Massoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi self-ruled Kurdish region speaks during a conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 29, 2016.Hadi Mizban/Press Association. All rights reserved.Many Kurds are convinced that to right the wrongs done to them throughout their history of political oppression and partition they must rule themselves and, to go further, claim statehood. They have always been subject to political suppression and assimilation. They suffered great injustice at the hands of the states such as Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, each of whom has practised authoritarian policies against the Kurdish population and treated them as inferior citizens.
They were never granted real political or cultural rights. In fact, the Kurdish nationalist movements have been minimalist in their demands and they, hardly expressed this political will to form a state of their own. In most cases, they restricted their demands to calls for self-determination or political and cultural autonomy within these states, but they never called for secession. Current developments under way in the Middle East have prompted the Kurds in Rojava (northern Syria) and in Turkey to adopt a different political vision and demand the project of democratic confederalism within the current states.
The Kurds in Iraq, however, are more inclined to call for independence, a demand that once appeared only a gleam in the eyes of the Kurdish movement. So, what has changed in the last few years? And what are the necessary steps to achieve this project and the problems that surround it?
