Sykes-Picot and the Division of Kurdistan | Kurdish History

The core argument

The Sykes-Picot Agreement did not treat Kurdistan as the homeland of a people. Kurdish lands were viewed as mountains, oil routes, railways, frontiers, military corridors and bargaining territory between stronger powers.

Why it matters

Sykes-Picot did not create every modern border by itself, but it helped establish the imperial mindset that later made the division of Kurdistan across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran possible.

What was the Sykes-Picot Agreement?

The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a secret wartime arrangement between Britain and France, with Russian approval, for the future division of Ottoman-controlled lands if the Allies won World War I. It divided much of the Ottoman Middle East into zones of direct control, indirect control and influence.

The agreement did not speak in the language of self-determination. It spoke in colours and zones: British zones, French zones, Russian claims and international arrangements. This was not a map of peoples. It was a map of imperial interests.

The Kurdish homeland, stretching across eastern Anatolia, northern Mesopotamia, the Zagros and the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, did not appear as a single political unit. Kurdish regions were scattered across different projected spheres.

The Kurdish tragedy of Sykes-Picot

Kurdistan existed on the ground, in language, memory, geography and society — but it was not recognised by the imperial powers as a homeland with a political future of its own.

Kurdistan before Sykes-Picot

Before World War I, Kurdistan was not a modern independent state, but it was a real historical and geographic region. Kurdish emirates, tribal confederations, religious orders, cities, mountain districts and rural communities had existed for centuries across the Ottoman and Persian frontiers.

The Ottomans often governed Kurdish regions through local rulers, tribal chiefs and religious leaders. Kurdish emirates such as Bitlis, Botan, Hakkari, Baban, Ardalan and Soran had played major roles in regional history. Even after Ottoman centralisation weakened these emirates, Kurdish identity and local authority remained powerful.

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kurdish political consciousness was growing. The Sheikh Ubeydullah revolt, the first Kurdish newspaper Kurdistan, and later Kurdish organisations all show that Kurds were not a people without history. They were a people caught between collapsing empires and rising national projects.

How Sykes-Picot divided Kurdish lands

Mosul: the key Kurdish question

The Mosul region became one of the most important parts of the post-war Kurdish question. The old Ottoman Mosul vilayet included Mosul, Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah — areas with large Kurdish populations and deep Kurdish historical significance.

During the war, Mosul appeared in French calculations under Sykes-Picot. But after the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, British forces occupied Mosul. This shifted the future of Southern Kurdistan.

Mosul was not simply another province. It was the gateway between Arab Iraq, Kurdish mountains, Anatolia, Persia and Syria. It also became increasingly important because of oil. Britain wanted Mosul attached to the new Iraqi state it was building under its influence.

For Kurds, this was devastating. Instead of Southern Kurdistan becoming the foundation of a Kurdish state, it was attached to the British-backed Kingdom of Iraq. The consequences shaped the entire 20th century: Kurdish revolts, Arabisation policies, disputes over Kirkuk, the Anfal genocide and the later struggle for Kurdish autonomy.

The contradiction with self-determination

After World War I, the language of self-determination became powerful. Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points promised that non-Turkish peoples under Ottoman rule should have security and an opportunity for autonomous development. Kurdish nationalists saw this as a possible opening.

But there was a contradiction. Publicly, the post-war settlement spoke of self-determination. Privately, Britain and France had already negotiated zones of influence. The Kurdish people were caught between the promise of national rights and the reality of imperial bargaining.

This contradiction explains why Kurdish hopes rose sharply after the war. Kurdish representatives believed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire might allow Kurdistan to emerge as an autonomous or independent political entity. But the great powers did not treat Kurdish self-determination as a priority.

From Sykes-Picot to Sèvres and Lausanne

Why Sykes-Picot mattered to the Kurds

• It ignored Kurdistan as a homeland. Kurdish lands were visible on the ground but invisible as a national unit in the agreement.
• It divided Kurdish regions into spheres of influence. Kurdish communities were split between Russian, French and British calculations.
• It helped shape the mandate system. British Iraq and French Syria placed Kurdish communities inside new states not built around Kurdish self-rule.
• It made Mosul a bargaining object. Southern Kurdistan’s future was decided largely through British strategic and economic interests.
• It symbolised the wider betrayal of self-determination. Kurdish hopes raised by Wilson, Sèvres and the Ottoman collapse were later crushed by Lausanne.

Was Sykes-Picot the only reason Kurdistan was divided?

No. This is important.

Sykes-Picot was not the only cause of Kurdistan’s division. The Kurdish homeland had already been split between the Ottoman and Persian empires for centuries. After World War I, the final division was shaped by many events: Russian withdrawal, the Turkish War of Independence, British policy in Iraq, French control in Syria, Iranian centralisation, the failure to implement Sèvres and the victory of Lausanne.

But Sykes-Picot remains important because it reveals how the great powers thought about the region. They did not begin with the question: “What do the peoples of the region want?” They began with the question: “Which empire will control which zone?”

The Kurdish legacy of Sykes-Picot

The legacy of Sykes-Picot can still be felt today. Kurds in Turkey became trapped inside a state that denied Kurdish identity for much of the 20th century. Kurds in Iraq fought repeated wars for autonomy and survival. Kurds in Syria were denied citizenship, language rights and political recognition for decades. Kurds in Iran faced centralisation, repression and repeated uprisings.

Different states produced different Kurdish experiences, but the root problem was similar: a nation was divided across borders it did not choose.

This is why Kurdish history cannot be understood only through the borders of modern Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Those borders are modern political structures. Kurdish society, language, memory and geography are older than them.

Sykes-Picot did not erase the Kurds

It erased Kurdistan from the map of international diplomacy. The people remained. The homeland remained. But the imperial settlement refused to treat it as a national question.

Conclusion: a homeland treated as a frontier

Sykes-Picot was not simply a line on a map. It was a way of seeing the Middle East.

To Britain and France, Kurdish lands were not approached as the homeland of a people. They were mountain corridors, oil zones, military buffers, railway routes, frontier districts and bargaining chips. The agreement reduced living societies into coloured zones.

That is why Sykes-Picot remains so important in Kurdish memory. It marked one stage in the transformation of Kurdistan from an old homeland into a divided political problem. It helped create the conditions in which Sèvres could promise Kurdish autonomy, Lausanne could erase it, and the modern Middle East could be built over the heads of the Kurdish people.

The tragedy of Sykes-Picot is not only that borders were drawn badly. It is that a people were treated as geography, not as a nation.