Land Disputes
As France and Great Britain divided the
Ottoman Empire in Southwest Asia, they drew
borders that paid no attention to local cultures.
This caused some ethnic and religious groups to
be separated by boundaries, while other rival
groups were grouped together. Claims over
land led to long periods of conflict and
bloodshed in the region. For example, from
1980 to 1988, Iran and Iraq fought a war over
disputed oil-rich territory.
Kurdish
The Kurds are one of the indigenous peoples of
the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands in
what are now south-eastern Turkey, north-
eastern Syria, northern Iraq, north-western Iran
and south-western Armenia. Turkey, Syria, Iraq,
and Iran all have large Kurdish minorities. The
Kurdish people are ethnically distinct from the
Turks, Arabs, and Persians that control the
governments of those countries and many
dream of a Kurdish homeland, sometimes
referred as Kurdistan, in which Kurds could be
united into one nation that is ruled by Kurds.
Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran all fear losing the
large and valuable land that the Kurds inhabit to
the new Kurdish state and seek to suppress
Kurdish independent movements. In some
places, the Kurds have resorted to terrorism
and guerilla tactics to try to gain their
independence.
Why do the Kurds not have a state?
In the early 20th Century, many Kurds began to
consider the creation of a homeland - generally
referred to as "Kurdistan". 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.
Such hopes were dashed three years later,
however, when the Treaty of Lausanne, which
set the boundaries of modern Turkey, made no
provision for a Kurdish state and left Kurds with
minority status in their respective countries.
Over the next 80 years, any move by Kurds to
set up an independent state was brutally
quashed.
Kurdish people today & the fight against
terrorism.
Kurdish minorities particularly have been hit
hard by the countries of Syria, Iraq, and Turkey.
These same countries have been hit against a
terrorist organization known as the Islamic
State (IS). In mid-2013, the terrorist group
Islamic State (IS) turned its sights on three
Kurdish enclaves that bordered territory under
its control in northern Syria. It launched
repeated attacks that until mid-2014 were
repelled by the People's Protection Units (YPG) -
the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish
Democratic Union Party (PYD). The Syrian
Kurdish Democratic Union Party have been able
to successfully able to defeat the terrorist group
the Islamic State and have ran them out of the
areas of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. This Islamic
State has become an enemy of the United
States. So, the United States have felt Syrian
Kurdish Democratic Union Party are their allies.
With the United States pulling out of Southwest
Asia due to the defeat of the Islamic State, the
countries of Syria, Iraq, and Turkey have
continued to give the Kurds problems with the
practice of ethnic genocide, trying to eliminate
them off the face of this earth. Many people
within the international community believe the
United States should stick up for the Kurds, do
to the Kurds helping eliminate the terrorist
group the Islamic State.

Directions: Answer the following questions

based on the reading on a separate sheet of
paper. Write answers in complete sentences.

1. What caused rival ethnic and religious

groups to be grouped together?
2. Why do the countries of Turkey, Syria,
Iran, and Iran all try to suppress the
Kurds?
3. Explain what some Kurds have restored
to due suppression and their desire to
have their own country.
4. Identify what the Kurds would call their
country if they had one.
5. Identify what treaty was signed that
made provision for a Kurdish state.
6. Identify what treaty set boundaries of
Modern Turkey.
7. Identify what three countries suppress
the Kurds.
8. Identify what terrorist group became a
issue in SW Asia in mid-2013.
9. After the defeat of the Islamic State,
what did countries like Syria, Iraq, and
Turkey do to the Kurds?