Who are the Kurds?

15 million to 20 million Kurds live in a mountainous area straddling the borders of Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. About 8 million live in southeastern Turkey.

The Kurds are a non-Arabic people who speak a language related to Persian. Most adhere to the Sunni Muslim faith.

1920: After World War I, when the Ottoman Empire is carved up, the Kurds are promised independence by the Treaty of Sevres.

1923: Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk rejects the treaty, and Turkish forces put down Kurdish uprisings in the 1920s and 1930s. The Kurdish struggle lies dormant for decades.

1978: Abdullah Ocalan, one of seven children of a poor farming family, establishes the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK, which advocates independence.

1946: Kurds succeed in establishing the republic of Mahabad, with Soviet backing. But a year later, the Iranian monarch crushes the embryonic state.

1999: Two rival Iraqi Kurdish factions, one led by Mustafa Barzani's son Massoud, the other by Jalal Talabani, broker a peace deal; goal is for Kurdish area to become part of a democratic Iraq.

SOURCES: Reuters, World Almanac, staff reports