The struggle for control over Sinjar, a small district in northwest Iraq, has brought about substantial security and stability concerns throughout the Middle East. The Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) both leverage their presence in Sinjar to extend military support across Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Türkiye. Recent escalations, marked by confrontations between the US and Iran-allied forces in the region, highlight the broader risks of transnational conflict affecting countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. In this roundtable, speakers present a transnational approach to instability in Sinjar, which could include the PKK and the PMF, along with their allies, in a renegotiation of the Sinjar Agreement. This roundtable is a collaboration between IRIS and Chatham House with support from the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme, funded by UK International Development.
Speakers:
- Lahib Higel (Senior Analyst, International Crisis Group (ICG))
- Haid Haid (Consulting Fellow, Chatham House)
- Zmkan A. Salim (Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS) at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS))
Chair:
- Hayder Al-Shakeri (Research Fellow, Chatham House)