Ethnic Kurdistan in the context of 21st century Geopolitics

Baravi Melina Vladimirovna ORCID: 0009-0004-6063-6948 Postgraduate student of the Department of History and Politics of Russia, National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603022, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Prospekt Gagarina str., 23 melinabaravi@gmail.com Kretov Andrei Dmitrievich ORCID: 0009-0001-9076-1465 Graduate student, National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603022, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Prospekt Gagarina str., 23 krietov2000@mail.ru

Tarasova Dar'ya Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0000-0003-4825-6446 Postgraduate student; National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod; Institute of International Relations and World History 23 Gagarin Avenue, Nizhny Novgorod, 603022, Russia daria.tarasova@corp.mail.ru

The Kurdish problem remains one of the most difficult in modern world politics. The Kurdish "issue" has been at the center of Middle East politics for almost a century since the creation of its current states of Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The Kurds in Iran were also victims of a regional war in the 16th century, culminating in the current geographical distribution of the region. To this day, Kurds are fighting for equal rights and self-determination throughout the Middle East. Kurdistan, the largest country without its own statehood, is divided into four states, and despite many sympathetic comments from the international community, the answer to the Kurdish "question" remains unclear.

There are many academic works, both by domestic and foreign authors, devoted to Kurdish issues. Here it is necessary to note M. Lazarev and his work "Kurds and Kurdistan. The factors of the formation of the problem", in which he examines this topic in the context of its historical background. A. Nabiyev's work "The Kurdish problem in the context of integration into the EU" also deserves attention. This work is interesting because it examines the geopolitical nuances of the presence of the Kurdish problem in the modern world, the influence of the global West and supranational political institutions on it.

In addition, M.V. Baravi's work "Relations between Turkey and the Kurds in the light of the regional agenda" is of interest, which analyzes the peculiarities of the coexistence of the Kurds and the existing Turkish political regime.       

The chronological scope of the study is limited to the period from 2001 to 2023.

Object and methods of research

In the process of working on this study, the following methods were used: chronological, genetic, structural, comparative analysis.

Results and their discussion

The main story is about the national Kurdish statehood.

For almost their entire history, the Kurds have been trying to form their own national state. Relatively successful attempts in this regard were made by them in the tenth century, however, this state could not survive. The Kurds are almost constantly raising uprisings against those governments whose territories are governed by the countries they occupy. However, such uprisings have never been truly successful. Perhaps the biggest breakthrough was achieved when the Ottoman Empire suppressed the uprisings of 1919. After the First World War, the Entente powers and the Ottoman Sultan concluded the Treaty of Sevres with the Kurdish government – the main document on which the Kurds rely in the process of substantiating their international legitimacy at the level of international law. However, this does not bring them any significant dividends. Mainly because there is also a treaty from 1923, which prescribes the division of the territory of the Kurds between Turkey and France (France at that time had a protectorate over Iraq and Syria).

At the time of its signing, the Kurds lived in their historical territories, which were part of the Ottoman Empire and Persia. The attitude towards the Kurdish issue changed after the "Arab Spring", when the Kurds, according to experts, demonstrated resistance to the Islamic organization, which distinguishes them from the American and Turkish military. In this region, the major powers rely on the Kurds, so the issue of Kurdish independence has already reached the international level.

In the autumn of 2017, Iraqi Kurdish armed groups successfully conducted an operation to conquer territory from ISIS in the area of Kirkuk and Sinjar. After that, they announced that they were going to hold a referendum on independence, although at that time the conflict was in an active phase.

 The results of such a referendum were obvious – the majority of Kurds would have voted for the recognition of their state independence, and those who advocated some other point of view would not have received any space for campaigning. Due to the obvious outcome of this referendum, it had no chance of recognition: the Kurds do not have international legal subjectivity, and the states in which they live have. Accordingly, it is quite obvious that the Iraqi referendum would create a precedent for holding the same events not only in the territory of the Kurds, but also in other pronounced national regions. For example, in Catalonia, Greenland and others.

Thus, the issue of Kurdish independence is one of the most pressing issues on the modern global agenda.  The Kurds have been trying to form their own independent state for many centuries, and periodically fight for it, but in practice they have not achieved significant success in this field in modern time periods ^[1].

At the moment, the state of the Kurdish issue is determined by the following number of factors.

— The first factor. The Yezidi Kurds live unevenly on the territory of other independent states. In each of these States, they have communities that are in different relationships with each other, as well as with the Governments of the States whose territory they occupy. Because of this, the Kurds do not have a unified political position even on fundamental issues. For example, the Iraqi Kurds are more of a pro—American education, while the Syrian Kurds are more of an education aimed at cooperation with Russia.

