In September 2017 the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held a referendum on independence for the autonomous enclave it administers in northern Iraq. Despite a 92.73% vote in favour, the initiative failed, both because Iraq’s central government in Baghdad refused to ratify the result and because neither the great powers (the United States and Russia) nor neighbouring states (Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey) were willing to countenance Iraq’s break-up. This failure weakened the KRG, which has since had to concede significant territory to central government forces, including the strategic city of Kirkuk.

Further west, in northeastern Syria, the outlook is equally bleak for the Kurdish entity known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, set up a decade ago, which is under constant threat from the Syrian regime as well as repeated attacks by the Turkish army.

But while Kurdish territorial ambitions may be thwarted by international power games, they are also complicated by rivalries between Kurdish leaders.

It’s impossible to talk about stability in the Middle East without taking account of the anomaly of the Kurdish situation. After the first world war, the region was reshaped, with control going from dynastic empires to new states based on ethnic criteria, such as Turkey and the Arab countries, including Iraq and Lebanon. On the map, the Kurds were a ‘people without a state’, divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran – countries which failed to respect, and sometimes even to recognize, Kurds’ fundamental rights. This situation led to numerous revolts that were in turn forcibly suppressed.

However, in recent years, the weakening or collapse of the Iraqi and Syrian states have given the Kurds new opportunities, not least because their various military forces in Iraq and Syria became the main allies of the US-led international coalitions, in 2003 against Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime and, since 2014, against ISIS. This latter engagement won Kurdish fighters and their cause unprecedented international support. It also encouraged the emergence of an autonomous entity in Syria following the mobilization of Iraqi Kurds, which led to KRG autonomy being written in to Iraq’s 2005 constitution.

Intra-Kurdish rivalry

Nonetheless, infighting has persisted, in particular the enduring rivalry between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Iraqi Kurdistan. This rivalry has even meant Iraq was without a president, and therefore a government, for several months: since 2005 the position – which is ceremonial but symbolic of Iraqi unity – has been held by a Kurd, elected by a parliamentary vote, under an arrangement between the parties which gives the PUK the presidency and the KDP leadership of the regional government. But after the national parliamentary elections in October 2021, both parties put forward a presidential candidate, creating institutional deadlock. Only a year later was the PUK’s Abdul Latif Rashid elected president under a compromise agreement between the PUK, KDP and other Iraqi parties.

But even with this crisis resolved, the KDP leadership still consider the PUK’s demands disproportionate to their electoral support. ‘The PUK doesn’t represent half of the Kurdish people’, said Mahmud Mohammad, of the KDP’s political bureau.

For its part, the PUK, whose electoral stronghold is in the eastern part of Iraqi Kurdistan (or KRG), is critical of the KDP’s control over the regional government based in Erbil. This, it claims, leads to an unfair distribution of funding. While the KRG receives 17% of Iraq’s budget, the PUK says too little of this money goes to Sulaymaniyah province, where the PUK has strong support and public sector workers, particularly teachers and municipal employees, often demonstrate over the late payment of their salaries. The two parties are also at odds over the control of oil production and the distribution of the revenues it generates, as the KRG has about 45 billion barrels of oil reserves (30% of Iraq’s total) and 8-10 trillion cubic meters of gas.

There is a more fundamental disagreement about bringing all peshmerga fighters under a single command. Since achieving Kurdish autonomy under US protection in 1992, two separate military forces have each controlled a well-defined territory, with Unit 70 loyal to the PUK and Unit 80 to the KDP. This division has proved disastrous on several occasions: in 2014, when ISIS attacked Sinjar’s Yazidi minority, the KDP peshmergas withdrew, resulting in the massacre of several thousand members of this community; and in 2017, when the Iraqi army advanced on Kirkuk after the independence referendum, the PUK peshmergas abandoned their positions, which led to the fall of the city that symbolizes Kurdistan’s oil wealth. Other ‘disputed territories’ have also been retaken by Baghdad. ‘With a reformed, united peshmerga army, we’d have a chance of survival,’ says Niyaz Barzani, the KRG presidency’s head of foreign policy and diplomacy. ‘With divided peshmerga units, we’re likely to face more defeats.’

Each party controlling a military force means that any political disagreement risks turning into armed confrontation, as happened in the 1990s. It also hinders the development of an effective administration that can rise above partisan issues. If either side loses an election, there’s a significant temptation to resort to force to maintain political dominance.

