Kurdistan

Kurdistan is technically not a sovereign country but a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq with its own government, parliament and armed forces. The region is technically known as Iraqi Kurdistan (هه‌رێمی کوردستان ), established in the 1970s following an agreement between the Iraqi government and Kurdish opposition. Between 1986 and 1989, under orders from Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Army embarked upon a genocidal campaign against ethnic Kurds called the Al-Anfal Campaign; over 182,000 Kurdish civilians were killed. The Kurdish Democratic Party or KDP (est. 1946) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan or PUK (est. 1975) emerged as the two ruling political parties after the Persian Gulf War (1990-91), both agitating for further autonomy although in effect sharing power as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) since 1992.

Kurdish military forces (known as peshmerga) joined forces with the United States and coalition forces against the Iraqi government during the Iraq War (2nd Gulf War). Iraqi Kurdistan has since become one of the most stable and safe regions of Iraq, although there is considerable tension between the KRG (which supports the idea of a unified Kurdish homeland) and Turkey, which has its own significant population of Kurds.