Kurdistan and The Kurds A Divided Homeland and a Nation without ...

Chapter IV
Revolutions and Kurdish Movements
in Southern Kurdistan
Revolutions of Sheikh Mahmoud Hafid, King of
Kurdistan
Since 1913 Sheikh Mahmoud Hafid tried to make an
agreement with Kamel Pasha and Hussein Pasha, the
two sons of Baderkhan Pasha, to participate in the struggle
to free Kurdistan from the Ottomans control and establish
a federal Kurdish state. At the same time he sent several
letters to Russian officials regarding the political future
of Kurdistan.
In 1915, Sheikh Mahmoud led a large Kurdish force
into the area of Basra in the south of Iraq to prevent the
English from entering Iraq. But he withdrew from Basra
when he received information that the Russian army had
entered into Kurdistan. He went back with his forces to
Kurdistan and repelled the Russian army’s advance in
the sectors of Penguin and Rawanduz and forced them to
retreat into Iran… After that Sheikh Mahmoud made an
agreement with the representatives of the British forces
in Baghdad, after its occupation, to recognize the
independence of Kurdistan. So, they recognized the
government established by him in Southern Kurdistan
with its centre in Sulaimany, and recognized Sheikh
Mahmoud as a General Governor of Kurdistan. The
government established by Sheikh Mahmoud in Kurdistan
in 1919 was the first national state in the Middle East as
there were no national Turkish, Iraqi, Syrian or Iranian
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