The Kurdistan Region’s Position on the Ongoing War

PUKMEDIA

Dr Adalat Abdullah, Researcher, Academic Centre for National Studies (ACNS).

Written by Dr Adalat Abdullah, Researcher, Academic Centre for National Studies (ACNS).

Both the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have made significant political contributions to the Kurds in Iraq—contributions that cannot be ignored or used to justify siding with one party against the other. The United States helped protect the Kurdistan Region through UN Security Council Resolution 688, adopted on 5 April 1991, in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War and the subsequent suppression of uprisings in Iraq, particularly the Kurdish uprising.
This resolution provided the legal basis for international intervention to protect civilians, and it subsequently enabled international protection for the Kurds and the establishment of a no-fly zone over the Kurdistan Region. It significantly reduced the risk of attacks by Saddam Hussein’s regime and helped create the conditions for Kurds to administer their own affairs in the areas they controlled after the second uprising, which followed the first by five months. As a result, governmental and official institutions were established in the region after the Iraqi state withdrew its administrative presence—seeking to create an administrative vacuum and undermine the Kurds’ ability to manage public administration and daily life.
Iran, too, deserves recognition for its support of the Kurds in Iraq. It backed Kurdish revolutions and political movements against Iraq’s dictatorial regime and opened its borders to the millions of Kurds who fled during Saddam Hussein’s brutal suppression of the uprising. Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran officially recognised the Kurdistan Region as an autonomous entity and established political, diplomatic, and trade channels with it—channels the region needed to recover and gradually achieve stability.
From this standpoint, it would be unreasonable for the Kurdistan Region to enter any war between these two parties on behalf of one against the other. It also has a legitimate right to adopt a neutral position—so long as that neutrality safeguards its stability and prevents it from being drawn into agendas that serve the belligerents rather than the countries and regions within the conflict’s wider geography.
It is true that both the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran would prefer a supportive Kurdish stance in this war. Washington may expect the region to serve as an open arena for organising and directing Iranian opposition movements, including those based in eastern Kurdistan within Iran’s borders, while Tehran expects the region to refrain from any action directed against it during the conflict. Yet, the region’s leaders have thus far maintained neutrality to the greatest extent possible—especially as the Kurdistan Region is already facing an economic crisis, service shortages, and ongoing difficulties in paying public-sector salaries, alongside other political challenges. The region also aligns itself with Iraq’s official policy, encapsulated in the slogan “Iraq First,” which prioritises the interests of the country and its people and avoids involvement in wars that could devastate the region and its population.
The Kurds in Iraq do not wish to play a role in this war beyond supporting efforts to end it and return the parties to the negotiating table. Although the region has been subjected to missile and drone attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran or Iraqi armed factions affiliated with it, it has chosen patience and diplomacy over responses that would contradict its principled position. This stance reflects political prudence and foresight in assessing the war’s consequences for the political, diplomatic, and economic relations the Kurdistan Region has built—and seeks to preserve—within the framework of Iraq’s official strategy of mediation in regional conflicts.