Organized by Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Representative Office in the U.S. the conference The Kurdish Role in the New Middle East will take palce in Washington (at the National Press Club) on Monday.

Presenting the event the BDP in Washington points out that "the Kurds have emerged as crucial regional actors out of the rapid political transformations that have been sweeping the Middle East over the last decade. This trend has accelerated with the Arab Spring. The “Kurdish problems” that have been compartmentalized across the four nation-states in the Middle East are now more interconnected and more globalized. This has been pressuring Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran as well as global powers to revise their conventional Kurdish policies".

The organizers also unerline how "The Kurds have been viewed as an element of regional instability throughout the twentieth century. Recent political developments, however, strongly suggest that while the provision of justice for Kurds is essential for the restoration and maintenance of order in the Middle East, the Kurds themselves command valuable political, economic, social and human resources to contribute to the advancement of peace and stability for the states and peoples of the region in the twenty first century".

The conference will bring together academics, experts and politicians from Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the US to discuss the changing situation and role of the Kurds in the Middle East and foster constructive dialogue among conference participants as well as with public opinion leaders and policy makers in the United States.

The conference will be divided in four sessions, namely: The Kurds in a Changing Middle East, The Kurds of Syria and their Vision for the Future, The Imrali Peace Process: Can Turkish-Kurdish Relations be Remade? and The US, Turkey and the Kurds: Towards a New Vision. The fourth session will be attended by Selahattin Demirtas (Co-chair of BDP), Lincoln Davis (Former US Congressman, 2003-2011), James Jeffrey (Former US Ambassador to Turkey) and moderated by Michael Werz (Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress).

More info and full detailed programme on the BDP US Website.