From being merely a sleepy unimportant backwater in the Kurdish struggle, Syria has suddenly graduated to being not only a burgeoning center of the Kurdish national movement and even an important flashpoint in the regional geopolitical situation. How did this occur? The Arab Spring revolt that broke out against the long-ruling Assad family in March 2011 quickly involved not only the many different groups within Syria, but also most of the surrounding states and parties as each perceived the Syrian outcome as potentially bearing a most important impact on its own future. Turkey feared that the violence would spill over into its borders and further inflame its own Kurdish problems especially as the PKK-affiliate Democratic Union Party (PYD) headed by Salih Muslim Mohammed in Syria began to gain influence. To meet this threat, Turkey supported the oppositional Syrian National Council (SNC). However, such Turkish support scared the Kurds in Syria away from backing the opposition as Turkey clearly had no interest in empowering the Syrian Kurds in a post-Assad Syria. The PYD especially argued this point. Furthermore, the Syrian Kurds did not trust any prospective Sunni Arab government that might succeed Assad to grant or protect Kurdish rights. On the other hand, Assad’s earlier anti-Kurdish record had been abysmal. Moreover, even the Kurds in Syria were divided among themselves between the much stronger PKK-supported PYD and the much weaker Massoud Barzani supported KDP/KRG Kurdish National Council (KNC), which consisted of most of the other 12-15 odd Kurdish parties in Syria. With this incredibly complicated and evolving scenario in mind, the main substance of this paper will analyze specifically the following developments: 1.) The Syrian Kurds “third path” in the Syrian civil war; 2.) The secular Syrian Kurds battle against Salafist elements of the Syrian opposition to the Assad regime 3.) The Syrian Kurds’ declaration of autonomy in November 2013; 4.) The Syrian Kurds’ relations with Turkey and influence on the current Turkish-Kurdish (PKK) peace proves; and 5.) The Syrian Kurds’ relations with Barzani’s KDP-KRG. This paper will be based on primary sources gathered through field work in Syria, interviews with important actors including PYD leader Salih Muslim Mohammed, and secondary sources. The tentative conclusion will reinforce the paper’s title that the Syrian Kurds are contributing to the changing political map of the Middle East.

Compared to the years following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Kurdish political parties have achieved greater maturity and sophistication in administering their autonomous enclave (Kurdistan Region-Iraq or the KRG), but have been too lax in synchronizing their short-term with long-term goals. Iraq's Kurds have so far established the basic pillars of a state with a flourishing economy and a functioning government that is protecting the security of the region, providing basic social services, and maintaining diplomatic and commercial ties with over 20 countries. However, one wonders if the Iraqi Kurds still think that the constitution would protect them from Baghdad's threats and provocations. The Kurds have often declared that they will remain within Iraq as long as the central government respects the constitution, and if not they would declare independence. The Iraqi Arabs and outside observers have always suspected that the Kurds were preparing themselves to declare independence when they feel that the time is right. If this assumption is correct, at what point and under what circumstances would the Kurds declare independence? Since time is of the essence, some observers believe that the Kurds might have already missed the boat for taking the best opportunity for becoming independent. Others argue that this opportunity has not yet arrived. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze those factors affecting the KRG’s decision to declare independence under the rapidly changing Middle East geopolitical map. This paper will be based on primary sources gathered through several visits to the KRG, interviews with leading KRG officials, and secondary sources. The tentative conclusion will be that the Iraqi Kurds have begun to play a significant role in the changing political map of the Middle East, but that no perfect answer can be given to when their independence might be best achieved.

This paper posits that the Kurdish diaspora in Europe is transforming itself into an actor that contributes to the resolution of the decades-long conflict between ethnic Kurdish communities and the Turkish state. To advance this notion of a transformative process within the Kurdish diaspora, the author examines diasporic activism by exploring (1) the emergence of new endogenous and exogenous factors that shape specific political choices by members of Kurdish diaspora communities, and (2) the author relies on a resource mobilization tool to classify the types of resources that are mobilized by the diaspora to advance a political agenda. The minority’s shift away from a reliance on traditional approaches to resource mobilization (with an emphasis on material, organizational, and human resources) in favor of post-modern mobilization techniques, which rely on cultural and moral resources, further supports the argument that a transformation is underway within the Kurdish diaspora. This combination of empirical and theoretical approaches to examining Kurdish diaspora activism reveals that current dynamics privilege a resolution to the larger conflict.

Iranian nationalities have played an integral part in the country’s century-long anti-authoritarian, anti-imperialist, and pro-democracy movements. The Kurds of Iran have certainly been an integral part of this struggle, and they have largely framed their demands for recognition of their sociopolitical and cultural rights within the broader context of a democratic and decentralized Iran. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that have inhibited the realization of Kurdish demands since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. In particular, the paper seeks to analyze the role played by the securitization of the Kurdish demands in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and how the nexus between securitization and coercion redounds to the detriment of the broader democratization in the country. The Kurdish predicament in Iran, as elsewhere in the Middle East, has not been so much the product of Kurdish identity formation but the result of securitization of ethnic issues in the country. States that frame the presence of nationalities and ethnic demands in terms of security tend to adopt repressive policies towards these groups as they increasingly view the recognition of ethnic rights or autonomy as tantamount to secession. The so-called “Kurdish problem” in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been first and foremost the product of the state’s policies that have consistently securitized ethnic issues and have failed to institute a de-securitized approach to nationality issues since the Islamic revolution. Using both secondary and primary sources in Persian and Kurdish, the paper places the Kurdish predicament in Iran in the context of broader issues affecting the Kurdish regional role.