Selected treaty provisions, political organizations and Iraqi institutions show how Kurdish demands for self-government took different forms between 1920 and 2017. Reading the documents clarifies the differences between proposed autonomy, an elected administration, federal recognition and a bid for independence.

Stone facade of the Kurdistan Parliament building with Kurdish, Arabic and English signs and Iraqi and Kurdistan flags above
The Kurdistan Parliament building, photographed by Ahmad Zebari for Kurdish VOA; the Commons record dates the image to April 2022. This later institutional view does not show the founding election of 1992. [9] Ahmad Zebari / Kurdish VOA · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.

1920: what Sèvres proposed

Articles 62–64 of the Treaty of Sèvres set out a conditional sequence. An Allied commission would prepare local autonomy for specified predominantly Kurdish areas, with safeguards for minorities. A subsequent request for independence depended on demonstrating majority support and obtaining a League of Nations recommendation. The provisions also addressed possible voluntary adherence by Kurds of the Mosul vilayet. [1] These were proposed procedures with geographical and political conditions. The treaty never entered into force, as the British government confirmed in a 1983 parliamentary answer. [2]

1927: Khoybun and organizing in exile

Khoybun belongs to the interwar period. Jordi Tejel Gorgas’s research places the reorganization of Kurdish associations at Bihamdun in Lebanon in 1927. He describes an alliance involving intellectuals, tribal leaders and religious figures, and its efforts to develop propaganda and political contacts with states and other movements. [3] This corrects a common chronological confusion with Kurdish organizing around the Ottoman constitutional revolution of 1908. The organization’s formation, diplomatic activity and political programme should be examined in their own setting.

1970–1974: agreement and failed implementation in Iraq

A contemporary US intelligence assessment records the Iraqi government’s peace proposal of 11 March 1970 and Kurdish acceptance, while noting that implementation remained incomplete. [4] A March 1974 memorandum and its archival annotation describe the government’s unilateral autonomy decree at the end of the four-year truce. Mustafa Barzani’s KDP rejected the arrangement, objecting to the exclusion of Kirkuk and the limited scope of internal autonomy. [5] The dispute shows why the terms “agreement” and “autonomy law” do not by themselves establish that the parties accepted the same boundaries or powers.

1992: creating elected institutions

The Kurdistan Parliament’s institutional history dates the first regional election to 19 May 1992. It connects the vote with the administrative vacuum left by Baghdad’s withdrawal and the need to organize public services under difficult economic conditions. The election produced the Kurdistan National Assembly and the Kurdistan Regional Government. [6] Regional institutions therefore predated the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The same history records the civil conflict beginning in 1994 and the later Washington agreement, reminders that self-government did not eliminate rivalry among Kurdish parties. [6]

2005: recognition within a federal constitution

Article 117 of Iraq’s 2005 Constitution recognizes the Kurdistan Region and its existing authorities as a federal region. Article 121 provides for regional executive, legislative and judicial powers, subject to the constitution and the exclusive powers of the federal government. It also addresses regional internal security forces. Article 4 names Arabic and Kurdish as official languages. [7] These provisions identify concrete institutions and competences. The constitutional framework gives more precision to discussions of self-government than an undefined description of complete political freedom.

2017: an independence referendum and its ruling

The referendum of 25 September 2017 sought a change beyond the existing federal arrangement. UNAMI’s statement of 21 November records the Federal Supreme Court’s ruling of the previous day: the referendum and its independence objective lacked a constitutional basis, and its results and effects were cancelled. [8] This dated record helps distinguish the referendum from the earlier creation and recognition of regional institutions. Across these episodes, questions of territory, authority, implementation and recognition repeatedly shaped the practical meaning of self-government.

Sources and further reading

  1. Treaty of Sèvres, 10 August 1920, British Treaty Series, articles 62–64, p. 21: proposed Kurdistan provisions.
  2. UK Hansard, Treaty of Sevres, 18 February 1983: government answer on non-entry into force.
  3. Jordi Tejel Gorgas, The Shared Political Production of “the East” as a “Resistant” Territory and Cultural Sphere in the Kemalist Era, 1923–1938, European Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (2009), especially paragraphs 34–35.
  4. US Office of the Historian, FRUS 1969–1976, volume E–4, document 310: contemporary assessment of the 1970 peace proposal and implementation.
  5. US Office of the Historian, FRUS 1969–1976, volume XXVII, document 243, 21 March 1974, and archival note 2: autonomy decree and Kurdish objections.
  6. Kurdistan Parliament, History of Parliament: the 1992 election, institutional foundation and later conflict.
  7. Constitution of Iraq, 2005, English text, articles 4, 117 and 121.
  8. UNAMI, Statement on the Federal Supreme Court Decision concerning Kurdistan Referendum, 21 November 2017.
  9. Ahmad Zebari / Kurdish VOA, Kurdistan Parliament building, Wikimedia Commons; public domain. Catalogue date April 2022; embedded camera timestamp April 2021.