As the situation in the Middle East continues to rage on with the war between the United States (US) and Iran entering day 7, President Donald Trump has backed the Kurdish fighters and said it would be "wonderful" if the ethnic group decides to join the conflict in the Gulf.
"I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it," the 79-year-old Republic president said in a telephonic interview to Reuters.
The development comes after reports emerged that Iranian Kurds are preparing to conduct a military operation in the Islamic Republic. The Iranian Kurds, who claim that their towns and villages were destroyed following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, are mainly based in northern Iraq, and according to a report by The Associated Press (AP), they are planning to launch a cross-border military operation.
The report further claimed that the US has asked Iraqi Kurds to support them. Though, it also said that the Iraqi Kurds are hesitant in joining the battle.
Who are the Kurds?
Trump's remarks have brought the focus back on the Kurds, who are an ethnic minority in the Middle East, who mainly live in Iraq, Syria, Türkiye and Armenia. Though they have a population somewhere between 30 million and 40 million, they don't have a country of their own. However, it should be mentioned here that the Kurds were promised a separate country after the World War I.
Over the years, the Kurds have raised their demand for a separate nation in the Middle East continuously. They even played a significant role in battling the Islamic Republic Iraq and Syria (ISIS), helping the US defeat the terrorist group in the Middle East.
The Kurds in Iran
The Kurds make up to around 8 to 17 per cent of total population of Iran. They had managed to establish a Kurdish state, the Republic of Mahabad, in 1946 but the Iranian forces had managed to seize it completely. According to the AP, the Kurds had faced a lot of oppression under the rule Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The oppressions increased against them following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and thousands of them were killed in the battle with the Iranian forces. But Iran has accused Kurds of being separatists who want to carve a separate nation from Iran. Now, many of these Kurdish groups stay in northern Iraq but it has only led to a friction between Baghdad and Tehran.
As per the AP, Iraq and Iran had also reached to an agreement in 2023 to disarm the Kurdish groups. An agreement has been reached "to disarm the armed terrorist groups stationed in Iraq’s territory by September 19, and then, evacuate and transfer them from their military bases to camps designated by the Iraqi government," Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani had said back then.
Coordination between Kurds, the US
As per a report by the CNN, US officials believe that the involvement of Kurds in the war against Iran will help in further stretching the Iranian forces, who they believe are already exhausted. With the US unwilling to put booths on the ground, Washington believes that the Kurds can take control of northern Iran. The CNN has also claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is also planning to arm the Kurdish groups.
"The president has held many calls with partners, allies and leaders in the region, in the Middle East," said White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday when asked about the Kurds. "He did speak to Kurdish leaders with respect to our base that we have in northern Iraq."
