About

• The Kurds are the largest single ethnic Middle Eastern group after Arabs, Turks and Iranians. 
• They speak Kurdish, an Indo-European language. 
• Due to political divisions, Kurdish is probably the only language in the world written in three alphabets (the Arabic/Persian alphabet, Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet). 
• Though the vast majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims, many also belong to heterodox sects, such as the Alevis in Turkey. 
• Since World War I, Kurdistan has been divided among four states — Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. 
• In each, the Kurdish communities have undergone separate and distinct historical developments and have been differently incorporated into their host societies. 

Kurds in Turkey

• In Turkey, Kurds make up to 20 percent of the country’s population. 
• But Turkey denied that they existed and systematically tried to destroy their Kurdishness, the Kurdish language and open expressions of Kurdish culture were forbidden. 
• In the early eighties, the Kurdish guerrilla for the first time became widely active in the states of Turkey, Iran and Iraq. 
  • In their attempts to deal with it policies that bordered on genocide with mass deportations, forced resettlement, devastation of villages, and destruction of the traditional Kurdish economy and society were adopted.