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What happens when the most dangerous earthquake is Erdoğan himself? In light of the upcoming June elections in Turkey, nothing has highlighted the stark nature of Turkish ultra-nationalism and racism than the treatment of the Kurdish affected regions following the 7.8 Richter scale earthquake that hit early on the morning of February 6th. At the […]

Since the start of the 20th century, the discipline of Kurdish studies and the West’s understanding of Kurdish culture lagged behind all other ethnographic analyses produced on the Middle East. Consequently, the images produced about Kurdish culture and identity were often fragmented and incomplete at best. At worst, they were erroneous and demonstrated a total […]

Jin, Jiyan, Azadî (woman, life, freedom), a Kurdish slogan, is the leading motto for a revolutionary movement in Iran since September 16, 2022. It was triggered by the killing of Jîna Aminî at the hands of the infamously brutal ‘morality’ police. Since then, men and women have been chanting Jin, Jiyan, Azadî across Iran. This […]

The death of a Kurdish woman, Jina (Mehsa) Amini galvanized the diverse ethno-religious groups across Iran towards an uprising that has reverberated across the globe. Jina’s death at the hands of the Iranian morality police highlighted not only the plight of women as second-class citizens across Iran, but also the deeply oppressed and persecuted nature […]

Since the revolt of Sheikh Ubeydullah of Nehri in 1880, the Kurdish people have been struggling to achieve a form of political liberty based explicitly on the notion of Kurdish national unity.[1] Despite this continuous struggle, the Kurds are still dominated. This leads to an important question: why have the Kurds failed to achieve political […]

The genocidal campaign perpetrated by fighters of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) against the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar in 2014 brought the ethno-religious Kurdish minority in Iraq and Syria into the spotlight. While Yazidis in Iraq are heavily concentrated in the Sheikhan district of Duhok and Sinjar, adherents of the faith in Syria have lived […]

After a decade of enmity, the end of 2022 saw a sudden move towards rapprochement between Syria and Turkey. For Turkish President Erdogan, normalization with Syria serves three important goals for his leadership, particularly with difficult elections coming up in 2023. These are the eventual withdrawal of Turkish troops from their increasingly unpopular entanglement in […]

The year 2022 saw the rise of the plight and situation of the Kurds to international attention. From South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq, Basur) being repeatedly bombed and subject to drone strikes both from Turkey and Iran, to Northern Syria (Rojava) subjected to chemical weapons use, airstrikes and drone attacks and the Kurds in Iran (Rojhilat) […]

On December 28, 2011, the Dutch journalist Fréderike Geerdink was in Istanbul when the Turkish army massacred members of a Kurdish convoy transporting goods between Turkey and Iraq. Witness reports revealed during the investigation that it occurred with the knowledge of the authorities. The government of northern Kurdistan made sure that people remained absorbed in […]

The battle for Kobane was a turning point for ISIS, its first big defeat. It marked as well the beginning of the collaboration between Rojava’s revolutionary forces and the US military in the war against ISIS. The YPG and YPJ cum SDF provided the crucial boots on the ground to stop ISIS and push them […]

It has been broadly argued that one of the prominent and distinctive features of the recent revolutionary movement in Iran is the solidarity and unity of all Iranian peoples despite ethnic, religious, linguistic, and even gender differences under the all-encompassing umbrella of Jin Jiyan Azadî (Woman, Life, Freedom). However, the recent developments of this revolutionary […]

Dear KCS readers, After having launched a Kurdish language version, we gladly inform you that we have now set up an English language edition, as part of the Center’s commitment to developing its activities since its establishment in Arabic in 2014. We hope the English edition will provide an important platform for academics, researchers, writers, […]

The death of a Kurdish woman, Jina Mehsa Amini, on 16th of September has produced one of the most powerful uprisings in Iran to date. Jina’s murder has sparked an internal dialogue in relation to Iranian identity politics, which has also spread to an international level. As protestors spread to the streets of Iran across […]

Dear Znar, How are you? did you sleep last night in yet another bed in the house of friends who gave you a temporary place to hide? How long does it take the European Court of Human Rights to decide whether Sweden can put you on a plane to Turkey? I hope and pray that […]

Since the far-right government, Justice and Development Party (AKP), and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Coalition has tightened its grip on the reins of the Turkish state following the failed coup, two colonial projects have clearly dominated foreign policy. First, the “Misak-ı Millî (National Oath)” document signed in 1920, which sought a partnership with the Kurds […]

We at the editorial board of The Kurdish Center for Studies are incredibly proud to announce that we have officially launched the English version of the Center. The Kurdish Center for Studies has operated in Arabic since 2014. More recently, a critical decision was made to open the Center to both Kurdish and English sections. […]

With a women’s-led revolution brewing in neighboring Iran and the Kurdish women’s slogan of “Women, Life, Freedom” (Jin, Jiyan, Azadi) being shouted in Parliaments around the globe, the focus on women’s rights and equality in the Middle East has never been more prescient. In light of this, Dr. Shilan Fuad Hussain – a Marie Curie […]

Last month, the French Press Agency published a field report on the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine, which includes foreign fighters who have voluntarily joined Ukrainian armed forces in the fight against Russia’s invasion. The agency’s reporter met a former U.S soldier stationed on the front lines in Kharkiv, who sought help in […]

The Kurdish Center for Studies (KCS) recently conducted an interview with Dr. Thomas Jeffrey Miley, Lecturer in Political Sociology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. In the interview, Miley shares his expertise on defining “nation” and “nationalism” and elaborates on Abdullah Öcalan’s democratic nation and his reinterpretation of the concept of […]

“I don’t like having to shoot my gun. I wish there was another way to stop Turkey’s inhumanity, but there isn’t. We shoot to live. They shoot to kill.”  — A PKK guerrilla woman I interviewed in 2014 To paraphrase Arundhati Roy and Stokely Carmichael’s observations on the issue, non-violence is a piece of theatre […]