The Iran War has once again put the Kurds in the spotlight. From time to time, whenever wars break out in the Middle East, the Kurds enter the news. But a mystery surrounds them. Very few people know much about them. To remove some of the mystery, I posed a few questions about their identity to Jamal Mamkhezri, who was born and raised in Kurdistan, Iran and imprisoned four times by the Islamic Republic for his Kurdish identity before emigrating to the United States where he serves today as a professor of economics at New Mexico State University.
My questions and his answers follow.
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Ahmad Faruqui (AF): Who are the Kurds? What language do they speak? Ethnically, what group comes closest to them?
Jamal Mamkhezri (JM): The Kurds are a nation of 30 to 45 million people, making them the largest stateless nation in the world. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria.
They speak Kurdish, an Indo-European language, with four major dialects: Kurmanji, Sorani, Hewrami, and Zazaki. Kurdish is closely related to Farsi and Pashto, placing Persians as the closest major group linguistically.
Kurds practice a range of faiths including Islam, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Christianity, and Judaism.
AF: Did they ever have their own country?
JM: The Kurds trace their ancestry to the Medes, an ancient Iranian people who established a powerful empire centered in the Zagros Mountains (present-day Kurdistan) around the 7th century BC. The Median Empire stretched from Anatolia to Central Asia before being absorbed by the Achaemenid Empire in 549 BC. The Kurdish calendar dates from 612 BC, when the Medes conquered the Assyrian capital of Nineveh.
In modern history, the Kurds established the Republic of Mahabad in northwestern Iran in 1946, the first modern Kurdish state, led by Peshawa (President) Qazi Mohammad. The republic lasted less than a year before the Shah’s forces crushed it and executed Qazi Mohammad and a few of his family members and comrades in 1947.
Today, Kurds in Iraq govern the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), a constitutionally recognised autonomous region with its own presidency, parliament, cabinet, and military (the Peshmerga), established following the 1991 Gulf War and formalised under Iraq’s 2005 constitution. In Syria, Kurds established the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava) during the civil war, introducing democratic self-governance, though its long-term status remains contested.
AF: In how many countries do the Kurds reside today?
JM: Kurds are concentrated in four countries: Turkey (15 to 20 million, roughly 18 to 25% of the population), Iran (10 to 15 million, roughly 10 to 15%), Iraq (8 to 10 million, roughly 15 to 20%), and Syria (approximately 2 to 3 million, roughly 9%). Smaller but historically rooted Kurdish communities also exist in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, and Russia. Significant diaspora communities also exist in Germany (~1million), the Scandinavian countries, Australia, France, the Netherlands, the UK, Canada, and the United States, with Nashville, Tennessee hosting one of the largest Kurdish communities in the U.S.
AF: Why don’t they have their own country?
JM: After World War I, the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres promised the Kurds autonomy and a path to statehood. However, it was never ratified. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne replaced it and made no mention of the Kurds. Kurdistan was divided among the newly drawn arbitrary borders (by British & French soldiers on their horses!) of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, secretly negotiated by Sir Mark Sykes (British) and François Georges-Picot (French), had already laid the groundwork for carving up the Middle East with no regard for the nations living there. Each of these states has since opposed Kurdish independence to preserve their territorial integrity.
"Following the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi Kurdistan has emerged as the only region where Kurds enjoy constitutionally recognised autonomy and military self-governance"
In 2017, Iraqi Kurds voted 92% in favor of independence in a referendum, but it was rejected by Baghdad and opposed by Turkey, Iran, and Western governments including the United States.
AF: How are they treated in the countries where they reside?
JM: Turkey: The government historically denied Kurdish identity entirely, calling Kurds “Mountain Turks.” The Kurdish language was banned in public life and education for decades. Abdullah Öcalan founded the PKK in 1978 in response, leading to a decades-long armed conflict. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States (since 1997), the European Union, and several other countries, due to its use of guerrilla tactics and attacks. While some restrictions on Kurds have eased, Kurdish political leaders and journalists continue to face imprisonment, and the pro-Kurdish HDP has been repeatedly targeted with mass arrests and party closure proceedings.
Iran: Kurds face systemic repression as both a national and largely Sunni religious minority in a Shia theocratic state. Kurdish regions are heavily militarised and underdeveloped. Kurdish political activists, language teachers, and cultural advocates (if the government can’t reach them, they arrest their family members, myself being a case in point!) are routinely arrested and executed. Kurds represent a disproportionate share of political prisoners and executions.
Syria: In 1962, the Syrian government stripped approximately 120,000 Kurds of their citizenship, rendering them stateless. Kurds faced decades of restrictions on property ownership, political participation, and language use under the Assad regime. After the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Kurds established Rojava (the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria), which introduced democratic self-governance.
