When it came to drawing national borders, the Kurdish people were not consulted. They live across five countries, with most of them living in south-east Turkey, western Iran and northern Iraq. Many dream of an independent homeland of their own, Kurdistan, and for 12 years some have been chasing that dream by military means. But they organize themselves separately within national borders; the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) or the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq.
In Turkey the 15 million Kurdish people are denied the most basic human rights: until 1992 it was illegal to speak Kurdish even in private and it is still illegal to use it in official communications or to express Kurdish identity. Even leaving aside the military blitzing of Kurdish villages, ordinary Kurdish people live in a perpetual climate of fear.
In Iraq in 1991 Saddam Hussein prosecuted his own war on the Kurdish minorities in the north. They fled into the mountains of the border region, where their unsheltered plight in a bitter midwinter caught the sympathy of the world. The Western alliance, led by the US, which had just defeated Iraq, now guaranteed protection for the Kurds who returned to their homes via a 'no-fly zone'.
At the same time the differences between the two groups of Iraqi Kurds became more vital than their similarities. In August the leader of the KDP, Massoud Barzani, decided to align himself with his former arch-enemy Saddam Hussein in order to enhance his own power and influence within the Kurdish enclave. Backed by Iraqi firepower, the KDP went to war with the PUK and grabbed large tranches of their territory. At this point the US intervened and fired 27 (non-nuclear) cruise missiles at southern Iraq; its air raids soon forced Saddam Hussein to back down. With Iraq's hands tied the PUK, under Jalal Talabani, launched a counter-offensive in October which recaptured more than half the lost territory. Eventually the US brokered an uneasy peace deal between the two warlords.
The events of this year in Iraq have certainly not done the Kurdish cause a great service. But their right to more just treatment by the nations which rule over them is still unquestionable.