The withdrawal of the forces of the international coalition against the Islamic State, which began in August, was fully completed on 30 September. The last American and allied soldiers left Erbil air base, bringing to an end 12 years of presence and joint fighting against ISIS. The event was celebrated with marches and parades in Baghdad and Iraq’s main cities (New York Times, 30 September 2026).
In Kurdistan, beyond the statements by Kurdish leaders thanking the coalition for its decisive contribution to the defeat of ISIS, the prevailing feeling among the population is one of anxiety and fear for the future.
Who will now protect Kurdistan against drone attacks and missiles from Iran and its Iraqi auxiliaries? This is the haunting question being asked by residents, as well as by some foreign newspapers (The Times of Israel, 24 September).
Statements by Kurdish and Iraqi leaders asserting that their forces are ready to assume responsibility for security do little to reassure the Kurdish population, because Baghdad has so far been unable to identify and bring to justice the pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiite militiamen responsible for several hundred attacks against Kurdistan’s cities, just as the federal government has been unable to oppose attacks launched directly from Iran by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
The Kurdish leaders, who announced the unification of the Peshmerga forces (Rûdaw, 10 September), will undoubtedly be able to defend the territory against ground incursions, but they have no means of air defence against Iranian drone and missile attacks, and they cannot acquire any without the unlikely consent of the Iraqi federal government.
For the first time since the establishment of the Kurdish air protection zone following UN Security Council Resolution 688, a zone that evolved into today’s autonomous Kurdistan, the latter finds itself without any air protection whatsoever.
At the time of the previous American withdrawal in 2010, under the Obama administration, and until 2014, when Iraq was engulfed in civil war and Iran was engaged in negotiations over its nuclear programme, Kurdistan was not exposed to aerial attacks. It now finds itself alone, defenceless, vulnerable and abandoned to its fate in the midst of the American-Iranian war.
In an interview with the Financial Times on 27 September, the Prime Minister of Kurdistan, Masrour Barzani, described this abandonment by the Allies as “shameful”.
The withdrawal of American troops and their coalition allies had been agreed in 2024 by President Joe Biden in conjunction with Baghdad. In an initial phase, the forces based in Iraq’s Arab regions withdrew at the end of September 2025. Their departure from Kurdistan was scheduled for the end of September 2026, particularly for operational reasons connected with the presence of military bases in Syrian Kurdistan in support of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in their fight against ISIS.
Last January, Washington decided to ally itself with the new Syrian regime and informed the SDF that their “mission” was over. In the weeks following this change of alliance, the American bases in Rojava were evacuated and handed over to the Syrian army. The “operational” reasons that had justified extending the mandate of the international coalition had thus come to an end.
The dozen or so years of “brotherhood in arms” between the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and their Western allies was repeatedly celebrated with great emotion. It leaves lasting traces and memories in Kurdistan and among the Western soldiers, who were delighted to find a country in the Middle East where they were warmly welcomed, appreciated and loved.
Several countries, including France, Italy, Germany, Australia, South Korea and the United States, stated that their cooperation with the Kurds would continue in other forms in the future.
During negotiations on the withdrawal of American forces, the Iraqi Prime Minister had announced that the pro-Iranian Iraqi militias would be disarmed “before 30 September 2026”, in response to an urgent and insistent demand from Washington. It was a commitment he was unable to honour.
In its 21 September edition, the New York Times expressed doubts about the prospects of this “political novice hoping to succeed where his predecessors failed”.
The day after the publication of this interview intended for an American audience, he submitted a “six-point plan” to the pro-Iranian armed militias, providing for their disarmament by mid-2027. If all goes well! (Rûdaw, 22 September 2026).
Only the Shiite leader Sadr called for the “immediate” dissolution of all militias, since there is no longer an American military presence in Iraq to justify their activities. This influential and nationalist Shiite leader is regarded as fairly independent of Iran. His call will undoubtedly be heeded by his own militia, but not by the other Shiite militias firmly controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, over which the Iraqi government has little authority, even though it pays their salaries and military expenses.
The most important of these militias also have political representatives in the Iraqi Parliament who form part of the Shiite parliamentary majority supporting the governing coalition. In this context, Prime Minister al-Zaidi’s room for manoeuvre is particularly limited. Like his predecessors, he strives to perform a balancing act between Washington’s demands and Tehran’s directives.
