Kurdistan literally meaning "the land of Kurds", is an extensive plateau and mountainous area in the Middle East, inhabited mainly by Kurds. It covers parts of eastern Turkey (Turkish Occupied Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Iraqi Occupied Kurdistan), northwestern Iran (Persian occupied Kurdistan) and part of northern Syria.It roughly encompasses the Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges.Small areas of Azerbaijan and Armenia are also considered to be a part of Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurdistan is the only region which has gained official recognition internationally as an autonomous federal entity. in ancient times, the Guti, Hurrian , Mannai (Mannaeans), and Medes had lived in this region . Kingdom of Corduene which emerged from the declining Seleucid Empire, was located to the south and south-east of Lake Van between Persia and Mesopotamia and ruled northern Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia from 189 BC to AD 384. At its zenith, the Roman Empire ruled large Kurdish-inhabited areas, particularly the western and northern Kurdish areas in the Middle East. Corduene became a vassal state of the Roman Republic in 66 BC and remained allied with the Romans until AD 384. One of the earliest records of the phrase land of the Kurds is found in a Syriac Christian document of late antiquity describing the stories of Christian saints of the Middle East such as the holy Abdisho. When the Sassanid Marzban asked Mar Abdisho Assyria but his place of origin, he replied that according to his parents, they were originally from Hazza, a village in Kurdistan. However they were later driven out of Hazza by pagans, and settled in Tamanon, which according to holy Abdisho was in the land of the Kurds. Tamanon lies just north of the modern Iraqi-Turkey border. Also Hazza is located 12 km southwest of modern Irbil. In another passage in the same document, the region of Khabur is also identified as land of the Kurds. In the second half of the 10th century, Kurdistan was shared amongst five big Kurdish principalities. In the North the Shaddadid (9511174) (in parts of Armenia and Arran) and the Rawadid (9551221) (in Tabriz and Maragheh), in the East the Hasanwayhid (9591015) and the Annazid (9901116) (in Hulwan, Kermanshah and Khanaqin) and in the West the Marwanid (9901096) of Diyarbakır. Kurdistan in the Middle Ages was referred to a collection of semi-independent or in some cases independent states called "emirates". A comprehensive history of these states and their relationship with their neighbors is given in the famous textbook of "Sharafnama" written by Prince Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi in 1597. The best-known Kurdish Emirates included Baban, Soran, Badinan and Garmiyan in present-day Iraq; Bakran, Botan (or Bokhtan) and Badlis in Turkey, and Mukriyan and Ardalan in Iran. In the 16th century, the Kurdish-inhabited areas were split between Safavid Iran and the Ottoman Empire after prolonged wars. The first important division of Kurdistan occurred in the aftermath of the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. This division was formalized in the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639. Before World War I, most Kurds lived within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire in the province of Kurdistan.. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies agreed and planned to create several countries within its former boundaries. Originally Kurdistan, along with Armenia, was to be one of them, according to the never-ratified Treaty of Sèvres. However, the reconquest of these areas by Kemal Atatürk and other pressing issues caused the Allies to accept the renegotiated Treaty of Lausanne, accepting the border of the modern Republic of Turkey and leaving the Kurds without a self-ruled region. Other Kurdish areas were assigned to the new British and French mandated states of Iraq and Syria under both treaties. The Kurdish delegation made a proposal at the San Francisco Peace Conference in 1945, showing the geographical extent of Kurdistan as claimed by the Kurds. This proposal encompasses an area extending from the Mediterranean shores near Adana to the shores of the Persian Gulf near Bushehr, and it includes the Lur inhabited areas of southern Zagros. Since World War I, Kurdistan has been divided between several states, in each of which Kurds are minorities. At the end of the First Gulf War, the Allies established a safe haven in northern Iraq. Amid the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from three northern provinces, Iraqi Kurdistan emerged as an autonomous entity inside Iraq, with its own local government and parliament in 1992.

• published: 18 Nov 2009
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