From the arrival of the Ottomans and the Safavids to Kurdistan until the removal of the Kurdish emirates in the mid-nineteenth century, the Kurdish nobility was actively involved in regional and trans-border politics. The struggle between the Ottomans and the Safavids, especially during the first half of the sixteenth century, when the division between ‘Iranian Kurdistan’ and ‘Ottoman Kurdistan’ was consolidated, was pivotal in shaping the political landscape in Kurdistan. However, for the successive centuries some of the Kurdish lands would keep changing hands after each war between two states. At other times Kurdish lords would switch their loyalty for another ruler or simultaneously pay tribute and tax to both states. Tools of politics used by both states and the Kurdish emirs varied from time to time but remained mainly the same in essence. While the Ottoman Empire and Iranian dynasties planned their imperial project on Kurdistan the Kurdish nobility played an active role in regional and trans-border politics. The policies of both states had lasting effects in the region while Kurdish lands remained a ‘buffer zone’ between two states until the mid-nineteenth century, when finally the Ottomans and Qajar Iran removed the Kurdish notables from their position and incorporated their lands into the central administration.