In our article titled “The Kurdish Question Remains Unresolved as the PKK Dissolves Itself,” published on issue 16 of EKP (July 2025), we wrote the following:

“In the current conjuncture leading toward a new World War, the Turkish state is addressing both its own and Syria’s greatest security vulnerabilities through this process. Kurdish nationalists are now openly declaring that Kurds in Turkey will serve the Turkish Republic, while they cannot object to Kurds in Syria serving the HTŞ. In this environment, there is one point that neither Turkey, nor Syria, nor the U.S. is discussing: the PKK’s Iranian branch, PJAK. No one is talking about PJAK laying down its arms. Behind the scenes of the arms-burning spectacle, the PKK’s military strength appears set to be transferred to Eastern Kurdistan. Thus, the Kurdish dagger has been withdrawn from Turkey’s throat in the interests of U.S. imperialism and pressed against Iran’s throat.”

We can say that the events that have unfolded over the past year or so have largely confirmed our analysis. In this article, we will examine these events and analyze the current situation arising from the war in Iran.

Syria and Western Kurdistan

On March 11, 2025, Jolani, the leader of the HTŞ regime in Syria, and Mazlum Abdi, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—led by the YPG, the armed wing of the PKK in Western Kurdistan—signed the first agreement outlining the SDF’s integration into the Syrian state. The integration date was set for 2025. However, since the idea of resisting the agreement was widespread among the YPG rank-and-file and some of its leaders, and given the context where Israel was also targeting HTŞ, the SDF chose to resist the implementation of the agreement. HTŞ first began attacking the Kurds in Aleppo, then launched attacks on SDG positions, starting with Der Hafar and Maskana, followed by Tabqa and southern Raqqa. After the SDG withdrew, HTŞ quickly seized a vast area encompassing Deir ez-Zor and the entirety of Raqqa. Arab elements within the SDF abandoned the Kurdish nationalists one after another and joined HTŞ.

The SDF, now reduced to a mere front for the YPG, signed a ceasefire and integration agreement on January 30, 2026, ceding all the territories it had lost, all border posts, and oil wells to HTŞ, while stipulating that its military units join the Syrian army individually and that control of all civilian institutions be transferred to the Syrian state. Government forces entered Hasakeh and Qamishli. Thus, the existence of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria has effectively and legally come to an end. While the right to education in one’s mother tongue was not even recognized, the most significant gains for Kurdish nationalists were the appointment of the governor of Hasakeh and the Deputy Minister of Defense, as well as the return of displaced Kurdish refugees to Afrin—which is under Turkish occupation—and the Sheikh Maksud neighborhood of Aleppo.

Now part of the Syrian state, Kurdish nationalists took their places in the Syrian delegation led by Foreign Minister Shabani at the 2026 Munich Security Conference held on February 13–15. The leading states of Western imperialism had finally rewarded the Kurdish nationalists by granting them a seat in the conference halls, having sold out the cause of moderate autonomy—for which the youth of Western Kurdistan had been dying for years—without any resistance.

Turkey and Northern Kurdistan

In late July, a National Solidarity, Brotherhood, and Democracy Commission regarding the peace process was established in the Turkish parliament, and its first meeting took place on August 5. The commission began holding talks with representatives of leading organizations from various segments of society—including representatives of the Kurdish Hezbollah. On October 7, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the traditional fascist MHP who had initiated the process, proposed that the commission meet with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is imprisoned on Imrali Island. Before the meeting could take place, the PKK announced on October 26 that it had withdrawn from Turkey, and on November 16, that it had withdrawn from the Zap region of South Kurdistan. On November 17, Öcalan demanded the “right to hope” for himself—that is, to be considered to have served his sentence and be released. On November 24, one MP each from the AKP, MHP, and DEM Party met with Öcalan on İmralı Island. During the meeting, Öcalan stated that his demands for both Turkish and Syrian Kurds did not take precedence over democratic local governance.