AF: Has the situation of Kurds in Iraq improved since Saddam Hussein’s departure?
JM: Under Saddam Hussein, Kurds endured the Anfal campaign (1987 to 1988), a genocidal operation that killed an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 Kurds, including the chemical weapons attack on Halabja in March 1988 that killed up to 5,000 civilians in a single day.
After the 1991 Gulf War, a U.S.- and UK-enforced no-fly zone allowed Kurds to establish self-governance. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was constitutionally recognised as an autonomous region with its own parliament, presidency, and Peshmerga military forces. The KRG rebuilt most of the rural areas destroyed during Anfal, attracted international investment, and established American-style universities. However, major disputes with Baghdad over oil revenue, the status of Kirkuk, and territorial boundaries persist.
AF: Are they treated better in Turkey, Syria, or Iran?
JM: No. Iraq is the only country where Kurds have achieved constitutionally recognised autonomy with their own government, parliament, and armed forces (though they were bombarded every day by the IRGC during the US-Israel vs Iran war). In Turkey, the Kurdish language was banned for decades, and thousands of Kurdish villages were destroyed during the conflict with the PKK. In Iran, Kurdish regions remain among the poorest and most militarised, and Kurdish political activity is treated as a national security threat. In Syria, the Rojava self-governance structure exists but its long-term status remains contested by Turkey and other actors.
AF: Who are the leaders among the Kurds?
JM: Historical: Cyaxares (king of the Medes, conqueror of the Assyrian Empire, 612 BC); Saladin (Salah ad-Din Ayyubi, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, captured Jerusalem in 1187); Sheikh Mahmoud Barzanji (led uprisings against British rule in Iraq, declared himself King of Kurdistan); Ismail Agha Shikak (Simko, led Kurdish resistance in Iran in the 1920s); Qazi Mohammad (president of the Republic of Mahabad, executed 1947); Mullah Mustafa Barzani (founder of the KDP, led armed insurgencies for Kurdish autonomy in Iraq); Foad Mostafa Soltani (co-founder of Komala, killed in an ambush by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the Kurdistan region, 1979); Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (PDKI leader, assassinated by Iranian agents in Vienna, 1989); Dr. Sadegh Sharafkandi (Ghassemlou's successor, assassinated by Iranian agents in Berlin, 1992); Sheikh Ezzedin Hosseini (spiritual leader of the Kurdish movement during the 1979 Iranian revolution, died in exile in Sweden in 2011).
Turkey: Abdullah Öcalan (founder of the PKK, imprisoned since 1999 but remains deeply influential); elected leaders of the pro-Kurdish HDP/DEM Party in the Turkish parliament.
Iran: The Kurdish opposition includes seven parties in the Dialogue Center for Inter-Party Cooperation: the PDKI (led by Mustafa Hijri, founded 1945), PJAK (co-chaired by Siamand Moini and Peyman Viyan), PAK (led by Hussein Yazdanpanah), Khabat (led by Baba Sheikh Hosseini), Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan (led by Abdullah Mohtadi), Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan (led by Reza Kaabi), and Komala Kurdistan Organisation of the Communist Party of Iran (led by Ibrahim Alizadeh). Six of the seven formed the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan in February–March 2026, the most significant Kurdish unity effort in decades.
Iraq: Masoud Barzani (leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, former KRG president); Nechirvan Barzani (current KRG president); Masrour Barzani (current KRG Prime Minister); the late Jalal Talabani (founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, President of Iraq 2005 to 2014); Barham Salih (former President of Iraq 2018 to 2022, currently UN High Commissioner for Refugees).
Syria: Mazloum Abdi (commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces); the late Salih Muslim (co-founder of the PYD, died 2026). The SDF led the ground war against ISIS alongside the U.S.-led coalition.
AF: Do any of them hold cabinet positions in the four countries?
JM: Iraq: Yes, extensively. The Iraqi presidency has been held by Kurds since 2005 by constitutional convention: Jalal Talabani (2005 to 2014), Fuad Masum (2014 to 2018), Barham Salih (2018 to 2022), and Abdul Latif Rashid (2022 to present). Kurds also hold federal ministerial positions. Within the KRG, Kurds run their own full cabinet.
Turkey: Kurdish politicians serve in parliament through the pro-Kurdish HDP/DEM Party, but they do not hold cabinet positions. Numerous elected Kurdish mayors and parliamentarians have been removed from office and imprisoned.
Syria: No formal cabinet positions in the central government. Kurds govern through the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava), which operates its own executive councils independently.
Iran: Kurds have been largely excluded from senior government positions. Kurdish regions are administered by centrally appointed officials, not locally elected leaders.