Who are the Kurds, and why don’t they have their own country?

The Kurds are an ethnic group of roughly 30 to 40 million people, often called the largest ethnic group in the world without its own state. They live mainly in a mountainous region spread across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, which Kurds call Kurdistan.

After the First World War, the Allies briefly promised a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, but it was dropped in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which drew new borders without one.

Since then, Kurds have faced repression in several countries and have fought for autonomy or independence. Iraqi Kurds now run an autonomous region in northern Iraq. In Syria, Kurdish-led forces played a major role in defeating the Islamic State group. In Turkey, the PKK waged an armed struggle for decades and announced it was disbanding in 2025. Governments in the region strongly oppose an independent Kurdistan because it would mean giving up territory.