Öcalan called for the SDF to lay down its arms and integrate into the Syrian Armed Forces by December 30, 2025. As soon as the fighting in Syria spread beyond Aleppo, he stated in his first statement that the conflict was undermining the process. The delay in adhering to the integration agreement in Syria was undoubtedly a grassroots and cadre initiative developed in defiance of Öcalan’s instructions. On the other hand, the stance taken by this individual—who is widely regarded as the undisputed leader of the Kurdish nationalist movement in Western Kurdistan, just as in Northern Kurdistan—was undoubtedly a major factor in the YPG’s surrender without much resistance to the first attack by HTŞ, much like a house of cards.

Öcalan, who defines his own status as that of the Kurds, simultaneously instills in the Kurds from within the “thousand-year brotherhood ideology” that the Turkish state has been perpetuating for decades, stating, “There can be no Kurds without Turks, nor Turks without Kurds.” Öcalan’s influence serves to transform the Kurdish nationalist movement, which regards him as its leader, into an instrument of Turkish imperialism.

In contrast, the demand for education in the mother tongue—essential even for the slightest illusion of equal citizenship—remains unaddressed.

Iran and Eastern Kurdistan

The war in Iran, which began on February 28, 2026, when the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran, has now shifted attention to Eastern Kurdistan. The Kurdish nationalist organizations in Eastern Kurdistan—PJAK, the Iranian KDP, the Kurdistan Toilers’ Party (Komala), PAK, and Xebat—had announced the formation of the Iranian Kurdistan Political Forces Coalition six days before the war, on February 22. On March 4, the Iranian Kurdistan Komala Party also joined the coalition. Thus, all the leading Kurdish nationalist organizations in Eastern Kurdistan have united. Among these forces, the IKDP stands out in terms of the number of supporters, while PJAK stands out in terms of military strength.

Following the outbreak of the war, the Coalition called for an uprising in Iranian Kurdistan and announced that its forces within Iranian borders were in conflict with the regime. In response, the Iranian state began bombing the Coalition’s positions in Eastern Kurdistan. Across the border, in Southern Kurdistan, reports leaked to the press that the CIA and Mossad were training thousands of Eastern Kurdish military units. In contrast, Iran declared that the crossing of Kurdish militias into the country from the Iraqi border would be considered a casus belli against Southern Kurdistan.

In fact, U.S. President Trump, who spoke directly by phone with IKDP leader Mustafa Hijri, seemed to be warming to the idea of using the Kurds—whom he initially described as “very useful”—as a front against Iran. On the other hand, the Regional Government of South Kurdistan in Iraq refused to serve as the spearhead for the U.S. and Israel. The reason for this is not the principled pacifism of South Kurdistan’s leaders, but the danger of being crushed between Iran on one side and the pro-Iranian Iraqi state on the other. Moreover, it is known that the YNK—one of South Kurdistan’s leading bourgeois parties, led by the Talabani clan—maintains good relations with Iran. When South Kurdistan adopted such a stance, other Kurdish political parties inevitably followed suit and declared they would not enter the war. In response, Trump stated that he would not use the Kurds in the war for the time being because he did not want them to suffer harm.

Given the current state of the war between the U.S. and Iran, where weapons more effective than the “Kurdish dagger” are in play, the Kurds are not currently participating in the war. In contrast, it can be said that a large-scale armed struggle has only just begun in Eastern Kurdistan.

An Internationalist Solution to the Kurdish Question

Neither the secret deals between bourgeois Kurdish nationalist party leaders and the bourgeois states that have oppressed the Kurds for decades, nor the fighting of Kurdish working-class youth against Arab, Turkish, and Iranian working-class youth can bring a real solution to the Kurdish question.

Events have repeatedly shown—and continue to show—that a bourgeois, i.e., national and democratic, solution to the Kurdish question, guided by global and regional imperialist powers, has long been impossible.

The only solution to the Kurdish question lies in the class struggle. The Kurdish proletariat must embrace the historical experiences of class struggle, including the establishment of workers’ councils, and rebuild class-based unions together with the Turkish, Arab, and Iranian proletariats.

Today, there is only one political party that both genuinely advocates for an internationalist solution to the Kurdish issue and opposes all forms of national oppression: The International Communist Party. Just as with the proletariat of the entire Middle East and the world, the liberation of the Kurdish proletariat lies in finding its party and, under its leadership, joining the class struggle alongside its class brothers and sisters.