The Kurds have lived in a mountainous, roughly 74,000-square-mile region known as Kurdistan for the past two millennia. Throughout their history they have remained under the thumb of various conquerors and nations. Since the early 20th century, the region has been divided between Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq, all of which have repressed, often brutally, their Kurdish minority. The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own nation.
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.[16] 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.[17][18]
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.
NOW FOUR BIG PARTS OF KURDISTAN ARE DIVIDED BETWEEN TURKEY, IRAQ , IRAN , SYRIA & A SMALL PART IN ARMENIA.
The population of kurdistan is between 35 to 40million .
BLOODY FRIDAY
BLOODY FRIDAY
The brutal massacre of the oppressed and innocent people of Halabja began before the sunrise of Friday, 17th of March 1988. The Iraqi regime committed its most tragic and horrible crime against the civilian people on Friday, 17th of March, 1988. On that day, Halabja was bombarded more than twenty times by Iraqi regime's warplanes with chemical and cluster bombs. That Friday afternoon, the magnitude of Iraqi crimes became evident. In the streets and alleys of Halabja, corpses piled up over one a nother. Tens of children, while playing in front of their houses in the morning, were martyred instantly by cyanide gases. The innocent children did not even have time to run back home. Some children fell down at the threshold of the door of their houses and never rose. In a Simorgh Van, the corpses of 20 women and children who had been prepared to leave the town and the chemical bombardment of the town had deprived them of this opportunity, made any observer stop and ponder about the corpses of these innocent people were evident.
The doors of most houses were left open and inside of each house, there were some martyred and wounded people. The enemy had heightened the cruelty and heart-hardness to its peak and took no pity on its own people. This crime in the chemical bombardment of Halabja has indeed been unprecedented in the history of the imposed war. This crime in Halabja can never be compared to the tragedy of the chemical bombardment of Sardasht. In Halabja more than five thousand people were martyred and over seven thousand more were wounded. Women and children formed 75 percent of the martyrs and wounded of the bloody Friday of Halabja. Along with Halabja, Khormal, Dojaileh and their surrounding frequently but the center of the catastrophe was Halabja. In late April 1987, twenty four villages of Iraq's Kudistan were targeted by the chemical bombardment because of the struggles of the Muslim-Kurds people of this town and their open opposition to the regime ruling in Iraq. These villages were chemically bombarded twice in less than 48 hours.
SARDASHT
SARDASHT
Sardasht (in Kurdish: Serdeşt, also Zerdeşt; Persian: سردشت) is a city in Northwestern Iran with more than 50,000 inhabitants, (External Link) southwest of Lake Urmia about 1,300 metres above sea level. It lies in the West Azarbaijan province. It was the first city in which civilians where attacked with chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.Although it happened even before Halabcha it didn't get much publicity at the time because Iran was being ignored by international community.
The population of Sardasht is Kurdish. Sardasht is also known for the many villages around it and their reliability on the city's market.
1987 attacks on Sardasht with chemical weaponsOn June 28, 1987, Iraqi aircraft dropped what Iranian authorities believed to be mustard gas bombs on Sardasht, in two separate bombing runs on four residential areas. The numbers of victims were initially estimated as 10 civilians dead and 650 civilians injured.
Sardasht was the first town in the world to be gassed . Out of a population of 20,000, 25% are still suffering severe illnesses from the attacks. The gas attacks occurred during the Iran-Iraq War, when Iraq frequently used chemical weapons against Iranian civilians and soldiers.
In April 2004, the government of the United States (US) was found by the Tehran Public Court to be liable for the attacks, through its previous support for the government of Saddam Hussein. The US government was ordered to pay $600 million compensation to the victims.