Thus, in order to comply with the ban on flights to and from Iranian airports imposed by the Trump administration from 23 September, Iraq announced on 24 September the suspension of flights by Iranian airlines, while asking Washington for an exemption for flights to the Shiite “holy” city of Najaf, which are “indispensable for Iranian Shiite pilgrims”, who number in the millions each year.
Flights to Iraq’s other cities, including Baghdad, and to Kurdistan’s two airports have been suspended indefinitely, pending any lifting of American sanctions.
To escape this stifling dilemma, the Iraqi government is seeking to diversify its relations with other partners, particularly France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The Iraqi Prime Minister, accompanied by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Oil, made an official visit to Paris on 14 September, where he was received for lunch at the Élysée Palace by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Several agreements were announced on this occasion. Six memoranda of understanding covering sectors ranging from civil aviation to defence and energy were signed, according to the Iraqi News Agency (Rûdaw, 15 September).
The Iraqi Minister of Electricity, Ali Saad Wahib, signed a memorandum of understanding with the CEO of Total concerning “the sale of gas”. Total, which has already invested nearly $12 billion in Iraq’s oil and gas sectors, is considering increasing its investments to $16 billion, according to the Iraqi agency.
In a message posted on X, the French President welcomed the Iraqi Prime Minister’s decision to choose Paris as the first stop on his diplomatic tour and stated that France could play a balancing role. “Securing our energy supplies, working towards de-escalation and developing alternative routes to the Strait of Hormuz mean reducing pressure on fuel prices at the pump,” he added.
The Iraqi delegation then travelled to Berlin, where, in addition to matters of economic cooperation, the return to their country of Iraqi asylum seekers whose applications had been rejected was discussed.
Throughout these visits, Iraqi leaders stressed that their intention was not to ask European countries to finance Iraq’s future, but to invite them to invest alongside it in Iraq’s future.
“We are seeking long-term investment partnerships, not financing or aid,” the Prime Minister’s economic adviser, Mazhar Mohammed Salih, summarised (Rûdaw, 15 September).
Iraq needs investment in virtually every field, from energy to civil aviation and defence, but its coffers are empty. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has considerably reduced the oil exports that finance its budget.
The drastic fall in these exports has resulted in a $22 billion deficit in the state budget for the first seven months of 2026. During this period, budget revenues amounted to $30.1 billion, 77.6% of which came from oil exports. Expenditure, meanwhile, reached $52.5 billion, devoted mainly to salaries and retirement pensions, as well as various operating costs of the bloated state apparatus.
It was in this “constrained” context that Baghdad paid the August salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s public sector on 14 September, amounting to approximately $684 million.
Negotiations are continuing over the Kurdistan Region’s financial allocation in the 2027 federal budget. Baghdad is proposing a share of 12.67% of the federal budget. Erbil is demanding a share proportional to the percentage of Kurdistan’s population within the Iraqi population, namely 14% according to the latest population census, as provided for by the Constitution.
The Iraqi Ministry of Finance wants to recover the revenues from Kurdistan’s customs posts on the Turkish and Iranian borders. Citing the Constitution, Erbil wants to retain these revenues, which constitute a significant share of its budget. A 50-50 revenue-sharing compromise appears to be taking shape.
In domestic politics, the month’s main event was the “complete unification of the Peshmerga forces under the authority of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs”, announced on 10 September. An official ceremony held on 21 September marked the completion of this process overseen by the Allies.
The Kurdish self-defence forces are now placed under a unified system of command, training, administration and communications.
Discussions on the formation of a new Kurdistan coalition government resumed on 19 September. On 22 September, a KDP spokesperson, Ali Hussein, reported “significant progress”, although this did not lead to a government agreement.
Iranian drone attacks continued, albeit less frequently. On 2 September, coalition forces announced that they had intercepted 10 explosive-laden drones over Erbil and its surroundings.
On 7 September, three drones struck the Surdash Iranian Kurdish refugee camp in Sulaymaniyah province, causing no casualties.
On 14 September, three missiles struck a Komala refugee camp in Zirgwez. The following day, a drone struck a camp belonging to the Iranian KDP.
