consultations, whether that mature autonomy should be transformed into a confederation, a special association, or eventually a sovereign State.

“A viable Kurdistan should not begin by conquering territory; it should begin by demonstrating for twenty-five years that it knows how to govern, produce, negotiate, and coexist better than the borders it may one day seek to modify…”

This vision, in order to create a Kurdish State in Iraq, would begin by resolving five concrete points:

. First: Definitive regional Constitution.

. Second: Oil–budget agreement with Baghdad.

. Third: Negotiated solution for Kirkuk in accordance with the constitutional framework.

. Fourth: Professional integration of the peshmerga.

. Fifth: A sovereign wealth fund to convert oil into infrastructure, industry, education, and water.

The Iraqi Constitution already recognizes Kurdistan as a federal region and provides a process for the disputed areas, while the KRG itself reports that in 2025 it needed around IQD 16.5 trillion to cover its actual expenditure and that between 2019 and 2025 it received considerably less than the amount budgeted by Baghdad, demonstrating precisely why the fiscal issue should be resolved before any discussion of sovereignty.

“A nation that is economically viable, institutionally solid, and regionally acceptable must be built first. Only afterward would come the discussion about the final legal form.”

An intermediate strategy could also incorporate, between 2026 and 2050, approximately 5 million additional Kurds arriving voluntarily from the diaspora or from other countries in the region. The pace should be prudent: around one million new inhabitants every five years, always conditioned on the prior existence of housing, employment, electricity, water, hospitals, schools, and sufficient productive capacity. Each new stage should begin only when the previous one had been economically and socially absorbed.

That growth would add approximately US$100–130 billion to the general development program, mainly in housing, new urban areas, public services, education, healthcare, transportation, and job creation. The total effort toward 2050 could therefore reach around US$350–400 billion, combining domestic resources, oil and gas, international private investment, public-private partnerships, sovereign wealth funds, and diaspora capital.

Starting from the current 6.5 million inhabitants, gradually incorporating another 5 million and considering natural population growth, Iraqi Kurdistan could approach 14–16 million inhabitants by 2050, a demographic scale sufficiently important to sustain a diversified national economy without subjecting the territory to migratory pressure impossible to absorb.

“A country is not built by rapidly gathering its people within a border; it is built by expanding the economic frontier at the same pace as those who wish to live behind it arrive.”

THE LIONS FACING KURDISTAN

The great powers would view a possible Kurdish State with very different sympathies, but almost none would support it solely for historical or moral reasons.

. The United States maintains a close relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan, but continues to link that cooperation to the sovereignty and stability of Iraq, and therefore would probably support only an independence negotiated with Baghdad and acceptable to Turkey.

. China develops economic relations with Erbil, but its policy continues to prioritize sovereignty and avoid separatist precedents; it would hardly support a unilateral break.

. Russia would act pragmatically: it would examine oil, security, Turkey, Iran, and its ability to preserve influence before deciding whether or not to recognize the new State.

. The European Union continues to explicitly reaffirm the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq, although it could accept a solution if it emerged through constitutional negotiation between Erbil and Baghdad.

. India would probably be cautious about any precedent of secession and would prefer a negotiated and internationally recognized solution.

. Pakistan would be even more cautious: when the Kurdish referendum was held in 2017, it explicitly supported Iraqi unity and territorial integrity and rejected the unilateral path.

Ultimately, the lions would not have to fall in love with Kurdistan; it would be enough for them to reach the same geopolitical conclusion: that its negotiated birth creates fewer risks than continuing to prevent it.

“The Kurds could win a referendum, convince Baghdad, and raise a flag; but to turn it into a State they would need something even more difficult: ensuring that none of the great lions finds enough reasons to tear it down…”

USA AND CHINA: TWO SMILES OVER THE SAME MAP

Kurdistan also occupies an uncomfortable place in the rivalry between the USA and China. For Washington, especially in Iraqi Kurdistan, it means security, energy, intelligence, regional influence, and a political platform located between Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq. The new U.S. consulate in Erbil, built with a budget of USD 796 million, says quite a lot without the need for speeches. China, by contrast, advances with another language: trade, infrastructure, telecommunications, investment, and cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing already maintains a consulate in Erbil and in 2026 once again offered more investment and projects. Both speak of stability; naturally, each imagines a stability compatible with its own interests. The USA prefers a secure, allied, energy-functional, and politically useful Kurdistan within Iraq. China prefers a stable Kurdistan, open to its companies, connected to commercial corridors, and predictable enough to protect investments.

