The Kurdish Crossroads: Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria
Virtual, Members-only Briefing
Wednesday, May 27, 2026 | 12:00 – 1:00 PM ET
Recent hostilities with Iran have once again highlighted the role of the Kurds as a key player in regional conflicts. While seen as a threat by governments in Ankara, Tehran, Damascus, and Baghdad, the world’s largest stateless group of people continues to be considered by Washington as potential allies when convenient. As the region faces new waves of destabilization, particularly with the war with Iran and the new Syrian government consolidating its territory, what will the role of the Kurds be across the region? How will the disparate views of 30-40 million people spread over four countries impact dynamics in this volatile region as well as for their own quest for independence? .
Join us for a virtual, members-only discussion on Wednesday, May 27 from 12 to 1 PM ET for a conversation with Bill Park, Visiting Research Fellow in the Defence Studies Department, King’s College, London, where we will examine how today’s rapidly shifting regional dynamics are creating both new opportunities and new vulnerabilities for Kurdish communities and whether potential support from the U.S. will be strong and sustainable or easily abandoned. *
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SPEAKER:
Bill Park
Bill Park is now a Visiting Research Fellow in the Defence Studies Department, King’s College, London, based at the Defence Academy, Shrivenham, where he was Senior Lecturer from 2000 until 2016. His former posts include lectureships at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, City University, and Liverpool Polytechnic. He was also a Visiting Scholar at TOBB-ET University in Ankara, and an advisor to the Centre for Turkish Studies. Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, China.
He served as a trustee, council member and research committee member for the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA), was an editorial board member for the journal Mediterranean Politics, sat on the international advisory panel for the journal Turkish Studies, is an advisor to the Centre for Turkish Studies (CEFTUS) in the UK and formerly to the Turkish Heritage Organization in the US.
His media work has included pieces for the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, and he has conducted interviews for a range of Turkish, UK and other media outlets including BBC and Sky TV, CNN Turk, TRT, Voice of Russia, Voice of America, and Radio 4.
He is a frequent visitor to Turkey, as well as Iraqi Kurdistan and the US, and has presented at numerous workshops and conferences in the UK, Turkey, the US and elsewhere – for example at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC in September 2016, the Turkey Institute in Amsterdam in November 2016, Koc University in Istanbul in March 2017, University of Exeter, UK in June 2017, Xian Normal University, China in October 2017 and October 2018, CITpax in Madrid, Spain in November 2017, at the EU/Turkey Civic Commission conference at the European Parliament Brussels in December 2018, and the University of Dohuk, Iraq, in April 2019.
He has appeared as a Turkey expert on various UK and overseas media, has given testimony on Turkish issues to both houses of the UK Parliament – most recently to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee for its report published in February 2018 ‘Kurdish aspirations and the interests of the UK, and for its report published in March 2017 The UK’s relations with Turkey’. He has also been consulted on Turkish politics and foreign policy by the Cabinet Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the UK, by the US State Department, and by a number of commercial organisations.
THIS SESSION IS FREE FOR NETWORK 20/20’s MEMBERS
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Image Credit: Image by jorono from Pixabay
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