Nine Kurdish prisoners died in a fire that broke out on 12 September in the central prison of the Kurdish city of Kobané, while 17 others suffered injuries of varying severity. One of the latter, Mesûd Hemo Reşo, 35, a father of five, succumbed to his injuries on 17 September, bringing the death toll to ten.
The exact circumstances of the fire in this Kobané prison have yet to be established. A commission of inquiry ordered by the Syrian government is expected to shed full light on this tragedy, which occurred after the abduction and execution of a Kurdish fighter, Sipan Hizni, near the city of Serê Kaniyê on 10 September.
A former member of the Syrian Democratic Forces, he had recently joined a brigade of the Syrian army as part of the “reintegration” programme. His abduction and the filming of his killing by a group of Arab militiamen sparked a wave of anger and indignation among the Kurds, prompting residents to take to the streets of the country’s main Kurdish cities for several days in protest.
Several dozen of these demonstrators were arrested and imprisoned in Kobané prison. Faced with the threat of being transferred to Aleppo prison, the prisoners began a protest movement that degenerated into a riot, during which a fire broke out on the morning of 12 September, killing nine prisoners outright.
The former commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), General Mazloum Abdi, travelled to Kobané to attend the victims’ funerals on 14 September. “It is with profound sadness and grief that I mourn the nine martyrs of Kobané who lost their lives in the incident at the city’s prison,” he said, offering his condolences to the families.
He called for a transparent investigation to identify those responsible for the tragedy and bring them to justice, before stressing the need to prevent similar incidents through better coordination between judicial and security institutions in order to protect civilians and prisoners (Rûdaw, 17 September).
Recently appointed as an adviser to the interim President, the former SDF commander is now working with his colleague Ilham Ahmed on implementing the Kurdish-Syrian agreement of 29 January 2026, concerning the integration of the civil and military institutions of the former Autonomous Administration of Rojava into those of the Syrian state.
Together, they met the Governor of Aleppo, Azzam Gharib, to discuss, in particular, the arrangements for the return of Kurdish residents displaced from the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighbourhoods and from the canton of Afrin.
The return home of those displaced from the canton of Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Aïn) is encountering many difficulties. On 7 September, the Governor of Hassaké province, Nour al-Din Ahmed, announced that preparations were under way for the return of around 700 displaced Kurdish families to Serê Kaniyê.
Many of them will return to their villages, and some families will be able to return to the city of Serê Kaniyê under the supervision of a special monitoring committee to avoid tensions, because the occupants of Kurdish homes confiscated during the Turkish invasion of 2019 do not want to leave the premises or are demanding $10,000 in “compensation” from the rightful owners of a house.
The monitoring committee includes representatives of the security forces, the local administration and the governorate. Last August, after many difficulties, an initial convoy of 410 families was able to return to Serê Kaniyê. The second convoy is expected to consist mainly of 689 families from the Washokani camp (Rûdaw, 8 September).
Also as part of the integration and normalisation process, Damascus released 49 Kurdish prisoners of war, including two women, on 16 September. The total number of prisoners released since the 29 January agreement now stands at 1,200. The number of prisoners still being held by the Syrian army is unknown.
A few days earlier, Kurdish security forces under the Ministry of the Interior were deployed in the predominantly Kurdish province of Hassaké. They include contingents from the former Kurdish Assayish police force. The Syrian ministry intends gradually to establish police stations in Kurdish cities and towns.
Furthermore, on 7 September, the spokesperson for the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), Ruken Jamal, announced that Damascus had approved “in principle” a proposal to integrate the YPJ into the Ministry of the Interior as a specialised force responsible for particular missions. The proposal provides for the preservation of the YPJ as an organised formation, retaining its women fighters, commanders and institutional structure, without dispersing its members individually among different units.
The main source of disagreement in implementing the Kurdish-Syrian agreement of 29 January remains the fundamental issue of language rights, particularly the right to a public education system in the Kurdish language.
Since 2012, Kurdish children in Rojava have been educated in Kurdish from primary school to university. Many of them have only a rudimentary knowledge of Arabic.
While recognising the qualifications awarded by Kurdish educational institutions, including Rojava’s universities, the Syrian authorities now want to impose teaching in Arabic throughout the school system in the Kurdish regions, where Kurdish would be taught for only three hours a week, as an optional language!
