ABSTRACT
The formation of the new nation-states in the Middle East following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire resulted in the division of territories which the Kurds inhabited among the three new established countries, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. A part of Kurdistan, which had been under the domination of the Iranian Safavids and Qajars since the early sixteenth century, remained as a part of the new Iranian nation-state which was established in the 1920s. Each part of the Kurdish areas was treated as an integral part of these nation-states which have since been attempting to impose the dominant ethnic identity of each country, i.e. Turkish, Iraqi, Syrian and Persian, as the country’s “national identity” at the expense of eliminating any Kurdish identity. Kurdish nationalism, on the other hand, has mainly been reacting politically and socially against the assimilation policies of these nation-states. The political reality of Kurdistan and the different policies of the nation-states towards the Kurdish question have resulted in fragmentary nation-building policies which are far from creating a united Kurdish nationalism with clear political objectives. 1
