Portal:Kurdistan

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Kurdistan

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Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural region wherein the Kurdish people form a prominent majority population, and Kurdish culture, language, and national identity have historically been based. Contemporary use of Kurdistan refers to large parts of eastern Turkey (Turkish Kurdistan), northwestern Iran (Iranian Kurdistan), northerneastern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan), and a smaller part in northeastern Syria (Rojava) inhabited mainly by Kurds. Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges.

Some Kurdish nationalist organizations seek to create an independent nation state of Kurdistan, consisting of some or all of the areas with Kurdish majority, while others campaign for greater Kurdish autonomy within the existing national boundaries. Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, and its status was re-confirmed as an autonomous entity within the federal Iraqi republic in 2005. There is a province by the name Kurdistan in Iran; it is not self-ruled. Kurds fighting in the Syrian Civil War were able to take control of large sections of northeast Syria as forces loyal to al-Assad withdrew to fight elsewhere. Having established their own government, some Kurds called for autonomy in a democratic Syria; others hoped to establish an independent Kurdistan.

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Sanandaj is the capital of Kurdish culture and Kurdistan Province at Iran. At the 2011 census, its population was 373,987. Sanandaj is the twenty-third largest city in Iran. Until the 17th century it was only a small village, when the governor of the region, Suleyman Khan Ardalan, built (or renovated) a fortress there, known as "Sena Dezh", which gave the town its Persian name. Some sources date the origin of the fortress to the period of Abbasid rule (750–1258).

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Moshe Barazani, also Barzani (June 14, 1926 – April 21, 1947), was an Iraqi-born Kurdish Jew and a member of Lehi ("Freedom Fighters of Israel," aka the "Stern Gang") underground movement in pre-state Mandate Palestine during the Jewish insurgency in Palestine. He is most notable for having committed suicide with a hand grenade together with Meir Feinstein, another Jewish underground fighter under sentence of death, shortly before their scheduled executions, and is memorialized in Israel today as one of the Olei Hagardom.

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