Editor's note: 2019 is a dramatic year, featuring events that changed the fates of millions around the world. As we move towards 2020, it's time to look back at the past 12 months and reflect on 10 of the most influential topics in China and beyond. Here is the first piece in our year-end series: the Kurds in the Middle East. Guy Burton is an adjunct professor at Vesalius College, Brussels, where he teaches global governance. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The past year has been a tough one for the Kurds in the Middle East. Furthermore, it is not evident that the next year will be a better one for them either.

Perhaps the visible example of Kurdish misfortune over the past year happened in early October. U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he was pulling back the small contingent of American forces from the autonomous Kurdish region known as Rojava in northeast Syria.

The American pullback exposed the Kurds to Turkey, which launched a military offensive into Rojava. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed the move was to target and eliminate terrorists in the area and establish a buffer zone that would be 20km wide and 300km long.

The main terrorist threat in the region had been the jihadist group, ISIL, which had gained control of large parts of eastern Syria and western Iraq since 2014. But following Kurdish action on the ground alongside American air support, that threat had been beaten back.

Rather, what irked Erdogan were the Kurds themselves. Since the start of the Syrian civil war, they had acquired de facto control in northern Syria. If that wasn't bad enough, the main Kurdish group in Rojava, the YPG, was seen by the Turks as an extension of the Turkey-based Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which is viewed as a terrorist organisation.

The Turkish offensive has resulted in around 500 Kurdish casualties alongside the displacement of around 200,000 civilians, many of them away from the border and some across the border into the Kurdish region of Iraq. Part of Erdogan's plan was to eliminate the Kurdish challenge by resettling many Arab refugees from the Syrian conflict into the cleared territory in Syria.

The Turkish action developed its own momentum. The retreating American troops bore the brunt of widespread Kurdish anger while Russia took advantage, brokering a ceasefire with Turkey, occupying former American-held installations and deploying joint patrols in the afflicted zone.

For now, the Kurds' prospects in Syria are limited. On one side, their previous autonomy has now been largely curtailed while on the other side, they are now obliged to look for other external partners. That has included contact with Turkey's Gulf rivals, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – although the Kurds will be wary of becoming proxies in someone else's conflict.

The constraints placed on Syria's Kurds have been experienced in other, less violent ways in Turkey as well. There, the government has taken a hard line against the Kurdish political movement which represents the 12 million Kurds in Turkey today.

Back in 2015 a peace process was taking place between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Kurdistan Workers' Party ( PKK). That same year the People's Democratic Party (HDP) which participated in the process crossed the 10 percent threshold in the national elections that year to gain representation in parliament.

But following a return to violence from mid-2015, the Turkish government clamped down heavily on the Kurdish political movement. They dismissed and prosecuted dozens of HDP mayors, many of whom ended up in prison.

Since then Kurdish politicians and society have continued to face considerable pressure from Turkey's government. It has become harder for them to organize and demonstrate, leading to HDP leaders to call for early national elections. While the chance of that happening is remote, it would not serve them well. For now, Erdogan and the AKP have grown more popular as a result of Turkey's action in Syria, bucking falling support, including in local elections earlier this year.

Pressure against the Kurds is also evident in Iran, where six million live. As in Turkey, Iran's government has moved to contain any challenge from the Kurdish population. In mid-November, the government announced a three-fold increase in fuel prices, which sparked large protests across the country. The protests encompassed widespread economic grievances as well as dissatisfaction with limited political representation.

The government moved quickly to curb the protests by shutting down the internet and increasing media control. Repression of the protests has led to more than 300 deaths according to Amnesty. Of those, around 20 occurred in the Kurdish province of Kermanshah, which has also experienced ongoing action by security forces, including the arrest and detainment of at least 250 people.

While Kurds participated in the recent protests in Iran, they have largely avoided the concurrent ones taking place in Iraq next door. Since the beginning of October, protests have taken place against state corruption, American and Iranian influence, few jobs and low incomes. The bulk of those protests have taken place in the Arab parts of Iraq, resulting in nearly 500 dead following state repression.

Part of the reason that Iraq's six million Kurds have managed to stand apart from the wider protests is down to their sense of being apart. For one, they do not identify closely with Arab Iraq. They live in a largely self-governing region. Their political focus is therefore closer to home than to what is happening in Baghdad. In 2017, more than 90 percent voted for independence in an internationally unrecognized referendum.

Yet even if Iraq's Kurds see themselves as separate, they are not completely isolated from the trends challenging the region. Like other populations across the Middle East, they have limited political representation and economic opportunities. If they are not managed and responded to effectively, then similar protests could occur in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

In sum then, the prospects facing the Kurds as the current decade ends is not promising. Whether in Syria, Iran Iraq or Turkey, the Kurdish populations will face difficulties in getting authorities to listen to them over how they should live, work or be governed. As a new decade begins, the Kurds find themselves in much the same place as when the current one began, by not being masters of their own fate.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)