‘[This is a] war of hegemony, a war for more profit, for more influence. We are against it. As a movement, as a people, we oppose it…This war brings no benefit or advantage to the peoples of the Middle East.’
Duran Kalkan, Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK).
The US Congress has produced a detailed document listing armed Kurdish groups, their numerical strength, allegiances and the potential ramifications of using them. Just days following the beginning of war on Iran, the Trump administration was on the phone with Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish groups about the possibilities of using Kurdish forces as cannon fodder to mount a ground invasion of Iran. Two days later Trump about-faced and stated they were no longer pursuing this tactic. A week before the war, five Iranian Kurdish groups formed the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan and have since committed to joining the war on the condition that US imperialism provides the air cover to open up a corridor into Iran from their positions along the Iraqi border.
That these groups look to imperialism to aid them in realising their national aspirations reflects the level of isolation and setbacks the Kurdish struggle has faced. US imperialism supported the Kurds in Rojava (northern Syria) in the fight against ISIS, then allowed the post-Assad Syrian HTS regime to attack Rojava in 2025. That year, the PKK, a revolutionary Kurdish organisation in Turkey, announced its formal dissolution. Although those such as Duran Kalkan continue to maintain an anti-imperialist stance, these defeats have weakened the revolutionary trends in the Kurdish movement and strengthened the trends which are willing to align with imperialism.
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France enacted the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement carving up the Middle East and, reneging on Britain’s promise of a Kurdish homeland, dividing the Kurdish people’s territory between four different countries: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Ever since, British imperialism has led the charge in waging a relentless war on the Kurdish right to self-determination: from gassing and bombing them in 1920 and 1924 to supporting pro-imperialist governments that oppress them, by, for example, approving £2bn worth of weapons sales to the Turkish state between 2016 and 2025, to unleashing the British police on Kurdish activists in London in 2025.
Kurds make up between 8% and 17% of the Iranian population. They were brutally oppressed by the pro-imperialist Shah regime before the 1979 revolution. This oppression has continued under the Islamic Republic which denies the Kurdish people their right to self-determination.
The RCG has always supported the Kurdish people’s right to self-determination, making it a central part of our political campaigning and we have consistently reported on their struggle in our newspaper. Only socialism can end national oppression and bring about equality between all nations and peoples. Socialists in Britain have a duty to uphold the Kurdish people’s right to self-determination. We must support their struggle by building an anti-imperialist movement in this country and smash Britain’s grip on the Middle East.