— The second factor. If you imagine Kurdistan as a single state, then this state will have a very low standard of living and a depressed economy. This problem is interconnected with various situations, and first of all, it is the behavior of the Kurds themselves, who are periodically in a state of local conflict with their neighbors, and therefore have not successfully built an economic base in their regions.

— The third factor. Lack of communication. It is due to the fact that Kurdistan is a mountainous area, and therefore it is technically easier for Kurds to interact not between Kurdish settlements, but with Persians, Turks, Iraqis, etc. This leads to the fact that the further time goes, the less pronounced the national Kurdish majority is.

— The fourth factor. Despite the current local economic depression, from a geopolitical, strategic and resource point of view, this is a very promising region, and therefore the assumption that the countries occupying it now will simply let it out of their hands does not look likely. Kurdistan is especially important in terms of its richness in hydrocarbons and hydro resources.

An important factor in solving the Kurdish problem is the position of major regional and global players who pursue their goals in the Middle East region.

It should also be noted that the defeat of the Islamic State terrorist group played a major role in bringing the Kurdish issue to a new stage of consideration. Units of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant intensified their activities in 2014 in the historical Kurdish areas of Hawija and Kirkuk. There they tried to establish their control, because it was at the same time a territory rich in terms of oil resources, but at the same time, there were no organized forces of a stable state that could prevent the establishment of the ISIS dictatorship.

Since ISIS is also not a homogeneous and stable state entity, their actions in Iraqi Kurdistan have not been stable. Some of the terrorists wanted to attract Kurds to fight, and some wanted to declare an Islamic dictatorship on their territory.  In this state of affairs, ISIS failed to enlist the support of the Kurdish elite and Masoud Barzani personally; the Kurds organized armed resistance to the militants.

The situation was further complicated by the fact that in 2014, official Baghdad was too weak to provide proper resistance to ISIS, and thus, the Kurds for some time turned out to be the main force of resistance to ISIS in Iraq, which in turn greatly worsened their relations with official Baghdad. By the summer of 2014, when it became clear that the Kurds were relatively successfully coping with ISIS, at least their territory would definitely not turn into a springboard for terrorists in the near future, there was increased talk about the possible granting of the Kurds the right to realize their state ambitions, which was reinforced by the fact that representatives of non-Muslim religions in the territory of the Kurds felt It is much more comfortable than in the rest of Iraq.

However, the successful resistance of ISIS was not enough to satisfy the "sovereign" ambitions. From a technical point of view, the seizure of part of the territory from an independent state by the decision of some external forces seemed too risky and dangerous a precedent that could lead to instability.

As a result, the Kurds, after conducting several large-scale operations to confront ISIS, managed to gain a foothold in the territory de jure belonging to Syria on the border with Turkey, but in the end, these territories were transferred back under Syrian control after Operation Euphrates Shield in 2017 due to fears of a full-scale invasion by Turkish troops. Despite the fact that the Kurds played a prominent role in the confrontation with ISIS and for some time were their main opponents in the region, this raised their reputation, but did not bring them closer to creating their own independent state. The real solution to the Kurdish problem is still in the hands of global internationally recognized players.

In our opinion, the key global players in this regard are Russia and the United States. Regional players treat the problem of the Kurds in different ways. Iran and Iraq officially recognize the existence of Kurds: the provinces of Kurdistan in the west of Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan, which is an autonomous region within the Republic of Iraq ^[2.]. Also, a significant number of Kurds live in three provinces of the historical Khorasan region, located in the northeast of the Iranian Islamic Republic ^[3].

The Iraqi Kurds have achieved the greatest success in their self-determination, today Iraqi Kurdistan is a subject of the Federation of Iraq with broad rights, and the Kurdish language is recognized as the second national language in the country. Kurds are widely represented in government structures, and the Kurdish leaders intend to resolve unresolved issues with the Iraqi government peacefully, but the Iraqi Kurds have not yet decided on plans to create their own state.

The Kurdish issue is one of the most problematic for Turkey. Since the signing of the Lausanne Peace Treaty, all actions of the Kurds aimed at creating their own state have been suppressed. Since 1984, the conflict between the armed forces of Ankara and the Kurds, demanding full independence, has been ongoing. Relations between the two sides are in constant tension ^[4].

