Kurds

IN NEWS:

• Iraq recently demanded that Turkey immediately stop its assault on Kurdish areas in Iraq.
• Turkey claims its attacks are aimed at Kurdistan workers party, a group considered as terrorist by turkey.

ABOUT KURDS:

• Kurds are an Iranian ethnic group native to a mountainous region of Western Asia known as Kurdistan.
• Kurdistan spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria.
• Numerically, the Kurds are estimated to number between 30 and 45 million
• Kurds speak the Kurdish languages and the Zaza–Gorani languages.
• A majority of Kurds belong to the Shafi‘i school of Sunni Islam, but significant numbers practice Shia Islam and Alevism, while some are adherents of Yarsanism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity.
• Kurds have an autonomous region in Iraq named Kurdistan Region.
• As a result of Syrian civil war, since July 2012, Kurds were able to take control of large parts of Syrian Kurdistan also.

HISTORY OF KURDISH PROBLEM:

• After World War One and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres.
• However, that promise was nullified three years later, when the Treaty of Lausanne set the boundaries of modern Turkey and made no such provision, leaving Kurds with minority status in their respective countries.
• This fact has led to numerous genocides and rebellions, along with the current ongoing armed guerrilla conflicts in Turkey, Iran, and Syria.

PRELIMS QUESTION:

Q. "Kurds” are an ethnic group found in which of the following countries:

1. Syria
2. Iraq
3. Iran
4. Turkey

Which of the statements given above is/are correct:

1. 1 and 2 only
2. 1,2 and 4 only
3. 2,3 and 4 only
4. 1,2,3 and 4

Answer to Prelims question d