Neither needs to declare a battle for Kurdistan in order to compete there. It is enough to build consulates, sign contracts, secure oil, offer technology, and cultivate leaders. The Kurdish people, meanwhile, contemplate a familiar diplomatic irony: for a century the powers debated their borders; now they debate their opportunities. Washington arrives speaking of security and strategic partnership. Beijing arrives speaking of development and mutual benefit. The words, manners, and flags change; the map remains too valuable to leave solely in the hands of those who live on it.

In geopolitics, even friendship usually arrives with a blueprint, a budget, and coordinates. And when everyone smiles for the photograph, it is worth looking at which contract gets signed afterward.

“The USA and China do not need to conquer Kurdistan: it is enough for them to ensure that its roads, its oil, its contracts, its consulates, and its leaders look in the right direction. Modern colonialism has learned manners: it no longer always arrives with soldiers; sometimes it arrives with a smile, an investment, and a document that is conveniently signed in two languages.”

EUROPE WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE; DEATH AND UNCERTAINTY ARRIVED FIRST

In September 2015, a small boat departed from the coast of Bodrum, in Turkey, bound for the Greek island of Kos. Among those traveling was the Syrian Kurdish family of Abdullah Kurdi, from Kobani, a city devastated by the war against the Islamic State. They were trying to reach Europe and rebuild a life that violence had made impossible. The boat capsized during the crossing. Abdullah survived. His wife, Rehana, 35, died; their sons Galip, five, and Alan, three, also died. Alan’s body appeared face down on a Turkish beach on September 2, 2015. That photograph traveled around the planet and for a few days turned the refugee tragedy into an image impossible to ignore. At least twelve people died in the same shipwreck, five of them children. They were not the only ones. During the months that followed, hundreds of children continued to die in the eastern Mediterranean as entire families tried to reach Europe while fleeing wars, persecution, and despair.

UNHCR calculated that, from September 2015 to February 2016 alone, more than 340 children had drowned on that route. Alan Kurdi ultimately became a symbol because there was a photograph; thousands of others had only water, darkness, and silence. The family was not seeking to conquer another country or enrich itself through someone else’s border. They were seeking something much more elementary: to survive, to work, and to allow two children to grow up far from bombs. They found the sea. A new life was only a few kilometers away, but for them that night those kilometers became a deadly border.

“Europe wept before the photograph of Alan Kurdi, but the Mediterranean continued receiving bodies. Perhaps the problem was never that the world failed to see the tragedy; it was that it learned far too quickly how to keep living after seeing it.”

In August 2026, 18 young migrants, including 10 Kurds from the Raparin region of Iraqi Kurdistan, left Libya in a boat bound for Italy. They were seeking Europe, work, security, and a life that would allow them to imagine something beyond borders, wars, and entire generations learning to leave. A few days later they disappeared. Their families stopped receiving calls. Searches began in hospitals, police stations, detention centers, ports, and humanitarian organizations in Italy. Images then appeared showing bodies in a wrecked boat in the Mediterranean, and reports began circulating that the 18 had drowned. But by the end of September, the authorities and organizations following the case had not been able to confirm that those bodies belonged to the missing young people. Their families continued waiting. Some even maintained that they might still be alive and detained in Libya.

And perhaps that makes the story even more cruel: not even having a body, a grave, or certainty. For their parents, siblings, and mothers, the Mediterranean became a vast space between hope and mourning. They left seeking a new life and remained suspended in something worse than a border: uncertainty. They were not explorers, soldiers, or conquerors. They were young people trying to reach a place where they could work, study, form a family, and live without feeling that they had been born on the wrong side of the map.

“Europe debates how many migrants it can receive; their families only want to know whether their children are still alive. Some borders separate countries. Others, like the Mediterranean, end up separating a mother even from the elementary right to know where her child ended up.”