The prospects for the emergence of an independent Kurdish state should be considered from the standpoint of viability, considering a number of factors.                                                            The first factor. If such a state appears, it is likely to be very unstable. After all, the Kurds are not a monolithic entity. This is an association of nomadic tribes, the word "Kurd" literally translates as "nomad". Accordingly, the almost primitive intratribal hierarchy is still very strong within the Kurdish community, which cannot yet be replaced by progressive social movements.

The second factor. The Kurds do not have their own statehood, which means that they do not have a developed socio-civil society. And this, in turn, creates additional threats in the already unstable Middle East.

The third factor. For the first decades of its existence, the new state will be constantly dependent on the decisions of regional and world leaders. The recognition process can take decades, and the way to freeze the development of a society in a semi–official status, such as in Northern Cyprus or Catalonia, looks quite real ^[5].

Summarizing all of the above, the prospects for the formation of a Kurdish national state: There are long-term and short-term prospects for solving the problem from the positions of both the Kurds and other interested actors.

For the Kurds: the long–term and ideal prospect is the creation of an independent state in the territories that are supposed to be torn away from four independent states on the basis of Kurdish self-determination. However, even in the Kurdish environment, this idea is understood by many as a utopia, since there are no clear boundaries, no stable ideas about what a new state should be, nor about who and what specific actions should be taken to get the situation off the ground.

The short–term perspective is more realistic. Its essence is that the Kurds should receive broader autonomy as an association, and their parties and other organizations should cease to be so harshly oppressed at the legislative level, primarily on the territory of Turkey, but also in other states [6

There is a space for bargaining here, and there are specific elaborated action programs on the basis of which substantive agreements can be built. These programs are spelled out in the political manifestos of Kurdish parties of varying degrees of radicalism.

Turkey, at least under the rule of R.T. Erdogan, is one of the main opponents of Kurdish independence in any form [7]. This position is so important that Ankara is ready to spoil relations even with Washington for its sake. The ideal development for Turkey would be the defeat of the Kurdish Workers' Party as an organized structure and the preservation of the Kurdish population of Turkey on the sidelines of political life ^[8].

The Kurdish issue has gone through many different stages over different periods of time, but it is currently escalating. The democratization and Europeanization of Turkish democracy in the accession process has prompted Turkish politicians to carry out more reforms to resolve the Kurdish issue. However, this process has completely ended, since the main obstacle is the nationalist approach in Turkish politics. In addition, far-right and racist political groups are already either in the government or playing a leading role in determining the course in Turkish politics. Nationalists within the judicial system intend to disrupt Turkey's accession to the European Union, and this may become an obstacle to the democratic process, on which the Kurdish issue also depends. [Bayir,D, 2013, 300-330]. Moreover, Turkey's accession to the EU has stalled mainly due to human rights violations.

More than 15 million Kurds live in Turkey, but they are excluded from the legitimate agenda, and their situation worsens every year. This could lead to a civil war in the event of a massive influx of dissatisfied protesters to Ankara.

Ankara believes that the Syrian Kurdish detachment is part of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and its military units. Although there is no hard evidence or arguments in favor of the Kurdistan Workers' Party controlling armed formations near the Turkish border, the Turks reject the Kurds and exclude them from their autonomy in decision-making. Nevertheless, Selahattin Demitrash, the leader of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party, won almost 10% of the vote in the last presidential election in 2014 while in prison ^[8].

It should be borne in mind that the reasons for tolerance of Demitrash before the elections are far from the democratic Turkish system, but given that Kurds make up more than 23% of the population and are the second largest ethnic minority in Turkey, it is not possible to abandon the ethnic identity and territorial security of the Kurds.

Turkey's policy is mainly based on Turkish nationalism^[9]; both the constitution and Turkey's policy are based entirely on Turkish identity. ^[10]. In addition, minorities either have to adopt a Turkish identity, or will be forced or face prosecution by the Constitutional Court. From a political point of view, ethnic minorities cannot function among Turkish nationalist parties. Kurdish parties have to face disagreements from all major Turkish political parties, as well as with the Turkish constitution and policies, which eventually ban and imprison their members [N.V. Vershinina 2016, Issue 38]. There are several Kurdish political parties that have been banned, and many Kurdish politicians, mayors and journalists have been imprisoned under the anti-terrorism law, which threatens democracy and worsens the situation regarding the Kurdish issue. Thus, Turkey is facing international criticism, including from the EU and the United States. Changing Turkey's parliamentary system to a presidential one gives more power to Erdogan, who is leading Turkey towards a new nationalism. Studies show that Erdogan's policy leads to a deterioration of the economic, social and political structure of Turkey. Turkey's international ties are weakening, the economy is in recession, and Turkey is distancing itself from democracy.

