The Kurdish Question: A left-wing vision |
In January 2026, Syria witnessed a military escalation between the Syrian army and its allied militias on one side, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the other. The agreement reached in February 2026 between the “Syrian government” and the SDF constitutes — regardless of one’s political stance toward either party, and despite all reservations and differences — a rational, peaceful step in the right direction. It spares the population from destructive military conflict. These developments once again raise the central question of the Kurdish issue and the national question in the Middle East.
This region has endured bloody national conflicts that have left millions of victims and displaced persons in their wake. The Kurdish people today are dispersed across four states: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The fundamental question remains: what is the possible solution? Does it lie in building separate nation-states, or in the struggle for a citizenship-based state grounded in equal rights?
The Kurds have been and continue to be subjected to severe national oppression. In Iraq, the brutality reached its peak with the Anfal campaigns and the chemical bombing of Halabja, as well as Arabisation policies. In Syria, it manifested through the Arab Belt project and the 1962 census, which stripped hundreds of thousands of their citizenship. In Turkey, Kurds were classified as “Mountain Turks” and thousands of villages were destroyed. In Iran, they faced complex repression, executions, and economic marginalisation.
Yet these policies were not directed solely at the Kurds, for the dictatorship that crushed Kurdish identity is the same one that oppressed all citizens. The struggle against national oppression is part of the broader fight against tyranny.
Confronting genuine oppression does not come through replacing one dominant nationality with another, but through dismantling the very foundations of the exclusionary nation-state and building a democratic state based on equal citizenship.
READ: France labels Syria-SDF agreement best opportunity for both sides, urges SDF to cut ties with PKK
In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the once-oppressed nationality transformed into a ruling power, confronted with accusations of repressive practices and organised corruption. The two ruling........