From the first days of the new school year, student demonstrations took place in the main Kurdish cities of Qamishlo, Tirbespî, Dêrik, Amudé and Kobané. Some pupils boycotted classes. On 22 September, pupils, teachers and parents from all regions of Rojava gathered in Qamishlo for a large demonstration demanding a fully Kurdish-language public education system.
The following day, the Syrian President announced that Damascus and the Kurdish representatives had reached an agreement on Kurdish-language education and that ministry technical teams were working on its implementation. He publicly acknowledged the legitimacy of Kurdish cultural and linguistic rights. This remains to be seen.
Having emerged from the jihadist movement, Syria’s interim President is seeking to present himself as a moderate, portraying himself as open to dialogue both within and outside the country. This is what his Turkish and Qatari protectors constantly advise him to do. Under their auspices, he travelled to New York for the UN General Assembly, where he had the privilege of sharing a panel on peace in the Middle East with President Trump, the King of Jordan, Turkish President Erdogan and the Emir of Qatar.
Commenting on his visit, the New York Times, in its 23 September edition, considered that his position had strengthened in the space of a year, but that he still faced major challenges. Although he now enjoys greater international “acceptance”, which has enabled the lifting of international sanctions against Syria, the country remains an arena of confrontation between its Turkish protectors and Israel, which still occupies part of Syrian territory around the Golan, and Turkey, which, under the pretext of helping to train the new Syrian army, is working to expand and strengthen its military presence.
Within the country, the economy has been slow to get moving. The investment pledges made by the Gulf oil monarchies have not materialised. The infrastructure is in a pitiful state. Basic services are not being provided and, following the first few months of the honeymoon period after the fall of the al-Assad dictatorship, the population, severely affected by unemployment and the cost of living, is grumbling and expressing its discontent.
Long-contained social anger erupted following the government’s decision to increase fuel prices by 40%. “Fundamentally, people are just waiting for an event that will allow them to express their anger,” observed Le Monde (17 September), adding: “This is the first major social challenge facing the Syrian authorities.”
The latter have found an outlet in organising the trials of former Syrian leaders, at least those who were unable to flee in time.
“Syrians Want Justice for Assad-Era Killings and Torture”, read the headline in the New York Times on 3 September. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed and tortured under the al-Assad dictatorship. Many people were involved in committing these crimes. How can they all be tried?
Since Bashar al-Assad and those close to him cannot be tried, it is therefore often the “lesser figures” who are brought to justice. On 9 September, nine pilots accused of “war crimes” were arrested in Latakia, on the country’s Mediterranean coast. They are alleged to have been involved in aerial attacks against civilian populations and against cities and towns held by opponents.
Furthermore, in the trial of those responsible for the massacre of more than 1,700 Alawites perpetrated in 2025, around fifteen defendants appeared before an Aleppo court which, on 17 September, sentenced a serviceman in the current Syrian army to twenty years’ imprisonment. Two supporters of the deposed al-Assad regime were sentenced to death and life imprisonment. The court will rule on the fate of the other defendants at a later date (Libération, 17 September).
From its beginnings, Erdogan’s Islamist-nationalist government has needed domestic adversaries and enemies to mobilise its conservative base and set the country’s agenda. For a long time, this adversary was the secular Kemalist military and administrative elite, which exercised burdensome control over political life. It was initially challenged discreetly in the name of democracy, then, with the help of Fethullah Gülen’s religious movement, which had deeply infiltrated the army and police, through the spectacular Ergenekon trials that decapitated the senior leadership of the Turkish army.
After the army had been brought under control, Gülen’s supporters, believing themselves to be in a position to prevail, embarked on a trial of strength against their AKP allies, which culminated in the failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016. President Erdogan welcomed it as “a gift from heaven” that enabled him to launch extensive purges in the army, police, administration and media in the name of the fight against “Fethullah Gülen’s terrorist movement”.
Emboldened by the success of this vast wave of repression, which elicited little reaction abroad, the Turkish authorities turned against the other internal enemy, “PKK terrorism”. Anyone remotely suspected of pro-Kurdish sympathies faced legal proceedings, the Kurdish media were silenced, elected Kurdish mayors were removed from office and imprisoned, then replaced by administrators appointed by the government, while the pro-Kurdish party’s presidential candidate, Selahattin Demirtaş, who won 13% of the vote in 2015, was thrown into a high-security prison in Edirne, on the Bulgarian border. Paralysed by blackmail over immigration, the Europeans did not react, while American reactions remained very restrained.