CLOSING

The future could take several forms. Kurdistan may remain an idea divided among four countries; it may advance through deeper autonomies, linguistic rights, and cross-border cooperation; or some part of it could become a recognized independent State. None of the alternatives will be simple. But the existence of millions of people with their own historic identity makes it impossible to assume that the problem will disappear simply because the current borders remain drawn. The challenge is to transform a historic claim into a political proposal that does not require another war.

“Kurdistan does not need someone to draw the Middle East again with a ruler on a table…”

“It needs the Kurds themselves, their neighbors, and the great powers to discover whether it is still possible to build a border through diplomacy before another generation tries to build it through blood…”

IMPORTANT NOTES

1. Turkey and PKK: Öcalan called for disarmament in February 2025, the PKK announced in May 2025 the end of its armed struggle, and the Turkish Parliament approved on August 10, 2026, a specific demobilization and reintegration law, with 468 votes in a parliament of 600 members.***

2. Syria. On August 25, 2026, the SDF announced its dissolution after integrating into the Syrian army. The new Syrian State also recognized Kurdish as an official language, Nowruz as a national holiday, and restored citizenship to numerous Kurds.***

3. Leadership of Iraqi Kurdistan. Confirmed as of August 2026: Nechirvan Barzani remains regional president and Masrour Barzani remains prime minister.***

4. Finances: the KRG calculates approximately IQD 16.5 trillion annually to cover its actual commitments and reports close to IQD 14.3 trillion in actual expenditure during 2025.

5. Oil. The 45 billion barrels are confirmed, but explicitly as an estimate by the Kurdistan authorities. The regional investment agency itself also reports production of approximately 450,000 b/d and an estimated 200 Tcf of gas.

6. Constitution and Kirkuk. It was confirmed that Article 117 recognizes Kurdistan as a federal region, Article 121 establishes broad regional powers, and Article 140 addresses Kirkuk and other disputed areas.

7. European Union: on May 15, 2026, the EU once again expressly declared its support for the “unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Iraq.”

8. The column no longer appears to be merely a historical reflection on a Kurdish State: it enters directly into the moment when Turkey is attempting to close forty years of war with the PKK and Syria has just institutionally absorbed the SDF. That makes the underlying question much more interesting: if the military path begins to close, can a Kurdish political path finally open for the next twenty-five years?

Author: Mauricio Herrera Kahn

Bibliography

• David McDowall, *A Modern History of the Kurds

A broad history of the Kurdish people, their territorial divisions, political movements, internal conflicts, and relations with Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

• Michael M. Gunter, *The Kurds Ascending: The Evolving Solution to the Kurdish Problem in Iraq and Turkey

Political analysis of the contemporary Kurdish question, especially Iraqi autonomy and the possibilities for institutional and territorial evolution.

• United Nations, Charter of the United Nations and documents on the principle of self-determination of peoples

International legal framework for understanding the tension among self-determination, the rights of peoples, and the territorial integrity of States.

. UNHCR, UNICEF & IOM. With Growing Numbers of Child Deaths at Sea, UN Agencies Call for Enhancing Safety for Refugees and Migrants, February 16, 2016.

Source for the death of Alan Kurdi as a symbol of the crisis and for the figure of more than 340 children drowned in the eastern Mediterranean from September 2015 through February 2016.

. UNHCR. *Since Alan Kurdi Drowned, Mediterranean Deaths Have Soared*, September 2, 2016.

One year after Alan Kurdi’s death, UNHCR estimated 4,176 dead or missing in the Mediterranean since his death, an average of eleven people per day.

. Kurdiu / information from activists and families. *18 Kurdish Migrants Drown in the Mediterranean Sea*, September 22, 2026.

Source on the 18 Kurdish migrants who departed from Libya bound for Italy and lost contact with their families. Initial information spoke of drowning, but later the families and organizations indicated that identification of the bodies and the group’s ultimate fate required official confirmation.

. Reuters. Archive coverage of Alan Kurdi and the Kurdi family, September 2015, including the death of Alan, his brother Galip, and his mother during the attempt to cross from Turkey to Greece. Reuters constitutes a useful primary journalistic source for reconstructing the immediate circumstances of the shipwreck.

Mauricio Herrera Kahn