Vision or Reality? The Kurds in the Policy of the Great Powers

Vision or Reality? The Kurds in the Policy of the Great Powers, 1941-1947

The Kurdish question is one of the most complex and explosive issues presently confronting the Middle East, and ranks prominently among the many ethno-national problems of the post-war era. A solution to the Kurdish dilemma was in reach after the end of the First World War and immediately after the Second World War. Yet today, the Kurds remain the largest ethnic group in the Middle East not yet to have achieved any form of recognised statehood.

The Kurds have sought control of their own destiny for several decades. Uprisings erupted in Turkey’s Kurdistan in 1925, 1927, 1928–1930 and 1937. Similar upheavals took place in Iraq. In 1919, Shaikh Mahmud Barzinji rose against the British. The Barzani tribe’s revolt against the British and the Iraqi rulers in 1932 was followed by upheavals in 1943 and 1945. Each of these uprisings was suppressed.

Certain scholars have focused on the social and economic aspects of the Kurdish question, while others have stressed the ethno-political nature of the issue. Although both of these dimensions are significant, the Kurdish question can best be illuminated by studying a variety of factors, some within the framework of the Kurdish community itself, others lying outside of it, i.e. in the policy of the states which confront the Kurdish question and in the wider international arena. The period 1941–1947 offers an interesting field of study, revealing a strong interactive relationship between a number of factors with an emphasis on the international dimension...