Next came the turn of the main opposition group, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), founded more than a century ago by Mustafa Kemal himself. Under the pretext of fighting corruption, its elected mayors, including the highly popular Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, a potential presidential candidate, were removed from office and imprisoned by a politicised Turkish judiciary acting on the authorities’ orders. It went so far in its zeal as to invalidate the CHP’s most recent congress and restore its former leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, an eternal “loser” much favoured by President Erdogan as both an opponent and a whipping boy.
With the Republican People’s Party dislocated, divided and weakened by the departure of most of its MPs, who founded the New Party (Yeni Parti), the authorities are continuing their war of attrition and harassment against mayors from this political movement.
They are also continuing their policy of neutralising the pro-Kurdish DEM Party in order to turn it into a possible temporary ally in their project to draft a new constitution and, above all, to prevent it from allying itself with the New Party or what remains of the CHP in the early elections announced for 2028, in which President Erdogan will seek another term.
With the Gülenists eliminated, the CHP dismantled, the DEM Party neutralised and the PKK on the verge of surrender, the authorities appeared to be running short of visible adversaries. Now they are targeting the peaceful and harmless LGBTQ community, which they present as a “mortal danger to our family and traditional values”.
President Erdogan dreamt of a young and devout Turkey whose population would surpass that of neighbouring Iran and approach 100 million inhabitants, yet the State Institute of Statistics has recorded a dramatic fall in the country’s birth rate, with 1.42 children per woman of childbearing age in 2025, when 2.1 would be required simply to replace the population.
Sociologists explain this decline, observed in most countries around the world except in Africa, by the mass urbanisation of populations, the housing crisis, the high cost of living, women’s access to employment, anxiety about the future and other causes. For the Turkish authorities, however, the designated culprits are homosexuals who follow the Western way of life, do not start families and “pervert our moral and family values”.
Moreover, they act as “foreign agents”, since their associations and publications are financed by foreign grants. This last argument was invoked by the Turkish judiciary, which on 13 September launched “an unprecedented police operation against the LGBT+ community”, according to a headline in Le Monde, which noted that “since 2015, public discourse has targeted LGBT+ communities, increasingly firmly banning Pride marches, prohibiting the rainbow flag and prosecuting associations. But on Sunday 13 September, the expression of state homophobia crossed a new threshold.”
According to the Turkish Minister of Justice, the stated objective of this operation, launched in around fifteen cities across the country, is to “protect children, the institution of the family and social order”. The police operation, called “My Family Is Safe”, forms part of the “decade of the family” proclaimed by the Turkish President, who regularly describes homosexuals as “perverts” in his speeches.
An initial series of arrests took place in gay bars and at the homes of LGBT+ activists on various charges, including “obscenity”, “aiding prostitution” and “financial links with foreign countries”. Numerous social media accounts belonging to media outlets and human rights defenders, including Amnesty International, were blocked.
The Minister of Justice announced legal proceedings “against 162 suspects, nine associations and 13 companies in 15 provinces of the country”. The courts placed more than 80 people in pre-trial detention, according to Kaos GL, a major LGBT+ rights organisation that was itself targeted by police raids (Franceinfo, 17 September; New York Times, 16 September).
A demonstration took place outside the courthouse in Istanbul’s Çağlayan district, with protesters chanting “Long live the struggle for freedom” and “Despite hatred, long live life”. Around one hundred demonstrators and two journalists were detained before being released by the police on the evening of 16 September.
The New Party deplored “the use of the judicial system as an instrument of widespread punishment based on individuals’ sexual orientation and preferences”. In a message posted on X, the pro-Kurdish DEM Party stated that “the language of peace cannot go hand in hand with repression”.
Following the European Union, which expressed its “concern”, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, stated on 15 September that “mere references to family values or the protection of children cannot serve as justification for restrictions on human rights” (Franceinfo, 15 September).
Le Monde of 24 September reported that “police drones are monitoring alcohol consumers. Unmanned devices intervene at night, ordering people not to drink alcoholic beverages in public spaces, even though no law prohibits it.” This is another sign of the country’s conservative and authoritarian turn.
