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Kurdistan and The Kurds A Divided Homeland and a Nation without ...

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• <strong>Kurds</strong> in the Northern <strong>Kurdistan</strong> (<strong>and</strong> Turkey): 20 million<br />

• <strong>Kurds</strong> in the Eastern <strong>Kurdistan</strong> (<strong>and</strong> Iran): 10 million<br />

• <strong>Kurds</strong> in the Southern <strong>Kurdistan</strong> (<strong>and</strong> Iraq): 6 million<br />

• <strong>Kurds</strong> in the Western <strong>Kurdistan</strong> (<strong>and</strong> Syria): 3 million<br />

• <strong>Kurds</strong> in Red <strong>Kurdistan</strong> (<strong>and</strong> the former Soviet Union):<br />

1 million.<br />

In actual fact, the numbers of the Kurdish people <strong>and</strong><br />

the geographic surface of <strong>Kurdistan</strong> are bigger than what<br />

we have cited above. <strong>The</strong> reason for this is that there has<br />

been a great deal of forced assimilation into Arabic,<br />

Turkish <strong>and</strong> Persian cultures <strong>and</strong> nations in the Kurdish<br />

regions. Another factor, which contributes to the greater<br />

numbers, is that many of the peoples who have emigrated<br />

from <strong>Kurdistan</strong> at different times such as the Lan people<br />

in the Caucasus, the Beluchistan people divided <strong>and</strong><br />

colonised between Iran <strong>and</strong> Pakistan <strong>and</strong> Afghanistan in<br />

addition to millions of <strong>Kurds</strong> living in different countries<br />

of the world as Jordan, Lebanon, Israel <strong>and</strong> Egypt. In<br />

Europe alone there are more than one million <strong>Kurds</strong>.<br />

<strong>Kurds</strong> have become naturalized in their new countries of<br />

residence bearing the passports of these countries, so if<br />

we were to pick Syria for the sake of example (<strong>and</strong> not<br />

as a statistic) – more than half of the old families based<br />

in Damascus can trace their origins back to the <strong>Kurds</strong>.<br />

Such families as the Khani, Zaiem, El Estiwani <strong>and</strong><br />

Yousef, Kamlmaz, El Abid, Elazim, El Kuatly <strong>and</strong> others.<br />

<strong>The</strong> same is true in the case of other cities <strong>and</strong> areas in<br />

Syria.<br />

<strong>The</strong>se families are not included in the 200,000 <strong>Kurds</strong><br />

officially counted as living in the Kurdish Quarters “Hay<br />

Al-Akrad” <strong>and</strong> “Zorava” in Damascus in addition to the<br />

<strong>Kurds</strong> in the Kurdish Mountain in the Lattakia region<br />

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