The population of Kurds in the Middle East sits at about 30 million, higher than the population of some nation-states in the region. Kurdish people have a unique language and culture and occupy a mountainous region that overlaps Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Armenia. In most major respects, the Kurds have all the trappings of people that could be united under a single flag, and surrounded by a single border; except they are not.

The dream of an independent Kurdistan has proved to be an elusive one for Kurds, who have historically been denied the opportunity to pull themselves out of a repressive stateless limbo. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, France and Great Britain promised that a Kurdish state would be provided for, only to renege on this assurance when drawing the borders of modern day Turkey in the Treaty of Lausanne.

Since then, the Kurds have experienced egregious mistreatment at the hands of the countries they had unwillingly become ethnic minorities in. Organized protests and movements fomented with the aim of obtaining independence (or, at least increased autonomy) for Kurds are swiftly and brutally repressed. Turkey’s mistreatment of independence-minded Kurds has been especially severe. In 2016, Amnesty International revealed that in Kurdish-majority cities in Turkey’s South, Kurds were being subject to 24-hour curfews and were detained indefinitely if suspected of assisting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) elements. Further, they remained under constant threat from the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons by Turkish security forces against PKK fighters.  Iraq’s 1988 ‘al-Anfal Campaign’ saw the targeted mass extermination of over 50,000 Kurds in response to separatist activity. Even in Syria, Kurds have been denied freedom of movement, the right to speak Kurdish, faced suppression of their ethnic identity and random removal of their status as Syrian nationals.

The plight of Kurds is plainly severe. Denied the UN-mandated right to “self-determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development,” Kurds are adrift in cultures that are not their own, labouring under discriminatory laws that they had no hand in making, bound to a destiny they have no power to shape. It is little wonder then that Kurds are anxious to assert their independence and avoid the kind of brutalization that is woven into the fabric of their tragic history.

In an article published by Rudaw, Professor Akın Ünver of Turkey’s Kadir Has University points out how the Turkish approach to the issue is creating more belligerent “Scottish Kurds.” The Scottish, of course, are known for waging a bloody series of Wars of Independence against the occupying Kingdom of England in the 13^th Century. All resulted in Scotland remaining an independent polity, and costly losses to the British.

The frustration that statelessness begets appears to have fed into similarly destructive trends for the Kurds. The conflict between Turkish security forces and the PKK has only intensified in recent years as the Turkish Kurds, increasingly disillusioned by the draconian approach Turkey takes with the Kurdish independence issue, swell the ranks of the PKK, launching attacks on Turkish security forces that invariably result in the deaths of innocent civilians.

Clearly, treating Kurdish independence movements with such a heavy hand is a strategy that is yielding poor results. While the countries where Kurds reside may have a right to defend themselves against terrorism, they have a concomitant responsibility to treat the Kurdish question as more than a mere security issue. After all, the question of Kurdish autonomy touches on the fundamental, internationally recognized civil rights of a group of almost 30 million people.

The way forward for the Kurdish people and the countries in which they reside will be arduous and will require concerned parties to carefully pick their way through a veritable minefield of sensitive issues. Many, such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan deem a peaceful resolution to the issue “not possible.” After all, the area traditionally referred to as ‘Kurdistan’ would bite a significant chunk out of the countries surrounding it (especially Turkey).

Yet, as Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government prepares to hold a referendum on the question of an independent Iraqi Kurdish state, it is clear that it is time for a fundamental rethink of the issue of Kurdish independence and how it should be resolved. Kurds are evidently determined to assert an increased degree of autonomy, whether the rest of the Middle East likes it or not. How the governments of concerned countries choose to mediate their response to this assertiveness may prove to be the difference between peace and full-blown civil war.

Whether or not a unified and independent Kurdistan should be the ultimate goal of this rethink, the first step is patently obvious: formally recognizing and protecting the legitimate right of Kurds to self-determination. That group is known for violent attacks like the PKK seeking the institution of an independent Kurdistan, which should not detract from the broader Kurdish aspiration of increased autonomy, nor be used as an excuse for continued repression of Kurds or denial of their unique ethnic identity.

As the Council on Foreign Relations notes in a recent report on the Kurdish question, most Kurdish movements and political organizations are not agitating for the secession of Kurdish enclaves from their respective countries and their unification into a single Kurdish state. Instead, it is claimed most are agitating for increased autonomy within their specific countries and various civil freedoms, such as the availability of public broadcasts and education in Kurdish (a freedom consistently banned in Turkey). Protection of these fundamental freedoms could prove to be a crucial starting point in finally ensuring Kurds are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve, and the cornerstone of a lasting peace in countries where armed groups like the PKK agitate for independence.

Wolfgang F. Danspeckgruber, the founder of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination has said of the right to self-determine that “[n]o other concept is as powerful, visceral, emotional, unruly, as steep in creating aspirations and hopes as self-determination.” For the Kurds, who have struggled for autonomy for the larger part of a century, this is especially true. It is no longer possible and has never been morally justifiable for the Kurdish people to have their destiny decided for them. Increased autonomy for and cessation of systemic discrimination against Kurdish minorities in the Middle Eastern countries where they reside must come first and must come now. Without this fundamental basis, a long-term solution to the issue, even if it does not come in the form of an independent State of Kurdistan, will be impossible. The key to creating a peaceful resolution to this century-old issue will ultimately lie in giving Kurds what they have never had: a voice of their own.