This religious conservatism and these professed moral values do not prevent people from unscrupulously doing business at the expense of other citizens, as demonstrated by the vast financial scandal revealed on 28 September, which has implicated individuals close to the authorities.
For months, several listed Turkish funds and companies posted spectacular gains. Their sudden collapse triggered an investigation into a sprawling financial fraud involving individuals close to the authorities, including Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya, the highly devout deputy chairwoman of the governing AKP and a former minister who wears the Islamic headscarf, her husband and the son-in-law of a Deputy Minister of Finance, who amassed considerable fortunes in record time through insider trading and price manipulation.
The 131 funds concerned managed assets totalling more than $14 billion. They were all placed into liquidation on 17 September by Turkey’s Capital Markets Board. More than 455,000 small private investors have thus suffered losses as a result of this enormous financial fraud. They have few illusions about the outcome of the “ongoing investigation” (Le Monde, 28 September; RFI, 28 September).
On the diplomatic front, it should be noted that Israel, which is in conflict with Ankara, announced that it was preparing “a legal case against Erdogan” for crimes committed against the Kurds and opponents, just a few weeks after a Turkish court issued an international arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “crimes against humanity” (i24, 28 September).
On the Kurdish front, there was a rare piece of good news: Amedspor’s successful run in Turkey’s national league. As Le Monde’s Istanbul correspondent Nicolas Bourcier noted, Amedspor has become the “standard-bearer of Kurdish identity and, despite itself, a barometer of relations with Ankara” (Le Monde, 24 September).
Through its victories, including against old and wealthy Istanbul clubs such as Beşiktaş, it makes the Kurds proud and gives them moments of joy and shared emotion.
It should also be noted that, as part of the “process”, the Turkish government, which wants to include the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in a disarmament subcommittee, has built him a 250-square-metre residence on the prison island of İmralı “so that he can carry out his mission in better conditions, receive visitors there and hold meetings”, according to Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right MHP, a partner in the governing coalition and the initiator and sponsor of the “process”.
Iran is becoming bogged down both in the war against the United States and in an economic and social crisis with no prospect of an end.
The painstakingly negotiated ceasefire concluded in June, which was relatively favourable to Iran, was sabotaged by the regime’s hardliners, who oppose any negotiation or compromise with the Great Satan and vow to avenge the assassinated Supreme Leader (New York Times, 13 September).
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran’s ultimate instrument of blackmail, soon revealed its limitations. The American naval blockade, which prevents all exports of Iranian oil and considerably reduces the Islamic Republic’s trade, is severely damaging the Iranian economy. However, the Gulf countries are managing to export their oil at almost pre-war levels, even though they must pay much higher transport and insurance costs to do so.
Iran occasionally launches drone attacks against ships sailing along the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, and the American navy retaliates by attacking Iranian oil tankers (New York Times, 5 September; Le Figaro, 9 September). Iran responds by bombarding American bases in Jordan and the Gulf with missiles and drones (Le Monde, 9 September).
This routine of a low-intensity, intermittent war is continuing amid a certain indifference on the part of international public opinion.
Cornered, Iran is brandishing the threat of military escalation to break the American naval blockade (Le Monde, 8 September). One day, the American President pretends to ignore these threats and predicts that the war will end after the American elections of 3 November (Le Figaro, 9 September).
On another day, speaking at the UN, he states that he has not yet decided whether to reach a “deal” with Tehran or, if it refuses, to “annihilate Iran” (Le Monde, 23 September; New York Times, 22 September). His Iranian counterpart, Massoud Pezeshkian, responds from the same UN rostrum the following day that Iran will not be intimidated and will not abandon its civilian nuclear programme, while leaving the door open to a diplomatic agreement with Washington (New York Times, 23 September).
On 24 September in New York, the Iranian Foreign Minister proposed a “seven-day plan” to end the war. Under this plan, if certain conditions are met, the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened to shipping after a seven-day ceasefire, and negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme could begin.
At his press conference, Abbas Araghchi stated that the plan had been communicated to the American side through mediators and that it would be desirable to reach an agreement before the November elections.
