Open Access
American Research Journal of History and Culture
ISSN (Online): 2379-2914
DOI: 10.46568/arjhc
The 1926 Annexation of Southern Kurdistan to Iraq: the Kurdish Narrative
Abstract
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of many ‘nation-states’ in the region,
alongwith promises given to the Kurds following World War I, had revived Kurdish hopes for the establishment
of their own independent state. Initially, Britain made a clear-cut political and administrative distinction
between Southern Kurdistan and Iraq and reluctantly supported a local Kurdish government. By 1924,
however, the British had destroyed the Kurdish government and one year later, through the League of Nations,
arranged a referendum to provide a legitimate framework for the attachment of Kurdistan to Iraq. From the
very beginning, Kurdish leaders rejected the legitimacy of Iraqi rule in Kurdistan by insisting on their right to
self-determination and the establishment of an independent Kurdish state. This perspective has been shared by
all successive generations of Kurdish nationalists until the present day. Accordingly, the Iraqi-Kurdish conflict
has plagued the country since the 1920s with the incorporation of the Kurdish region into the newly created
nation state of Iraq.
