Turkish and Iranian opposition is also always explained by reporters: Both fear Kurdish independents in their own countries.
Germany is home to the largest Kurdish diaspora in the world and the Germans are feted in Iraqi Kurdistan for helping the local military with weaponry to fight the extremist group known as the Islamic State. Yet the German foreign office has also expressed disapproval of the referendum.
In some German media, the referendum was praised. But often in these opinion pieces, the semi-autonomous Kurdish zones in Syria are also a focus, possibly because many left-wing Germans are admiring of the brand of politics known as “democratic confederalism” practised by the mostly Syrian Kurds present in those areas.
The northern city of Kirkuk is continuously referenced as a “flashpoint”; violent incidents or political stoushes that wouldn’t normally generate a paragraph in the international media are currently seen as signs of rapidly impending doom.
So how does the world see the Kurdish referendum? There is sympathy for the Kurdish desire for statehood; the Kurdish are not evil or wrong in expressing this desire. But there are conditions and it’s probably not a good idea, not right now. That’s the general argument.
What doesn’t tend to get as much of a mention in most shorter stories in the international media is any acknowledgment of the Kurdish region’s complicated internal politics.
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