Questioned by the New York Times (24 September), an American official familiar with the matter stated that “positive and constructive” discussions with Iran through mediators were continuing, but that the United States would not rush into concluding an agreement. A few days later, President Trump formally rejected the Iranian proposal.
On 23 September, the American decision to isolate Iran further by banning all flights to and from the country came into force. With the exception of China, which considered the decision “illegal”, almost every country in the world complied with the ban in order to avoid American reprisals.
Even Iraq, despite being very close to the Islamic Republic, had to announce the suspension of Iranian flights, while attempting to obtain an exemption for flights serving the Shiite “holy” city of Najaf, where the mausoleum of Imam Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law, who is venerated by Shiites, is located, so as not to deprive millions of Iranian Shiites of the opportunity to make the pilgrimage.
Iran’s attempt to reach an agreement with Oman and the other Gulf countries on managing the Strait of Hormuz was unsuccessful. A meeting scheduled for this purpose in Oman on 14 September was postponed until “a later date”, undoubtedly under American pressure (Le Monde, 14 September).
Iran’s only meagre consolation was the military victory of its Houthi allies in Yemen, who succeeded in capturing the coastal city of Mocha and could use it to threaten shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait (Le Monde, 10 September).
Like Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis are armed, equipped and financed by the Iranian regime, but Tehran flatly denies any involvement in the resumption of the war in Yemen by its Houthi allies.
As for Iran’s economic and social crisis, it is unfolding out of sight and amid media silence. “Prices are rising every hour”, the economy is being strangled and demonstrations are resuming, France 24’s correspondent reported on 10 September.
But there is no large-scale popular revolt on the horizon, according to an analyst in the French daily L’Opinion of 7 September. “Four years after Mahsa Amini’s death, Iranians no longer believe the regime can be overthrown,” stated a Franceinfo reporter (13 September).
The anniversary was nevertheless commemorated through a series of actions, particularly in Kurdistan, where a general strike called by Kurdish political parties was widely observed despite the heavy military and police presence in Kurdish cities and the pervasive repression.
On the occasion of this anniversary, Amnesty International published an investigation of more than 1,000 pages documenting killings, torture, rape and enforced disappearances perpetrated by the Iranian authorities, including against children, since the death of Jina Mahsa Amini in September 2022.
The NGO implicates 87 Iranian officials, including the current commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Ahmad Vahidi, in “crimes against humanity” committed during the repression of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. The report stresses that the repression of the latest popular protest movement in January 2026 followed the same pattern, but on an “even more deadly and staggering” scale (France 24, 16 September).
Another major human rights NGO, Human Rights Watch, states that Iran executed nearly 60 demonstrators and political dissidents in five months and notes that the pace of political executions has accelerated since the beginning of the war between the Islamic Republic and the United States. Those targeted include people who took part in last January’s anti-government demonstrations (Franceinfo, 10 September). “The authorities’ message is clearly that any protest will be brutally suppressed, whether by bullets in the street or through public executions resulting from sham trials,” the NGO’s investigation concludes.
On 30 September, two other demonstrators were executed in Mashhad for their participation “in the riots” against the regime last January. Ali Hemmati and Majid Nikandish were executed at dawn in the courtyard of the prison where they were being held, after the Iranian Supreme Court rejected their appeal (Rûdaw, 30 September).
On 24 September, the Ahwaz Revolutionary Court sentenced nine Arab women activists to five years in prison each for “propaganda against the state, undermining state security”, and other charges (Rûdaw, 24 September).
In Iranian Kurdistan, according to information collected and documented by several NGOs, including Hengaw and the Washington Kurdish Institute, at least two Kurdish prisoners were executed in September.
Farzad Ahmadpour, a 35-year-old man from Saqqez and father of two, was executed in Jiroft prison on 13 September. Two days later, Fereydoun Akbarzadeh, from Sarableh, was executed in Ilam Central Prison under qisas, the principle of retribution, after being convicted of murder. He had been transferred to solitary confinement shortly before his execution.
Political prisoner Yousef Ahmadi also remained at risk of execution. In September, one of his two death sentences was overturned and replaced with a ten-year prison sentence and an order to pay financial compensation to the victim’s family. However, a second death sentence, related to a charge of baghi, or “armed rebellion”, remained in force. Ahmadi has been imprisoned for more than six years.
