ABSTRACT
The Kurdish community forms one of the largest ethnic groups in the Middle East. Its population totals 26 million, with over 13 million in Turkey, 6 million in Iran, 4 million in Iraq, 1 million in Syria, 500,000 in the former Soviet Union and 700,000 in different parts of the world.1 However, in Iraq 23 per cent of the population are Kurds, representing the highest percentage of their presence in a single country.2 Despite their large population, Kurds lack a state of their own, and they have been denied any genuine political autonomy by the regimes of their countries.3 This peculiar situation caused the Kurdish population cycles of atrocities and displacement throughout almost the whole of the past century.4