For the nationalist Turkish state, military power and security are more important than democratization. However, research and experience show that the Kurdish issue cannot be resolved militarily. The ongoing conflict between the Kurdish militia and the Turkish state is causing destruction and loss of life. The democratization of Turkey will solve the Kurdish issue and save many more lives, and this will eventually end decades of bloody conflict.

Syria is recovering with great difficulty after a protracted crisis, accompanied by a civil war and the loss of control over part of the territory. In such a situation, granting autonomy to the Kurds is not a step towards stability, but towards destabilization. It is quite possible that in order to avoid new rounds of internal conflicts, Bashar al-Assad will make some minor concessions to the Syrian Kurds in areas related to the use of language or the functioning of cultural institutions. However, concessions in the field of sovereignty are unlikely.

Iraq is in a severe crisis after a large-scale Western intervention and an external change in the power system. The country is in a difficult economic situation and is heavily dependent on the support of Western institutions, so Iraq's subjectivity in making such decisions is relatively weak. Much of the behavior of the current Iraqi government depends on the position of international organizations and major players in the conflict on the Kurdish issue.

Iran is an Islamic republic, i.e. it positions its state structure as the authority of Sharia law. According to Sharia, the state structure can only take place within the framework of canonical Islam, which Iran, of course, considers its version ^[11]. From this position, granting any autonomy to the Iranian Kurds, given the diversity of their religion, and even more so contributing to the creation of their independent state with the rejection of part of their own territory, is completely contrary to the public policy of the republic.

In the Middle East, Russia adheres to the principle of multi-vector foreign policy, wishing to maintain contacts with all those who represent a serious influence in the region.

 Therefore, at the moment Russia maintains contacts with various Kurdish associations and with their main opponents, without taking anyone's unambiguous side. Russia's main task in the Kurdish issue is to maneuver between interests and maintain its own influence in the region. In other words, promoting the formation of a Kurdish independent state is not in the interests of Russia in the near future, since this means radical support for one of the parties to the conflict ^[12]. For example, Moscow does not recognize the PKK as a terrorist organization.

Russia has a special relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan ^[13], which is endowed with the broadest international rights and powers. Russia became one of the first countries to open a consulate general in Erbil in December 2007. The most active Russian company in Kurdistan in recent years is Gazprom Neft, which has been successfully engaged in the exploration, development and operation of oil and gas fields, as well as the creation of new production facilities. The company sponsors the education of Kurdish students, participates in environmental, cultural, educational and scientific projects.

The United States and NATO allies regularly used the Kurds as a tool to achieve their political goals and interests, promising them support in their struggle for their own state, but these agreements were repeatedly violated. For NATO and the United States of America, overall regional stability is of the greatest importance, since it is precisely this state of affairs that allows the allies to control the most important oil market as a whole.

In the current circumstances, it is quite difficult for the United States and NATO to apply the usual tactics of using the Kurds to displace or establish the necessary political regime. The uprising of the Syrian Kurds against the regime of Bashar al-Assad would be in the hands of the United States, but they do not need unrest in NATO-allied Turkey, or in Iraq, where the Americans themselves overthrew the regime of Saddam Hussein less than 20 years ago.

Conclusion

To date, there is not a single influential force that would be interested in resolving the Kurdish issue in favor of the Kurds, if we mean by this the creation of a Kurdish independent state.

Also, the Kurds themselves are obviously not ready for this; Kurdish leaders of different ranks cannot agree among themselves and, within the framework of the momentary conjuncture, conclude mutually exclusive alliances and make the same promises.

For the modern world community, the most important goal in this conflict is not the desire to achieve someone's victory, because the other side of the conflict will feel violated and defeated, which means that the conflict will not be exhausted. It is necessary to maximize the peaceful existence of Kurds within their states by developing social programs for adaptation and integration in local communities. To motivate the States of the Middle East, through tolerance and humanism, not to discriminate against Kurds on national, religious, cultural and linguistic grounds, as this is one of the forms of human rights violations. To develop a socially significant project aimed at minimizing interethnic and interreligious conflicts in Turkish-Kurdish and Arab-Kurdish relations, to suppress various forms of racism against a vulnerable group, ensuring national independence and complete territorial security.

The Kurdish issue in the Middle East consists of a number of regional, religious, ethnic, political and economic contradictions that affect the interests of both Middle Eastern and other States. Therefore, the Kurdish issue is currently a complex, multidimensional problem of international importance.