On 17 September, Ali Osloub, aged 35 and from Piranshahr, was shot dead while riding a motorcycle near Jaldian. The Ministry of Intelligence subsequently presented the person killed during this operation as having links to a Kurdish opposition party.
Kurdish porters in the border regions also continued to be exposed to deadly violence. On 23 September, Mohammad Seddiq Owli, aged 28, a father of two from Salas-e Babajani, was shot dead near the Sheikh Saleh border area.
Previously, Arvin Azizi, aged 20 and from Saqqez, had been seriously wounded by gunfire while working as a kolbar, or porter, near Baneh.
During the same week, four United Nations human rights experts called on the Iranian authorities to end the unlawful use of lethal force against Kurdish kolbars and Baluch fuel carriers.
In their statement of 23 September, they cited reports that at least twelve kolbars had been shot dead since the beginning of 2026. They also called for independent investigations into deaths attributable to the security forces.
The month’s main political event occurred on 16 September, when shopkeepers and bazaar merchants participated in a general strike in several Kurdish cities, marking the fourth anniversary of Jîna Amini’s death and the beginning of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadî protests, meaning Woman, Life, Freedom.
Following the call issued by a coalition of Iranian Kurdish political parties, businesses closed in Saqqez, Senna, Mahabad, Bukan, Shinno, Divandarreh, Marivan, Kamyaran and Qorveh. The security forces strengthened their presence in several cities, while some shopkeepers received warnings that their businesses would be closed by administrative order if they participated in the strike.
The repression had begun even before the action. In Senna, two shopkeepers, Jalal Khoda-Moradi, aged 46, and Mohsen Hossein-Panahi, aged 37, were summoned after being ordered to sign undertakings not to close their businesses. They were arrested on 14 September after reporting to the authorities.
Shinno also became a centre of arrests. Abdolbaset Bapiri, Soran Bayazidi, Rahim Arshadi, Reza Rashidnia and Fakhraddin Ebrahimi were among the residents detained during searches conducted around 15 September. Ebrahimi is the son of Mohieddin Ebrahimi, an executed Kurdish political prisoner. Ahmad Hajipour was arrested the following day. In Mahabad, civil society activist and martial arts coach Hiwa Abdollahi was also detained. In total, seven Kurds were recorded among those detained in Shinno and Mahabad.
The pressure continued after 16 September. The security services summoned or arrested shopkeepers who had participated in the strike, while businesses in Senna and Saqqez were temporarily closed. In Kamyaran, several shopkeepers were summoned and forced to sign undertakings prohibiting them from participating in future strikes. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, at least six of them were arrested.
Dozens of Kurdish shopkeepers were thus subjected to summonses, arrests or the closure of their establishments.
Once again, children were subjected to pressure from the security services. In Shinno, the authorities summoned and questioned at least twenty Kurdish children under the age of 18 because of their activities on social media. Their telephones and electronic devices were confiscated. They were reportedly questioned over accusations of “propaganda against the state” before being released on bail.
The most serious case concerns Arjin Jondi, a 16-year-old boy from the village of Kuper, near Piranshahr. He was arrested on 12 September following the death of Eslam Kak-Darvishi, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). A group calling itself Khori Hiwa, or “Sun of Hope”, had claimed responsibility for the attack. The authorities subsequently broadcast a video containing statements attributed to Jondi. The teenager was still being denied access to a lawyer and family visits, while concerns were growing that he might be prosecuted in a case carrying the death penalty.
The arrests extended well beyond the commemorative strike. In the Margavar region of Urmia, Farhang Dehghan, Majid Ebtehaj, Vahed Shabani, Behdar Asadi and Saleh Darboubeh-Chichak were arrested during operations carried out around 16 and 17 September, then transferred to undisclosed places of detention.
Mehran Ebrahimzadeh was arrested at his workplace in Mahabad, while Mohammad Mohammadzadeh, aged 37 and the father of twins, was detained in Divandarreh.
In Baneh, Ministry of Intelligence forces arrested civil society activist Azad Rahmati on 23 September following a search of the family home. On the same day, cultural activist Yousef Rahimi, president of the Hazha Cultural and Literary Association, was arrested and his home searched. Personal belongings, including books and computer equipment, were confiscated.
