Iran’s Reform Movement and the Kurdish Dilemma

By Salah Bayaziddi

The Kurdish question in Iran has remained unresolved under the regimes of the ousted Shah and the Islamic Republic that replaced him, and has done huge human and material damage to the country. More importantly, it has been a major obstacle to the process of peace and democratization in Iran.

When almost two decades ago the military confrontation between the Kurds and Iranian regimes ceased, there was a naive assumption that new elites inside the regime had learned from past mistakes. It was hoped they eventually would find a peaceful and humane way to ease a decades-old oppression of the Kurdish people.

It was the emergence of the reform movement in Iran in the mid-1990s that was responsible for this illusion.  The main reformist leader at the time, Mohammad Khatami, successfully ran for the presidency on a platform of liberalization and reform, and during his two terms advocated freedom of expression, tolerance and a civil society.

There can be no doubt that the rise of the reform movement during the early stage of President Khatami’s administration had its momentum, raising some hope among Kurds for greater cultural and political rights.

In multi-ethnic Iran the early reformist leaders counted the growing demands for greater rights -- by the large Kurdish and other non-Persian ethnic groups -- among their most important issues.

The Kurdish region had played a major role in this so-called reform period in Iran. A variety of organizations emerged during this period, related to human and civil rights, literature, children, women and the environment.  This is strong evidence that Kurds were hoping to achieve their rights through nonviolent means.

The primary Kurdish demands were for greater economic development of their regions, a bigger share of the profits from natural resources and the unfettered use of their language in education and politics. During Khatami’s two-term presidency, the Kurdish statutes did not change. Hence, the reform movement failed to expand its populist base among the Kurds. Once again a sense of betrayal and a feeling of being second-class citizens within their homeland began to spread, radicalizing Kurdish demands.

Once again, during the early stages of campaigning for Iran's presidential elections in 2009, both ostensibly reformist leaders, Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, promised greater cultural rights for Iran's ethnic minorities. 

They were aware – as was Khatami when he promised greater Kurdish rights nine years ago – of the demands of the various ethnic minorities, including the Kurds.

It remains more than obvious that during the eight years of Khatami’s presidency, all the promises of greater rights for Iran's minorities remained on paper and no major changes took place. Therefore, it came as no surprise that the Kurds almost boycotted the second round of the reform movement and had no will to participate in the Green Movement and its popular uprising following Iran's disputed presidential election in June 2009.  

It is also worth noting that a bloody crackdown on peaceful Kurdish protests four years earlier had resulted in a greater level of anger and animosity toward the policies of the Islamic regime.

During President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's first term in the summer of 2005, the extra-judicial killing of a young Kurdish activist was portrayed as the peak of injustice against the Kurds. It ignited massive protests and demonstrations throughout the Kurdish regions, in which people were killed by direct fire at peaceful protests, and hundreds were arrested. But even those atrocities and human rights abuses did not evoke much reaction from the so-called pro-democracy reformists in Iran.

Even worse was the passive response of pro-reform and opposition media outside Iran, who were skeptical about supporting the struggle of an ethnic minority with a past history of separatist tendencies.  They looked at this as a “national interest” issue.  

These events resulted in the breaking of the last remaining ties between the reform movement and the Kurds, and eventually raised suspicions about the true intentions of the reform leaders.

Throughout the modern history of Iran the mentality of the government's elites has remained polluted by the old myth of "Kurdish separatism," and this has played a major role in suppression of the Kurdish struggle and the continuation of the Kurdish tragedy. However, there have been major political developments and power shifts since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, and the toppling of several dictators following the so called Mideast “Arab Spring” since 2011.

Today, many things have changed: The Kurdish question has gained greater attention at the international level; there is de-facto international recognition of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq;  there is hope of greater political rights for Syrian Kurds; on the horizon is a  peaceful resolution of a long-standing and bloody suppression of Kurds in Turkey.

All these developments are combining to turn Iran’s Kurdish dilemma into a major and urgent challenge -- for any government in Tehran.

Indeed, Iran is extremely troubled by the upheavals in the region, especially in Syria and Turkey.  In Syria, should President Bashar al-Assad fall, Tehran fears not only the loss of its most important Arab ally, but also the possible repercussions for Iran, including over the Kurdish question.  

Once these tremors cross into Iranian borders, Tehran should brace for an upheaval.