The leaderships of the KDP and PUK are undergoing some renewal, creating both opportunities and tensions. The KDP, a historical Kurdish organization, was founded in 1946 by Mustafa Barzani in Mahabad, Iran. Initially a pan-Kurdish party, it’s now seen as a traditionalist organization under the control of the Barzani family. When its founder died in 1979, his son Masoud became leader of the party and its military forces. He also led the KRG from 2005 until his resignation in November 2017 after the failed referendum, which he had initiated. However, he retains control of the KDP as a new generation of Barzanis come to the fore.

Being part of the Barzani dynasty

This new generation prefer western suits to military fatigues and have kept out of internal Kurdish struggles. But lacking the legitimacy of their elders, who fought against Saddam Hussein’s army, their place at the top of the political hierarchy derives solely from being part of the Barzani dynasty. Kurdish society has not questioned their legitimacy but there are concerns about the emergence of new power relations within the leadership itself. After Masoud Barzani stepped down as KRG president, he was replaced by his nephew Nechirvan Barzani and his son Masrour became prime minister. As the division of their respective responsibilities has not been formalized, rivalry and political tensions have grown.

The power struggle has been even fiercer in the PUK. After the death of its founder and historical leader Jalal Talabani in 2017, his son Bafel and his nephew Lahur vied for control. Together, they had purged the party’s old guard but then a clash led to Bafel’s victory and his cousin being ousted. The stability of Iraqi Kurdistan will therefore depend as much on the ability of these two parties to manage their differences as on how, within each organization, the new generation will exercise power.

Relations between Rojava and the KRG

But what about the relationship between the KRG and Rojava? Travelling from Erbil, the KRG’s capital, to Qamishli, Rojava’s main city, gives an idea of the level of animosity between these two Kurdish entities. What should be a five-hour drive in fact takes most of the day. The border crossing at Semalka – a pontoon bridge over the Tigris – is only open three days a week and access requires a special permit. This is because of the tense relations between the KDP and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which was founded in Turkish Kurdistan but is also represented in Syria by its local branch, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG).

In the past two years, armed clashes between the PKK and the KDP have rekindled fears of another inter-Kurdish war. These clashes are a consequence of the Turkish army’s massive campaign against Kurdish guerrillas within Turkey. Since 2015 Ankara has managed to reduce the PKK’s military activities by exacting a very high price, including the destruction of Sur, the old city of Diyarbakir. As a result, Kurdish fighters have dispersed to other regions inside Iraq and into Syria. The KDP has not welcomed their arrival, as it has long sought to maintain good relations with Ankara.

But Rojava’s leaders are less worried about bad relations with the KDP than with Turkey. Ankara continually threatens to invade all of northern Syria and establish a 30km-deep ‘security zone’ to settle Syrian refugees living on its soil and build an ‘Arab belt’ on its southern border. Many observers believe that what’s stopping this invasion is the presence of around 900 US troops, spread across more than a dozen bases. What if they left? ‘We’ve never severed relations with Russia, despite our military alliance with the US,’ says Abdulkarim Omar, the autonomous administration’s de facto foreign minister.

Saleh Muslim, the PYD’s co-president, met me in a complex near Hasakah to discuss the Syrian Kurds’ ability to face a Turkish offensive. Because of the US military base nearby, we were constantly interrupted by the sound of helicopters. ‘The Turkish army isn’t in a position to win against the [PKK] guerrillas in the mountains,’ he told me, referring to the frequent fighting in northern Iraq. When I asked about his forces’ prospects in Syria if Turkey attacked, given the flat terrain on Rojava’s arid steppes, he said, ‘We don’t have mountains here, but we can dig tunnels.’

Some Syrian Kurds, however, want dialogue with the Turks. ‘The Kurds won’t succeed in creating an independent state in present-day Syria, but let’s think about how to achieve stability instead of never-ending war,’ says Nasser Haj Mansour, director of the Syrian Centre for Research and Dialogue and himself a Kurd. He doubts Ankara’s willingness to make concessions, however small. Be that as it may, Rojava and the KRG remain more stable and prosperous than several states in the region: Lebanon and Syria are on the brink of collapse. And for these two autonomous entities, survival depends as much on the upheavals in the wider Middle East as on cooperation between Kurds.

Le Monde Diplomatique