Turkey/Kurdistan Confusion

[MACDRIVE]

http://www.kokhavivpublications.com/help/maps/images/special/kurdistan_map.jpg

I'm confused about this whole Turkey verses the Kurdish rebels thing:

Why aren't the Kurdish rebels in Kurdistan, rather than in northern Iraq? :confused:

Why would Turkey care if the Kurdish rebels were firing shells into Kurdistan from northern Iraq? :confused:

Is Kurdistan part of Turkey? :confused:

[xUKHCx]

Why would Turkey care if the Kurdish rebels were firing shells into Kurdistan from northern Iraq? :confused:

Is Kurdistan part of Turkey? :confused:

The country borders are the yellow lines. Kurdistan isn't a country, therefore they are firing into Turkey.

[arkitect]

http://www.kokhavivpublications.com/help/maps/images/special/kurdistan_map.jpg

I'm confused about this whole Turkey verses the Kurdish rebels thing:

Why aren't the Kurdish rebels in Kurdistan, rather than in northern Iraq? :confused:

Why would Turkey care if the Kurdish rebels were firing shells into Kurdistan from northern Iraq? :confused:

Is Kurdistan part of Turkey? :confused:

Just read the map a bit better ;) Kurdistan is not a recognised state…

[MACDRIVE]

Okay, the map says Kurdistan, but I'm watching CBS news right now on TV and they're calling it a "Kurdish Region." Does that mean that Kurdistan is part of Iraq? :confused:

Also, CBS News is referring to the Kurdish rebels as the 'PKK' (Kurdistan Workers Party). How can the letters PKK be an abbreviation for Kurdistan Workers Party? :confused:

[xUKHCx]

Read the replies above, Kurdistan is the name given to a region which spans Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria. It is not a state in itself. It is a region of high Kurdish population.

As to the PKK thing, at a guess i'd say it can mean Kurdistan Workers Party because they don't speak English so have other words which most probably relate to PKK.

[MACDRIVE]

Read the replies above,

I have read all of the replies including yours. Now you're telling me that the Kurdish region belongs to several countries. I'm surprised that none of those countries have layed claim to it yet.

[xUKHCx]

I have read all of the replies including yours. Now you're telling me that the Kurdish region belongs to several countries. I'm surprised that none of those countries have layed claim to it yet.

They have. The countires are the yellow lines. The red line outlines the region where there is a high population of Kurds.

[Queso]

It may help if you read up on the history of the place. Kurdistan was never historically a unified state, instead it was a collection of principalities that were gradually invaded and occupied by the Iranians and Ottoman Turks. However, with the break up of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War One the Kurds were originally promised that Kurdistan would become an independent country, but thanks to the British, French and Turkish governments it never happened. The British ruled part of Kurdistan is now in Northern Iraq, the French part in Syria and the Turkish part just a province of Turkey. Hence the troubles these days, because the Kurds want the country they were promised.

[arkitect]

Also, CBS News is referring to the Kurdish rebels as the 'PKK' (Kurdistan Workers Party). How can the letters PKK be an abbreviation for Kurdistan Workers Party? :confused:

Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK)

Sometimes Google is your friend ;)

[MACDRIVE]

It may help if you read up on the history of the place.

I could, but I'd rather get a fast track education from fine chaps such as yourself. :)

[Badandy]

I could, but I'd rather get a fast track education from fine chaps such as yourself. :)

Kuridstan is not a state, plain and simple. That outline is an outline of regions with high Kurdish concentrations, regardless of the actual politically recognized states. There is no Kurdistan officially.

[skunk]

Think of it as Jesusland.

Roughly 12 million people in Turkey are ethnically Kurdish, with smaller numbers in Iraq, Syria and Iran. These people have lived there since well before Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, who was a Kurd himself, and, incidentally, the first person to publish a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the conqueror of Babylon who liberated the Jews from their captivity. The area of all these countries predominantly inhabited by Kurds has been called "Kurdistan" for convenience for many years, despite not being an actual political entity. The fear of those who have unleashed Iraq's constituent parts is that now the Iraqi Kurds have a more or less autonomous state in Iraq, their Kurdish neighbours may want their areas of Iran, Turkey and Syria to secede and to form, together, a "Greater Kurdistan" in reality. This would obviously be unacceptable to any of the relevant governments.