Iran strikes another blow against Kurdish hopes for independence

Published: 19 October 2017

Last updated: 4 March 2024

On Sunday, Iran’s top spy went to the Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya to meet with the leaders of the PUK, one of the two main Kurdish parties. Within hours, their fighters began abandoning their posts

Kurdish dreams of independence delayed again (New Yorker)
Not long after, Iraqi forces took over the former Kurdish positions and a stretch of oil fields near the city of Kirkuk. With the Iraqi Kurds now split in two—the PUK on one side and the KDP on the other—hopes for an independent Kurdish state appear to be fading fast. “It was a horrible, horrible betrayal,” a senior official in the Kurdish Regional Government told me.

Battle for Kurdistan: Trump betrays a US ally, allowing Iran to gain the upper hand (Haaretz)
The US president could be striving to stifle the Shi’ite Crescent that's forming in the region, but all he wants to do is erase Obama’s landmark foreign policy

The United States serves up Kurdistan to Iran on a silver platter (Tablet)
BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY: We should not have abandoned Kurdistan, the only real pole of stability in the region

Photo: Turkish American News