QAMISHLI, Syria — When the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, Massoud Barzani, called on world leaders to “acknowledge that the Sykes-Picot agreement that led to the boundaries of the modern Middle East has failed,” the Syrian Kurds hoped it signaled a step closer to federalism and that they would achieve what their counterparts in Iraq were able to.

Barzani said in a Jan. 22 interview with The Guardian from his office in Erbil that the international community is realizing that Iraq and Syria will never be one entity and urged the world to draw a new map that makes room for an independent Kurdish state.

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq is dealing with the Islamic State, which took control over several areas of northern Iraq and eastern Syria in June 2014. Meanwhile, the Kurdish-dominated areas in Syria have found themselves in the same situation.

Syrian Kurds are looking to achieve their national rights in the war-torn country as they make up the second largest national component after Arabs with over 2.5 million Kurds, 15% of the overall Syrian population. During the rule of the Baath Party in Syria, Kurds were subject to various forms of discrimination, while [today], the Syrian opposition has not been able to meet their national demands, which mainly revolve around federalism.