The last year’s upheavals in the Arab world have somehow blurred the sweeping developments taking place in a no-less important though less well-known strategic region that can be called the Kurdish triangle, comprising Iraqi, Turkish and Syrian Kurdistan. The net results of these developments may end up with the landlocked Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq in a position to create a corridor reaching the Mediterranean Sea. Clearly, if the KRG manages to secure such an outlet, its aspirations for independence will have received a significant boost. [...]

The Kurdish national movement is now crystallized in almost all parts of Kurdistan. The weakening of the relevant states, alongside the tectonic sociopolitical changes taking place in the region as a whole, may end up changing the strategic map of the Middle East. Forged by the Great Powers after World War I, the borders separating the Kurds of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran no longer appear as sacred or secure as they once did. It is therefore no longer inconceivable that the Kurds, who number more than 30 million, will take the opportunity of the fluid situation to erase the colonial borders of the 20th century and improve their political situation in the 21st century, including reaching out to the sea.

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(Dr. Benny Peiser)